Microsoft announced a new headset designed to help visually impaired individuals navigate cities.

Using bone-conducting audio, it creates a 3D soundscape to guide users to destinations. The headset gives both verbal cues, like "turn left", and nonverbal cues in the form of a continuous clicking noise that helps guide a user along the correct route. The experience is meant to replace sticks or canes.

Since the headset transmits sound via the jawbone, users can still hear environmental audio cues like traffic. It sits in front of the ear to help facilitate this as well. The device is currently in prototype stage and has been developed with the help of Guide Dogs charity and the U.K. government funded Future Cities Catapult .

Microsoft's Amos Miller spoke to The Guardian about the inspiration behind the headset, saying:

“The project was inspired when my daughter was born,” says Microsoft’s Amos Miller, a former trustee of Guide Dogs who is visually impaired. “I wanted to be able to take her out for a day, or just go to the cinema – and I thought, ‘how can I make that something that I would not hesitate to do?’”

The headset contains a GPS tracker, compass and gyroscope. When paired with a smartphone, it uses information from Microsoft's Bing maps and information from tiny Bluetooth-enabled beacons which can be stuck on lamp-posts around a city. In order for the device to be fully functional, cities need to implement comprehensive networks of beacons.

According to Microsoft, nearly 250 million people around the world are visually impaired and 65 percent of whom are unemployed due to their disability.

One BBC reporter who tried the headset out found it " distracting ", although he admits that it did give him overall more confidence navigating streets. He is not blind. According to the same article, eight people with sight loss have tested the headset and five reported feeling safer and more confident with the headset.

In addition to assisting the visually impaired, Microsoft imagines that the device could be used by tourists or newcomers to a city.