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The killer application for this technology is a bicycle bell you can use to break the trance of phone-staring pedestrians who are randomly staggering down the pavement.

I don't think this is how it will work. Broadcasting won't immediately interrupt others' connections.

Guess I'll just stick with the air horn.

Spray can works better -- and as a bonus the person doesn't return to gazing at the screen.

Its bluetooth, there will be bugs and crappy implementations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesnarfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejacking

See

https://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2013/08/legal-to-ride...

What's with the downvoting?

It's astonishing how bicycle riders seem to think everybody except for them is responsible for their safety.

Riding on the sidewalk is outright dangerous, I have seen multiple accidents when:

* pedestrians got hurt by bicyclists travelling at high speed riding on the sidewalk

* bicyclists go around corners and hit pedestrians

* bicyclists get hit by cars who couldn't see them at the intersection because they were riding on the sidewalk

Riding on the road is even more dangerous in some areas, though.

If a cyclist and a pedestrian collide, someone might go to the hospital. If a cyclist and a car collide, someone is likely to die, and it's basically always the cyclist.

That kind of reasoning wouldn’t make me feel better if I were the pedestrian who had to go to the hospital. You make it sound like bicycles are just an inherently bad thing to have around :)

If we're fantasizing about eliminating some mode of transport, my vote is for cars. Most of my initial parent comment's concerns would go away if there weren't any cars, and pedestrians would be safer on crosswalks too.

In reality, though, we all have to get along. And those concerns are addressed by cyclists not riding at breakneck speed and going blindly around corners. I don't see either of those behaviors very often in my area.

It's worse now that Lime and other bicycle rental startups have littered the sidewalks with bicycles. When I'm not running around a bike left on the sidewalk, I'm getting run over by somebody riding one on the sidewalk.

I'm amazed at how often a bicycle rider on the sidewalk will actually warn me to get out of the way. I haven't knocked anybody off of one yet. It's only a matter of time before somebody bumps into me on one and gets hurt.

I imagine the downvoting is due to your erroneous projection of the customs of your locale to the entire larger world. Even narrowly considered, your links don’t really support your point of view (eg there are numerous shared pedestrian/bicycle paths in California, children are allowed to cycle on sidewalks in California, etc).

Is this a language problem? Apparently [0] in BE it means sidewalk, but not in AE.

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pavement

Once you can do that the killer app will be intrusive ads.

And those people who drive down the street blasting loud music (err, I mean "sharing their stereos")? They'll be able to share directly to the people on the sidewalk!

(I loved your comment -- I think we both know this won't be supported).

In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel/Claptastic Voyage there's an enemy called an Adbug.

"While technically hostile, Adbugs do not directly attack Vault Hunters. Instead, they follow their targeted Vault Hunter around and beam a semi-transparent advertisement at them, which is placed in a random position on the field of vision, obscuring part of the field of view."

You can tell when you're being attackd by an Adbug because they beam audio advertisements into your head.

A bicycle is a road vehicle. You shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalk.

There are valid shared bike/pedestrian spaces, like bike trails. Zoned out pedestrians on phones/headphones are extremely common there.

Yes, they can be extra dangerous if they have, say, a curious dog on a long leash on the other side of said trail while they’re busy counting Facebook likes

Thank you for sharing the customs of your people and/or jurisdiction.

Ah, you must be related to the person from the other day who told my TEN-YEAR OLD to get off the sidewalk because it's illegal.

By the time he rode back and shakily told us what had happened, I had no choice but to inform her at the top of my lungs (since she was 600ft down the path) that, no, it's legal if you're under 16 (in our state).

I’m sorry you were held down and forced to scream at someone two blocks away in public. Hopefully somebody some day will invent a kind of faster-than-foot travel you could use to catch up to someone instead.

I know, right? I'm sure the inventor of such a device could make a lot of money.

It would be great for the array of TV's at the gym. Mine currently has a headphone jack on each treadmill with a keypad that you can tune into your preferred channel. I've taken to watching Netflix with Bluetooth head phones vs trying to use a wired pair while I run.

3.5mm Bluetooth Transmitter

https://www.amazon.com/MP3-Player-Bluetooth-Transmitters/b?i...

Agreed, plus everyone at the bar can listen to whichever game they want without annoying everyone else. That is killer.

So you go to a bar, don't talk to people, and listen to a specific game solo. Why not just stay at home? The other examples named above make sense, this one seems like a stretch.

The whole purpose of going to the bar is to be around other people, the whole point of watching sports at a bar is to enjoy it together.

You could have a speaker on every table without wiring the place all day.

I suppose, but they'd still need electricity so running PoE is no harder and then you aren't worrying about things like interference.

Yeh, that's the logic I apply to CCTV installs. But a restaurant could easily swap drill batteries out of table speakers at cleanup every night.

That's the difference in £200 speaker * tables vs that + poe gear, engineer and cable install that must what 10 grand? And now you can't rearrange the tables for a wedding party.

That works fine when there is only one game one. How does a bar full of people listen to three separate college football games going on at the same time? Also, a lot of people are introverts and like to be around other people without being forced to contribute to conversation. You can feel part of the crowd with being in it.

> Mass transit (trains, buses, subway stations, airport) could broadcast announcements, the same way they do now over speakers, so those who have a hard time hearing the announcements (or just have headphones in anyways) could actually hear them.

These are often transmitted over audio induction loop already.

Ah, fair point. As I'm not hard of hearing I don't think about those technologies much.

However as an "regular person", I would like to be able to hear the audio announcements on the local train system (BART). The trains tends to be extremely loud so in-ear/ANC headphones are almost required for ear protection. ANC + Movie/Music = No idea what is going on or why.

Maybe it would be possible to receive inductive loop on your headphones.

I wonder how this will fare with spam. If I'm to have autoconnection, for example, then the broadcaster will need to be authenticated.

I can imagine a scenario where I autoconnect to my public transit provider's broadcasts to hear announcements, but an unscrupulous advertiser spoofs the broadcast to spam me.

If there's no authentication or anyone can just broadcast, then I think the spam problem will make broadcast reception unusable in public spaces.

The mass transit point would get my vote, specifically so you can ignore them more effectively than is currently possible (even with noise cancelling headphones).

On various modes of UK public transport, I regularly have to listen to people who shouldn't ever be given access to a PA system struggling to complete their obligatory yet pointless announcements.

There was a period a couple of years back when Waterloo station was going to have work done over the summer and there were times in the winter and spring months leading up to it when they would announce this at EVERY single station stop, day in day out on the way in and the way home. LE Audio would have been heaven for a scenario like that!

Tune into the arcade game or pinball machine you're playing.