“Shoes-Your-Style”: Changing Sound of Footsteps to Create New Walking Experiences

With “Shoes-Your-Style” we introduce the entertaining possibility to change auditory feedback and sound of footsteps when walking indoor and outdoor, to alter the nature (or “style”) of shoes and contacts with the ground. This approach requires two components: a step detector and a sound generator. Artificial s ounds of footsteps can be generated and tuned by the system, or by the user, to simulate any type of shoes (high-toe, sneakers, flip-flops, etc) or ground (marble, snow, mud, gravel, etc), generate artificial walking events (collisions, cracking objects, etc) or even unrealistic sounds (noises, words, music, etc). Such new kind of feedback should pave the way to creative interactive walking experiences. Potential applications range from entertainment and multimedia, to sport training and medical rehabilitation and reeducation.