Business

Pedestrians are tripping on kerbs, walking into traffic, even stepping into manholes as they chat or type on their cellphones.

To help out, technology companies are creating applications that do everything from make a smartphone screen transparent to transform speech into text.

Whether the technologies will prevent injuries remains to be seen, but they are being welcomed as a step in the right direction.

"I don't think we're going to eliminate people from walking into things outright and, of course, we want people to be responsible, but what we're trying to do is eliminate the friction point ... and give the user back a little mental bandwith," said Travis Bogard, the executive director for product management and strategy at San Francisco-based Aliph, which makes Bluetooth earpieces.

Aliph's Jawbone earpiece incorporates voice-to-text technology that eliminates the need to look at the keypad to send an email or text message.

It also has caller ID that speaks to the wearer and a function that allows wearers to call their contacts using their voice rather than their fingers.

"All of this gets rid of the need to touch your phone, which causes your eyes to move away from what's in front of you," Bogard said.

Other programs on the market tap into a smartphone's camera to beam an image of what's in front of the user over the message screen so typers can see what's ahead. They include Text Vision, Type n Walk and Email 'n Walk.

"See-through screens, yes, would solve part of the problem," said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford University and one of the authors of a study on multitasking. "But there's still a second problem, which has to do with engagement of the brain."

Same goes with voice-to-text technology, Nass said.

"It can help a little bit but the fundamental problem is that we're stuck with brains that can't do all that much when we're doing other things," he said.

Two years ago, the American College of Emergency Physicians warned about the dangers of text messaging while walking, driving, biking and inline skating, based on anecdotal evidence from physicians.

emergency-room visits

An Ohio State University analysis found that, over the past few years, the number of emergency-room visits resulting from pedestrian cellphone accidents has doubled year-on-year. The study showed that in 2008, just over 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms for injuries like walking into a pole while texting or spraining an ankle after falling down while talking on a cellphone.

Texting has grown exponentially in the US in recent years. The wireless industry association CTIA reported that the number of text messages sent by its members' customers increased from 32.6 billion in the first six months of 2005 to 740 billion in the first six months of 2009.

- AP