EssilorLuxottica 的 Nuance Audio 眼鏡已獲得 FDA 批准在美國非處方銷售,標誌著綜合聽力和視覺解決方案的突破。該公司根據歐盟醫療器材法規獲得 CE 標誌,計劃於 2025 年在歐洲推出,首先在義大利、法國、德國和英國推出。
這款智慧眼鏡將眼鏡與聽力技術結合在一起,在時尚的鏡框中提供開放式耳朵音訊解決方案。作為首個獲得 FDA 批准的軟體即醫療設備 (SaMD),他們的目標是克服社會恥辱、舒適度和美觀度等阻礙助聽器普及的障礙。
全球有 12.5 億人患有輕度至中度聽力損失,EssilorLuxottica 計劃利用其廣泛的零售網路和聽力學實踐進行分銷。這款眼鏡標誌著向綜合健康解決方案的轉變,行業利益相關者正密切關注其對消費者採用的影響。
EssilorLuxottica's Nuance Audio Glasses have received FDA clearance for over-the-counter sales in the U.S., marking a breakthrough in integrated hearing and vision solutions. With CE marking under the EU’s Medical Devices Regulation, the company plans a European rollout in 2025, starting with Italy, France, Germany, and the UK.
The smart glasses combine eyewear with hearing technology, offering an open-ear audio solution in a stylish frame. As the first software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) to receive FDA approval, they aim to overcome barriers like social stigma, comfort, and aesthetics that have deterred hearing aid adoption.
With 1.25 billion people worldwide experiencing mild to moderate hearing loss, EssilorLuxottica plans to leverage its extensive retail network and audiology practices for distribution. The glasses signal a shift toward integrated health solutions, with industry stakeholders closely watching their impact on consumer adoption.
The Physics That Keeps a Crowd From Becoming a Stampede
A group of scientists studying the San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain, believe there’s a way to predict the motions of a large crowd.
防止人群踩踏的物理學原理
一組研究西班牙潘普洛納聖費爾明節的科學家認為有一種方法可以預測大批人群的運動。
That’s why the San Fermín festival was so appealing. It involves thousands of people who gather predictably, and relatively calmly, each year.
Dr. Bartolo and his colleagues mounted cameras on the upper balconies of two buildings on opposite sides of the plaza to film the attendees amassed below. “If you take a look at the video, indeed the dynamics seem to be erratic, chaotic, turbulent,” he said. But he wondered whether he could tease out an organizing principle that governed the movements of the crowd.
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In the video observations, the researchers detected circular oscillations within the sea of people. “We are talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of people, all following the same circular trajectory in sync,” Dr. Bartolo said.CreditCredit...Bartolo Lab/ENS de Lyon
在視頻觀察中,研究人員檢測到了人海中的圓形振盪。 Bartolo 博士說:「我們談論的是數百甚至數千人,他們都在同步遵循相同的圓形軌跡。」圖片來源:Bartolo Lab/ENS de Lyon
Analyzing the footage presented a challenge akin to studying the flow of water. “Of course you cannot detect the position of every single molecule of water. It’s impossible,” Dr. Bartolo said. And yet there are mathematical techniques from the field of fluid dynamics that allow researchers to measure the flow of a material by inspecting its direction and velocity. Dr. Bartolo applied these same methods to the San Fermín festival.
The crowds turned out to be less chaotic than they appeared. Instead, the researchers detected circular oscillations within the sea of people. “We are talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of people, all following the same circular trajectory in sync,” Dr. Bartolo said.
In addition, the orbital motions, in which each person traces out a rough circle from their individual starting point in the crowd, took 18 seconds to complete in this particular plaza. The timing was so reliable that Dr. Bartolo said “you can set your clock” to the dynamics of this crowd, even if the movements might initially seem random.
The research team then applied what they’d learned to a deadly stampede. They examined surveillance footage of the 2010 Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, where 21 died and hundreds more were injured in a stampede. “And we detected the very same oscillations,” which emerged just before the deadly stampede, Dr. Bartolo said.
When the researchers built a mathematical model of crowd mechanics, they found that above a critical density of people, these circular movements emerge spontaneously. They don’t depend on some internal or external force, such as people actively pushing one another.
As a safety precaution, Dr. Bartolo suggests monitoring densely packed crowds for these orbital motions. Detecting them can offer advance warning of the emergence of dangerous and uncontrolled movements. By catching oscillations when they’re small, he says event organizers could ask the crowd to disperse, or stand still, before the orbits grow in size and lead to people being crushed or trampled.
“We’re not quite there yet,” Annalisa Quaini, a computational mathematician at the University of Houston who wasn’t involved in the study, said of such real-world applications. It’s one thing to have a well-lit venue filmed with high-quality cameras. But grainy nighttime security footage, for instance, may not reveal the telltale circular movements.