Services like Android Auto and Apple CarPlay help take people off of their phones and keep their eyes close to the road. Now, a concept app called VisibleZone is being used with Android Auto to detect nearby pedestrians as you drive.
VisibleZone is designed to detect (and predict, using AI) when a nearby pedestrian will jump out into your path. The app uses your phone connected to Android Auto and the phones of nearby pedestrians. However, there are a lot of requirements.
The biggest roadblock for the service is simply that both the person using the app on Android Auto and each pedestrian needs to have the same app installed. That’s a big ask but, thankfully, there is an SDK to help integrate the service into more applications. As Android Police mentioned, Google integrating this as a native feature of Android would do a great deal, but even that would mean the app wouldn’t bring the huge number of iPhone users into the fold.
In a world where this app works, though, it could be a great safety feature. In theory, it could work better than the existing camera or radar-based solutions. In the meantime, it’s a very cool proof-of-concept and that’s pretty much it.
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