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Cell Phones That Learn the Sounds of Your Life
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Dartmouth College have developed new software that uses the microphone on the iPhone to track and interpret a user's everyday activities using sound. The software, called SoundSense,
picks up sounds and tries to classify them into certain
categories. SoundSense can recognize completely unfamiliar
sounds and runs entirely on the phone. It automatically classifies
sounds as 'voice,' 'music,' or 'ambient noise.' If a sound is repeated
often enough or for long enough, SoundSense gives it a high 'sound
rank' and asks the user to confirm that it is a significant sound and
offers the option to label the sound. In testing, the SoundSense
software was able to correctly determine when the user was in a
particular coffee shop, walking outside, brushing her teeth, cycling,
and driving in the car. It also picked up the noise of an ATM and a fan in a particular room. The results [PDF]
of the experiments were recently presented at the MobiSys 2009 conference."
Actually not a bad idea. A lot of time I would like to wear my iPod while doing house work, but I don't because I can't hear the baby cry. If I had an iPod that could recognize when the baby was crying, and play it over the headphones in place of my music, so that I knew the baby was crying, then I would really appreciate this feature. Same goes for somebody calling out my name. Even if there was a 1 second delay, it would be awesome.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.