Silencio Network has more than 35,000 smartphones that act as noise sensors through the Peaq blockchain ecosystem and is committed to solving the global noise pollution problem.
On September 19, Silencio Network announced its integration with Peaq, continuing to expand its business scope to include more noise sensor devices. Silencio reports that its network of noise sensors operates in 176 countries and expects to be running on 1 million devices by next year.
The initiative calls its work “Web3 Citizen Science,” in which community members receive tokenized rewards for providing “hyperlocal” noise pollution data. Cointelegraph interviewed brothers Thomas and Theo Messerer, two co-founders of Silencio, to discuss the reasons behind the tokenization of sound data.
Thomas said the “seed” of the idea was planted more than 20 years ago. Growing up with hearing-impaired parents meant they were always sensitive to noise pollution in different places, coupled with their later experience deploying the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) in Europe.
“We are fascinated by the concept of crowdsourcing geographic data in a decentralized manner. Driven by a vision to democratize valuable data and improve lives, we recognize the tremendous potential of the Web3 community to solve real-world challenges at the scale of Web2 Unattainable.”
Theo told Cointelegraph that to date, Silencio has collected more than 1 billion data points from more than 35,000 devices used in the Silencio network. He said the main contributions came from Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.
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He points to Silencio’s Explorer Map, which shows differences in average noise levels across countries. He said that as more data is now collected and processed, the trend may change:
“You’ll find the general trends there are as follows: Urban areas tend to be noisier than rural areas, and developing countries have greater noise pollution problems.”
“It’s important to note that we’re still in the early stages.” He said the company began deploying its technology on smartphones as early as February. “Due to the current limited data density and diversity, it is too early to determine the noise level in detail.”
In addition to personal reasons for being interested in noise pollution data, hearing loss is one of the most prevalent health problems worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Peaq co-founder Till Wendler emphasized that “noise pollution costs the world trillions of dollars in GDP every year” and that through the use of Web3 mechanisms and “citizen science crowdsourcing data, this is critical to solving this crisis.”
“Its data will also enable businesses such as hotels, restaurants and real estate companies to make more informed decisions when selecting locations.”
When asked about how user privacy is taken into consideration, Theo said that we have taken a series of “measures” to protect users.
“We measure decibel levels, not the actual audio content. Decibel levels (dB) measure the intensity of sound,” he clarified.
“They are logarithmic and can describe sound levels ranging from barely perceptible to loud and potentially harmful noise levels.”
Given that location is inherently relevant to the project, he said users can opt into location tracking with “explicit” consent. Additionally, all data collected from users in a specific location is anonymized and encrypted within the app.
Silencio’s solution to combat noise pollution is one of many new initiatives in the Web3 space, working with physical objects such as smartphones, charging stations or vehicles to increase efficiency and build bridges to the rapidly expanding digital world.
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