Slashdot Mirror
The Sound of Safety?
Nostrada writes: "Gone are the days of mobile phones ringing with the latest and greatest melodies? Following this article, "A new sound that could revolutionise mobile telephones and safety alarms because it is less intrusive yet easy to pinpoint is being ordered worldwide after being developed by a British scientist." Anyone got some URLs for samples?"
Even if it is true, what happens when everyone in a crowded area has a cellphone with this ring? I mean, if you're as compelled to look in the direction of the sound as this article makes it seem, you'll get whiplash from your head bouncing around to look at different phones going off.
If it's too widely used, I don't see how we aren't just going to filter this effect out subconsciously, even if it's all that the article cracks it up to be.
It is well known that the ear has difficulty resolving the directional source and distance of pure-tone sounds, such as typical beeps, sirens, alarms, etc. This is mainly the point of developing the new sound... unfortunately the author of the artical knows nothing about psycho-acoustics.
The 'cshuush' shound would be better in this regard for alarms because you can tell exactly which direction its coming from, due to the fact that is has a broader spectrum.
In the old days, people used to earn a living doing things like building cars, or making clothes, or growing and harvesting food -- i.e., they would be creating physical objects or performing useful services and selling them to people.
But the problem was that you could only make a limited amount of money doing that. After all, a person's time and energy are limited: each individual can only make a few clothes, build a few cars, or harvest a small amount of food. Sure, you can make a decent living doing those things, but you can never get really filthy rich.
So people came up with a better way of getting filthy rich. Instead of selling a few tangible things to a small number of people, they would generate something intangible (which can be mass-produced with little or no effort), and sell that to millions of people. Sure, maybe it's too small to generate a large profit for each unit, but since you can easily sell millions of the little thingys with no expenditure of energy on your part, you can get rich pretty quickly.
So what are the consequences of this:
And what's happened to the old-fashioned practice of actually making physical objects and selling them to people? We no longer do this anymore, at least not in industrialized countries. Our clothes are made in third-world sweat shops. The manufacture of automobiles is also gradually migrating to third-world countries (part by part, so nobody really notices). We used to have family farms, but these are now run by big corporations who import migrant labor when the time comes to actually harvest the crops.
So this is the 21st century. In industrialized countries, we are completely dependent on third world labor to provide us with the necessities of life, while we scheme to get rich marketing intangible ideas, hoping each will be "the next big thing". How long can this situation last? If the third world stays poor, how long will it be before they become resentful of providing everything for us while we play around making ring tones?
Worse -- if the third world develops, won't they eventually get sick of making Nikes and start also trying to get rich selling ring tones? If so, then this is the future: the entire world, naked, stranded, and starving, all hopelessly trying to survive marketing ring tones to one another.
White noise is spectrally balanced (all frequencies have the same energy level). Pink noise is balanced to the ear. Human hearing is not linear across the spectrum. Certain frequencies require more energy to be perceived at the same "loudness" as others.
*woman in ecstasy's voice* OOOhhhhh God. I'm sooo horny...
Obviously this ring won't make deaf people turn towards the cell phone, but it's gotta work better than "chusssh-chusssh-chusssh".
This is certainly a good thing if it helps save lives or makes life easier, but I don't know if patenting it is warranted (or responsible!).
A psychologist pointed out to me a few years ago that an excellent way to get attention is to make a tsa tsa tsa sound (think Skippy the Bush Kangaroo). She said she has noticed mothers doing this unconsciously when they wanted to distract children. It also appears in different cultures.
Also consider the shhh sound we make to signal "be quiet". It is also a "natural" thing people have discovered. It is effective at getting atention, and in my experience is not that annoying (compare with typical mobile phone tones). Certainly if librarians bleeted "HONK HONK" to signal "quiet" we'd find it a tad distracting!
So if people have discovered that white noise like sounds are good attention grabbers what does this say about prior art?
Harley withdrew their application when they learned they'd have to prove that the sound of their engines was both unique to their design and repeatable (i.e. the same on every bike). When they realized it would cost a fortune to prove this and that each bike sounded different they dropped their application.
Well, they won't provide samples, but at least this is who they are:
http://www.soundalert.co.uk/
All I can say is that for the sake of every red-blooded 'mercan out there I hope they get this thing patented, copyrighted, and restricted post-haste! The last thing we need is for some lifesaving advance to be available free to the public, that's bloody communism!
"It initiates a reaction that makes you instantly turn towards that sound"
This sound will also be heard before TV commercials, radio commercials, it will replace the windows startup sound, and children will learn to make it when they want something or want to annoy you. Not a nice thing to grace the earth with.
White noise has a linear spectral power density, Pink noise has a logrithmic spectral power density.
White noise has the same power density from 100-200 HZ as it does from 1100-1200 HZ or any other 100 HZ segment.
Pink noise has the same power density from 100-200 Hz as it does from 1000-2000Hz or any other 2:1 octave ratio.
Here are some .AU files that are supposedly examples of the use of this Localizer sound in sirens for emergency vehicles.
http://www.premierhazard.co.uk/sirentnj.html
has anyone figured out how to reproduce this sound? i'm sure that if it's just white noise then any PC could be coaxed into mixing this sound with a more pleasing sound (instead of Localizer+Siren) to get your attention for things like chat messages and alerts (would be great in a NOC environment)
"I believe it's not only a world-beating British invention, but it is going to save thousands of lives every year."
Okay this is a cool idea and I can dig it, I too am sick of hearing little electronic versions of Fur Elise everywhere I go. But why in the HELL should I care if it was invented in Britan?-- Object known as a camera. Vintage uncertain, origin unknown. - Twilight Zone
"I heard them talking about this" ... "a year ago."
That might have been 6 mos ago... I can't remember now that I think about it.
I heard them talking about this on CBC (Canadian national radio) a year ago. They were talking about the practical uses on ambulances and other emergency vehicles. Apparently tests in the UK had shown that emergency vehicles equiped with one of these new sirens could get to their destination faster (people knew where the sound was coming from and were better at getting out the way), and the number of secondary accidents was reduced (people crashing whilst looking for the emergency vehicle, etc).
Ironicaly, for safety reasons introduction in to Canada (and the US???) will be delayed as there are strict guidelines and tests to meet for new sirens.
Okay, so you've got a fire engine going down the street, making a noise that makes everyone turn and look at it. As we know for driving school, when you look somewhere, you tend to drive that way. So we'd have all of these distracted drivers crashing into emergency vehicles. Great...
Yeah, this has been around for a while. The ambulances here (Bath, UK) have this white noise between siren blasts. It's pretty good as you always know where they are.
Just to nitpick, you're assuming the headphone sound hasn't been processed through a HRTF like most binaural recordings are. Does anyone know of a free HRTF package?
-----
My God, it's full of source!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I saw a bit on some police camera show on TLC about a similar sound being tested by some police force in Britain. Apparently the sound is easier for people to locate, allowing drivers to get out of the way of emergency services vehicles safely. Get the ambulance, fire truck, etc. to the scene faster, lives are bound to be saved. You're also less likely to have accidents as people panic from the police car pulling up behind them "without warning" (because they couldn't tell where it was and so weren't expecting it).
;-) But the same idea - broadband white noise in whooshing patterns in between siren bursts.
The show was first run months ago, but it was just re-run lately. Same sound? Can't tell.
I'm surprised your friends haven't started carrying around mallets in case your phone rings. That, or like firemen, they associate the song with the video and get excited?
--
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
Not too great on IE 5.0 when you don't let them "upgrade" Media Player to the newer, more evil version. After I set the preferences for audio only (don't want the sales pitch, just want to hear what the sound sounds like) I got a still picture and then it crashed IE. Or gave IE an excuse to self-destruct. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Kate Bush? That *was* years ago.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I just tried the PremierHazard link from post #79. What this sounds like is a siren run through an amp that's intermittent at about a 3 or 4 Hz rate. Think of a siren interspersed with the "microphone keying" burst of static which television has trained us to associate with police 2-way radios. It's very annoying, but doesn't seem any more directional than the siren itself. The directional cues probably come as much from the interruption of the siren by the noise (and then the noise by the siren) as from the noise itself.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Yeah, well that and the fact that in the unlikely event that any of the sound of the siren got through their rolled up windows, blasting stereos, and roaring air conditioners, they couldn't be bothered to turn down the radio, roll down the window, start slowing down just in case, and look around, including checking their rear-view mirrors.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's been years and years so I forget which is which, but one of them, as I recall, is equal energy per frequency division (for example, just as much from 1.597kHz to 2.597kHz as from 206.0312kHz to 207.0312kHz), and the other is equal energy per octave (just as much from 110Hz to 220Hz as from 220Hz to 440Hz as from 440Hz to 880Hz). If I further remember correctly the octaves had to be related, that is, the same energy in the 110Hz to 220Hz band as in the 370Hz to 740Hz band didn't count.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Wouldn't you associate that sound with a gas leak, thinking the last place you'd want to be is where the noise is coming from?
It is white noise that is being used in this case.
--- I do not moderate.
One of the licensees of the SoundAlert tones is Permier Hazard. They have a Sirens page that has several example files in .au format
http://www.premierhazard.co.uk/siren.html
You know, I think that may have been the solution. I feel so stupid for forgetting the origin of this story. I'm an urban legends geek, and I'm quite certain that this isn't one of them. (That is, unless a major publication fell prey to one, which has been known to happen. Googling for the story has turned up naught, but I'll keep poking around in the morning.
-Waldo
I'm sorry -- when I said "the sound," I was referring to the traditional sound of a fire engine, not The Sound that is the topic of this story. :)
-Waldo
A sidenote. I read something about a year ago, but I just can't recall where. (I'll keep Googling, but I think I read it in Scientific American or something.) A fire department tested out one of these new sirens, and they worked splendidly in all the important ways...but one. Traffic could easily determine where the fire engine was coming from, the siren was easily heard, and that was all nice. The problem was that firemen have learned to associate the sound of the engine with excitement. So they arrived at fires unprepared, psychologically, and without the gusto to fight the fire. Weird, huh?
-Waldo
But also...
:-))
:-/
I remember seeing a brief piece on TV here in the UK about this about 2 years ago, when they were trialing this "noise" on emergency vehicles. White noise, is apprentley easier to pinpoint then the regular siren - thus avoiding an intersection full of bemused drivers wondering from which direction the bread van on steroids will appear from.
This is a bigger problem with certain types of intersection - in Europe there tend to be a lot of traffic "islands" - big circular pieces of road with routes hanging off them - the theory is, that unless its very crowded, nobody stops. Certain nations (ie the French) take this a little too literally
Hehe imagine a train full of chuffing cellphones - and will we be able to download personalised ones that do, - say the drum track from ZZ Top's "Gi'me all your Lovin'"?
if i heard that coming out of anyone's cellphone, i believe i'd have to shoot them (particularly the reversed one.)
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
This was a Kate Bush song *years ago* (sort of)... Experiment IV. "They told us, all they wanted, was sound that could kill some one, from a distance..." See http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/KateBush/Experim entIV.asp
Ken
I eat what I hunt. In fact I agree that not doing so (in the case that the game is edible) is wrong.
If one is so stupid (and unsafe) that they "blow themselves out of the gene pool", then good riddens. They are a danger to everyone else around them, and they shouldn't be out there. (Or handling weapons.)
Why would you complain about someone not being vegetarian? Because you have issues with the industry? Do you listen to music, or watch TV and movies? Please don't tell me you don't have issues with those industries. And food ranks a little higher on the "needs" scale than most other industries. (I'm not denying any problems, I'm simply disagreeing with your logic. And agriculture has it's own bucket of problems too, if you want to look into it.)
Now, go look in a mirror and get a look at your teeth. Incisors, canines and molars. Perfectly suited for processing both plant and animal tissue. We're omnivores, designed from the get-go with the ability to eat just about anything capable of providing energy. I don't complain about where you choose to get yours, so don't complain about where I get mine. God/Nature/whoever gave me the tools to do so... who are you to argue?
In order to live, we require energy from food. Unless you are very green (and have flowers in your hair naturally) you have to kill other living things to get it. Plant or animal, it has to die. So either we're both murderers, or we're both dead. Don't give me any BS about it being fuzzy and cute, either. I happen to think artichokes are very beautiful plants... but I'm not going to whine if you chop off its head, boil it, and eat it. (I'd happily do the same.) Like it or not, you're a part of nature and the cycles of life just like everything else.
Besides, what does going out in the woods to hunt, kill, and eat a wild animal have to do with supporting the meat industry? It sounds like the best way to provide oneself with meat while NOT supporting the industry. If you have a beef (:p) with the industry, you should be applauding the poster for serving their dietary needs by a means that avoids them. That might be more appropriate, and gain more support for your cause than chastizing them for not sharing your particular dietary habits.
(And I thought my Nokia singing "Oops, I did it again" every time I get a call was bad enough...)
--
The appears to be no demo, according to their demo page you can arrange a preview either at their site or they can come to you.
When the useless car alarms copy this,
then everyone will ignore it.
and its seems to be _very_ close, is the sound the cicada's,
down south (southern US) make. A very load, very distinctive
buzzing.
A pithy quotation of someone I've never met.
"What I have done is simple: I select noises for electronic engineers, which I know the human brain will recognise and interpret within milliseconds. They then convert them into electronic noises, which, according to need, are variations on chusssh-chusssh-chusssh."
Recognize and interpret within milliseconds...
I don't know about the rest of you but "chusssh-chusssh-chusssh" is not a sound I hear often in my daily life.
I know what you are thinking, I must not be getting enough "chusssh" in my life.
Well I am getting enough "chusssh" and when I have "chusssh" it does not sound like "chusssh".
(It sounds much more like pr0n...)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Even worse - the guy across the hall who is sitting next to his phone but never answers it until it's played quite too much of the annoying Nokia brand of "Fur Elise". I mean, how long does it take to answer a phone which is fucking strapped to your belt! I've resisted many an urge to grab it and throw it as far as I can...
On the plus side, if this special new sound is anything like "Fur Elise" I'll be able to zero in on it instantly - it's 6 feet south of here. Heck, I didn't even have to hear it ring first!
Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus",
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
You *will* tune it out. The description of the sound instantly reminded me of the simple "psssssssst" (a sharp almost whistling hiss) used by people in certain cities to grab the attention of taxi drivers, tourists, anyone. At first I *always* turned when I heard it. Now, I hardly pay attention.
Ok, so, everyone gets this in their cellphone. The sound is irrestable to look at, so, your in a movie theatre and instead of just ignoring the noise like everyone does now, everyone is forced to look at the source.
:)
This will be both good and bad. Since everyone in the movie theatre will simultaneously look at the person with the phone, the person will be extremely embarrased and run out.
The problem this doesn't solve is that in a large room with many people (think conference or meeting) each time a cell phone goes off, everyone will look at the source of the sound, just like they do now!
If people would just learn how to use the "vibrate" feature they would stop interrupting people and be much happier (if the cell phone is placed in the correct 'location').
Just my OPINION.
Geoffeg
They have already developed a similar (though somewhat less violent) thing... it's called vibrate mode. I leave my phone on vibrate, and it has the double benefit that:
--
What does one note, hummed `curiously' sound like?
"Hmmmmmmm...uh...mmmMmmm?"
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Made it myself. Other great examples include summoning the devil and playing russian roulette. (-1, Offtopic, yes, yes, I know.)
Of course, that's the obvious comment (no offense). But consider: What if you're wrong? Imagine being in Times Square a few years from now, watching the crowd look around like lemmings... *chussh chussh* everyone looks at the Pepsi add *chussh chussh* everyone looks at the CBS add *chussh chussh* everyone looks at the ticker *chussh chussh* everyone looks at the Pepsi add. Repeat as desired.
A scene that fits right into the Matrix.
Anyhow, the humorous image merely underscores my point: While it's virtually doomed to failure in the way you describe, it would be even worse if it actually worked. This thing is violation of Jerf's Law: Never try to do something where the worst case scenario is success.
There's one slight problem with vibrate mode. It's fine in your pocket, in fact sometimes quite enjoyable, but if you were to place the phone on a desk and it started to vibrate, the noise scares the shit out of anyone nearby, and more often or not the phone falls off the desk!
There was a time when a car alarm going off caused everyone to turn and look, but now they're so commonplace that nobody turns to look at a car when the alarm is going off.
Wrong. I always look. It helps me aim the rock, bottle, or whatever else may be close by before I throw it at the car that is yelling "I really deserve to be keyed right about now!!!"
A new sound ... that is less intrusive yet easy to pinpoint
Cellphones that fart. That's just great.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
That's pretty close.
You run pink noise to setup the crossover points as it is a more balanced representation of the audio spectrum and appropriate for human hearing response. Under pink noise once you deal with it for a while you can hear the peaks in the signal and compensate for them. One can also use a real time spectrum analyzer and setup by the numbers.
It makes sure the power distribution of the rig is even so that when you go to tune the actual EQ to suit the room acoustics you have a balanced starting point as a reference.
Now take white noise and run it through a system and you can shred cones pretty easily as all freq's are pushed at the same level and systems are not generally designed for a signal of that nature.
If you're curious, look for a CD The Great Japanese/American Noise Experiment or similar, basically experimental 'music' done with oscillators and wave form generators. It's a great demo of the dynamic range this type of noise actually has. Just don't turn it up too far on equipment you would like to keep.
I can already see the slashdot posts: But how can you own a sound? I hereby patent the sounds of 'click' and 'snap'.
______________________________
rooooar
The article makes it sound like the chussh-chussh-chussh does something similar to humans. I think this might endanger more lives than it would save.
After watching the video, I did find the chussh-chussh-chussh successful. However, I really wish the article would explain more about WHY it works. They say the used broadbad white noise because they understand "how the brain works". That seems like a cop-out answer.
cpeterso
> What you do is let out a sharp whistle as soon as the said varment is spooked, as it is running away. You'd be amazed how often the creature stops in its tracks and turns to look at you. Of course it might start running again after it notices you, but try it.
You know, that's almost exactly what happens when I whistle at girls, too.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Coming from a country where headlights are compulsory at all times, I have noticed that cars without headlights (I'd say less than 1% of the cars during daytime) are a lot easier to miss; possibly because the brain subconsciously writes them off as being parked. It's really kind of spooky the way you just don't notice them until they are really close.
So, I'd say the risk with this kind of sound might well be that people will disregard the old kind of alarms even more when we've all gotten used to this new sound.
According to the BBC article (In a thread above.) one of the researchers (I think) mentioned that you more or less "had" to turn towards it.
.ra stream) and it sure as hell didn't work on me. But it may be because it was 28k so a lot of subliminal details may have been lost.
They had used it next to video cameras and if a thief hears the noise then he/she turns towards the camera. Even if he doesn't want to.
Now they did say that the sound "may not work on radio" (it was an
Still doesn't sound (har har) like a good idea to use on mobile phones then.
You have to put up with a three minute interview and a horrible site design, but it's here, in RealAudio and Windows Media, along with a demonstration in a smoky room. The sound is more like a compressed air can, and I would swear it's being produced by an air compressor.
When they say "impossible to ignore", they're not saying your head instantly turns to it - they're saying that in a smoky room, you can pretty well tell where it's coming from without having to think or concentrate on it. Believe me, my head didn't instantly gravitate toward my laptop speakers when the sound came on.
What's your damage, Heather?
Even after reading the article, my initial reaction was that this was a farce.
"chusssh chusssh chusssh"
sounds a lot to me like "shush shush shush", which in turn is a variation of "shut the hell up" or "turn off your [expletive] [device]".
Some spelunking through the mess of javascript turned up this:. akamai.com/2611/2001/06/18/0000522955.rm
http://mfile.akamai.com/2611/rm/twimedia.download
It plays at ~100kbit for me.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
All those curves and curls in your ears focus different frequencies differently according to where the noise is located. That's part of what you spend your childhood doing. When there's a noise, your eyes search for it, and your brain remembers, "that's what a sound, from that direction, sounds like." In order to determine direction, the sound needs to have frequencies that your ear can attenuate so that you can determine direction.
That's part of why music through headphones doesn't sound like it's coming from somewhere (nothing reflects off your ears). Throw in tone purity (purer tones being directionless), and you'll see the problem. Some songbirds you really have to look for when they sing. Crows, on the other hand, with their non-pure calls, you know where they are right away.
Correct. `Vibrate then ring' is a wonderful thing: heck, it's even pretty good if the two happen simultaneously (as with my replacement for the Motorola, the Siemens SL45).
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
However, I'm worried about misuse of this noise. If I'm on an oil-rig and hear some static kind of noise like this, turn to look at the mobile, think "oh, wasn't the mobile, must be an emergency then" then I've lost a few precious seconds.
IOW, don't use it for *everything*. Work on expanding your braincell to cope with different noises for different things. (How many folks here have per-caller ringtones, but never actually *use* them preferring the visual instead??)
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Not only the sort of cry it's using. When I was a baby for some reason or another I developed a strong liking for droning--that is, humming a single note for a prolonged period. She could tell where I was and what I was doing my the tone of the note. If the tone changed to `curious,' she knew she might need to go make sure that I wasn't getting into something I shouldn't (like Draino); if it stopped altogether, she knew I was either in trouble or asleep. Fortunately, for a baby `trouble' as often as not means `having to use brain,' as in figuring out how to climb stairs.
Incidentally, as I wrote this I was droning to a rockabilly tune and than Also Sprach Zarathustra. You see, it's a habit I've yet to break...
The way the site demos (but doesn't SAY) you get around this problem is by combining sounds. For instance, let's say you have a standard "alarm Hooter" - You play the hooter to let everyone know the KIND of alarm, and the directional tone to let people know WHERE to look
"Hoot chsssh, Hoot Chsssh"
If you look at the streaming video, the had a standard fire alarm going off, with the EXIT marked with the "chsssh" You follow the "chsssh"
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
It won't take long for theives to adjust to the sound. And if you'd rather not dance like a marionette everytime someone's cell phone goes off, get a sample of the sound and listen to it on loop. Desensitise yourself.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
I read once that in a fighter cockpit the pilot in the middle of a dogfight is overwhelmed by alarms and buzzers. In an effort to cut through for important information a research project was initiated that pre-recorded family members warning about things that needed immediate attention. Didn't work so well since who do you have the most experience tuning out? Family members.
Voice of 5 year old: Daddy, you've got a fire on your wing.
Daddy, You've got a fire on your wing!
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, There's a fire, its on your wing!
Daddy, why don't you ever listen to me?
Hey, it wasn't intentional, but once I had done it I realized it might just have that effect... :-)
Next time I promise I'll ask in the reply that the parent not be modded up. (I only got one more point for it anyway.)
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
http://www.soundalert.co.uk/research.htm
I still can't find actual audio files, though.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Someone provide a link to the sound. Please.
(from a user sick of his current AOL IM sounds)
What, exactly, does it sound like?
"Chussh! Chussh!" Can be interpreted in many different ways.
It would be nice if they actually put up a sample to listen to...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
...so does this mean nobody will now be able to distinguish "ssssshhh! sssshhh!" among the din of "chussshh! chussshh!"...I can't wait for ringers that sound like "shudupgodamu! shudupgodamu!"....
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Maybe he drive and eighteen wheeler.
:-)
I heard that when they are reversing, the do make that chussssh sound
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Anyone want to register
www.chusssh-chusssh-chusssh.com
bound to be the stickiest site on the net.
While you are at it, have a wav with the chusssh chusssh chusssh sound repeating in the background, and I see 100million hits this year.
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Years ago, I read about some research that was seeking the sound most likely to wake a person up with the least actual volume. What they came up with was a recording of a crying infant, which apparently we're pretty much hard-wired to react to.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I read about this yesterday on the BBC. A much better article.
Because hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming, banks and shops are evaluating its potential for catching criminals.
There was a time when a car alarm going off caused everyone to turn and look, but now they're so commonplace that nobody turns to look at a car when the alarm is going off. If this new noise is going to be used in phones and alarms everywhere, it shouldn't be long before people become desensitized to it as well.
I would have to also wonder about getting so used to the sound that it loses its meaning.
Some time ago, I figured that I didn't need to use bookmarks since I could just commit the page number to memory. And it worked fine (I'm not particularly amnesic...) But after a while, I found it harder and harder to return to my place. Not because I could not remember the page number, but because I remembered ALL OF THEM, and didn't know which was the correct one. In other words, I had exhausted the usefullness of this memory exercise.
I also have to question the conclusion of those "researchers" that decided that your car was safer with the headlights always on. I believe that they based their conclusion on some studies that suggested a connection between cars with headlights on and lower accident rates. AN APPARENT CONNECTION PROVES NOTHING! I have to wonder if the lower accident rate was due to the fact that it was unusual for cars to have their headlights on (during the day), and that other drivers were just paying more attention to THOSE cars...
For all we know, if all cars had their headlights on, the accident rate might return to the same place it was beforehand.
Anyway, I agree with you that certain stimuli may lose their advantage when they are commonly encountered.
A dingo ate my sig...
I've lived in New York for 4 months now and I still can't tune out the trucks with oil-tanker fog horns installed. I'm a pacifist, but I just want to choke them when they honk at 4 AM outside my bedroom window! arrghgh
Frogive me, but I can't imagine gridlock in New York with everyone chusssh-chussshing each other.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
This is a perfect example of a mostly hype-driven story. Basically, the headline should really be this: "Directional acoustics applied to alarms". Unless the article is missing something, there is really nothing new here. Directional acoustics have been around for a while, and are used by your sound card drivers for "3D" sound. The video at the article link looks like your typical "Beyond 2000" fluff piece.
Come on Slashdot, isn't there a more interesting technology out there being developed? Like bionics or new genetic engineering or some new materials science???
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I would assume that the reason clips of this sound are so hard to find on the internet is because this isn't your typical sound that computer speakers could create.
The creator of the sound said that it contains a "massive amount of frequencies..." Shouldn't a sound like this be hard to reproduce effectively on computer speakers?
I hate to nitpick, but this is important. They say a wide spectrum of frequencies, which does not necessarily denote white noise. The article never mentions white noise.
Every signal can be broken into frequency components, and each component has an amplitude *and* phase (often this is expressed by adding negative and positive frequency components). The importance of these phases cannot be overemphasized. If you "coherently" add components with the same phase, you will get a delta function: a single large crack. If you add them with random phases, you end up with white noise.
It is quite possible that the sound they are talking about is more like a series of short, broadband "chirps" than white noise.
I don't know enough of the physiology of hearing to know what makes things easy or difficult to locate, but I expect the incoherent nature of white noise makes localization more diffcult, not less. A chirp on the other hand, has a very steep rise that makes time-of-arrival measurements relatively easy, and improves localizability.
What, psychologically compells one to look at the source I don't know, but I have serious doubts that it will be effective in the long term. Human brains have a remarkable ability to get used to things and start ignoring them. Only while this sound is new and rare will it excite such reactions.
The claim that it forces humans to turn and look is probably a little outlandish. You'll become accustomed to the sound if it becomes ubiquitous in advertising.
/is/ interesting, however, that the sound is far mor easily locatable than previous alarm sounds.
It
Incidentally, every time I hear a siren, I tend to turn and look (even if the sound isn't as easily locatable). But I dont hear that siren sound in advertising all the time. So I'm not as fearful as others here in terms of advertisers monopolizing this sound, as the claim that you HAVE to turn towards it is probably exaggurated a little. In conjunction with noise pollution laws, I doubt you'll see a proliferation of this sound in advertising. I'd imagine emergency alarms and cellphones might make a little more use of it.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Integrating this sound into cell phones may not have as great an effect as forseen. First of all, a cell phone "feature" is being able to choose your ringer song, and on some models, write your own. Also, most cell phones have this feature called "Vibrate." Such a feature makes your phone "vibrate" letting you "feel" that it is YOUR phone that is ringing, not someone else's. Also, with vibrate on, and your "ringer" off, no one is compelled to turn and look at your crotch. On a different, note, who's to say that this urge to turn and look for the source of the "new" noise won't fade as we are immersed by it. People no longer react the same way as they used to to sirens. We don't even react as harshly to crime and death since we see it everyday. What happens when our attention is no longer captured by this sound... find another?... and another?... and another?...
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Only sounds I could think of that might be marketed like this are regular fire alarms or copyrighted/trademarked theme songs, which wouldn't be marketed if the sound is meant to illicit brand recognition.
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Gawd, can't wait until I can't resist turning to the prick sitting two seats down in a final exam who can't turn the ringer off.
On the plus side, I now know how to get my /. postings read by everyone: include "chusssh chusssh chusssh" in each message, then all /.ers will be irresistably drawn to my post!
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
This is not the first time that sound has appeared. You see, horror movie directors have hit upon it time and again.. trying to reproduce the sound that signals a fight or flight response like when you hear something (a bear, a murderer, a grue, whatever) sneaking up behind you.
Maybe ten years ago or so we used to play with making the sound from one horror movie, which sounds like "Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah", as if you just said the Ch and the Ah into a circuit which generates reverberating echoes.
It also sounds a lot like the sound of the daleks in Doctor Who which scared the shit out of me.. guess I'm susceptible to that kind of sound.
But listening to the audio, it seems that they are going way overboard on their application of the sound. I think it is going to give some people heart attacks and make genuinely frantic, not simply provide directional cues but actually get people into a nervous, crowd stampede state of mind, as if one was running through a nightmare.
Also, you usually run *away* from such sounds, not towards them. It is going to be a lot more effective if they can just add a small crackling component to ordinary rings and buzzes if necessary and forgoe a full sonic rendition of your worst childhood nightmare.
Finally, user selection of ring tones, to the point of symphonic midi rendition of popular songs, is already big business in Japan. You can even compose your own with a system my friend made called theta, at mobile.yamaha.com. Only unimaginative people will find themselves picking up their phone at the wrong time, most people have something interesting and people around them laugh and appreciate neat, beautiful music instead of irritating rings. That "whose phone is it" thing may be true but it is also a canard, based on low tech in the U.S. and Europe in this regard.
I think people are going to have to be very careful implementing this because it can be dangerous, in the same way that Japan Rail now has to tell people over and over again to not use their phones on the train because they interfere with pacemakers. You might get more hypertension and people with nervous conditions if such nerve- wracking sounds become prevalent. Once you open Pandora's box.. it could be like being submerged in an Indiana Jones style nightmare of endless slithering insectoid things.
Sorry that's http://mobile.yamaha.co.jp/ which links to http://myc.thetamusic.com/framesets/myc.html. It's a Java sheetmusic composer for 16 voice midi; most of the phones now have sophisticated midi engines and instrument libraries in them now.
A new sound that could revolutionise mobile telephones and safety alarms because it is less intrusive yet easy to pinpoint is being ordered worldwide after being developed by a British scientist. Anyone got some URLs for samples?
Yeah-- http://www.chewbacca.com
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
I can just imagine the first phones outfitted with this revolutionary sound that, according to the article, when heard, will render you "...virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming...".
...chusssh
...chusssh
...chusssh
Cut to alert driver, hands at 10 and 2, eyes straight ahead, driving dutifully 3 mph below the speed limit.
Hapless driver has an almost pavlovian urge to take his eyes from the road and face the direction from which it is coming.....
Wonder what happens next?
You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers, and say "that's the bad guy."
It sounds like a TV with just static. Scientists have known since the early 80s that people are inescapably drawn to the sound of a staticy TV.
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
I lived in Britain 1995-1999. I loved it, and despite how stupid this is going to sound, I really appreciated hearing traditional British-style sirens. They didn't rely on volume, as Canadian/US ones do, but rather on ear-catching frequencies played at livable volumes. It made (makes) a big difference in reducing stress levels.
:)
Unfortunately, as the manufacturer went out of business (or so I heard), the emergency services started buying US-style sirens for their cars. In the space of two years, there was no escape. Maybe one day they'll come back...
And no, no puns intended above
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
They say a mother can tell exactly what a baby wants by it's whine. Maybe this would be a good basis for a phone ring sound. With just a peep a well trained ear can tell that marketing hit development over the head with the lego bucket again.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Discovery Channel (or was it TLC?) did a show on "Fires at Sea" that featured this as a future replacement for the current evacuation systems...
Everyone that participated in the evacuation tests said that it was hands down the best "this way out" indicator.
All in all, it was a pretty good show.
$0.02 (CDN)
"Because hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming, banks and shops are evaluating its potential for catching criminals."
Oh c'mon, if this works as well as he says, you know the main application will be advertising. Beer cans will be chusshh-chuusshh-chusshing from the aisles before a bank robber is ever caught looking at a chussh-chuush-chuushing security camera.
So, they've somehow managed to patent white noise? This is a VERY VERY old technology which people have known about probably for decades.
Broadband noise is good for localisation because it has a good immunity to multipath reflection of sound. Single frequencies can easily sound like they're coming from somewhere else because of wall reflections.
I can't find a patent number, so I can't look up the exact details. I should hope it's more than just a patent on "Method and apparatus for alerting people using white noise" - because that would just be dumb.
that this story would break on a .au site
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Oh yeah, like they are going to make this sound downloadable from the internet? In an non-SDMI (or something else ridiculous) format? Then where do their profits go?
It will be interesting how you can lock up the rights on a sound!!! Just ask the RIAA how that's been going.
;-)
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
Word up, dog!!!
I's me, alright. Who are you!?!?!
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
And then charge anyone who wants to use it a royal fee. I can just see it now: "...but officers, it saved my life! You can't put me in jail!" "Um, yes, but it was illegally copied..."
Ehm, are we thrown back in time to april 1st? Just let me know, so I can set the date on my "life saving mobile"...
How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?
How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?
-E.M. Forster-
Until this sound is patented and emergency workers have to pay a royalty for every siren blast...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This kind of reminds me of Squant.
Amozon (sic) denied allegations that they were patenting all material vibrations in the 2-15KHz range.
Napster denies that the new sound was already available through its services, saying "we don't have it, and even if we did we wouldn't know it".
Meanwhile, N'SYNC and other sh*t-hot boy bands will be producing covers of the new sound, and rap artists are promising to co-opt it as well.
Anyway, just wanted to say that it seems like another wheel reinvented.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
"Because hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming..."
and"The new sound could also rid everyday life of one of its embarrassing moments, when everyone in a room searches for their mobile phone when just one rings.
That's right, now instead of everyone ruffling through their clothes checking their phone they will ALL look at YOU. No, not embarrasing at all...This isn't new. I remember a piece on Tomorrow's World (technology TV show in the UK) about two years ago where this sort of sound had been tried on ambulances in one UK city. They interspersed the usual ambulance woo-woo-woo noise with this chusssh-chusssh (white) noise, meaning that people could pinpoint the source more accurately.
I seem to remember it being very successful, although people thought it was a bit weird! I'd forgotten about it until this story came up. I wonder what happened to that trial?
The extension to mobile phone ringers seems quite sensible. However, the idea that people can't help turning towards the source seems a little far-fetched to me. If it were in widespread use we'd probably all become oblivious fairly soon.
Is any one else getting flash backs to the Monty Python sketch about Joke Warfare. Remember the joke that won WWII, but was later baned becouse it was to effective. I think this 'scientist' has been watching BBC re-runs to much.
What they really need is cell phones that sound like a frosty cold refreshing beer can opening. That would draw everyones attention, including mine.
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
Some 5 years ago a story like this was featured on BBC's Tomorrow's World show. They basically meant it to be used by sirens of ambulances and fire engines. The sound they demonstrated (and used on the road) was the same siren sound, but at certain intervals interleaved with plain static (the chush-chush I s'pose).
I hadn't heard anything about that for a while, but a few months after that I heard an ambulance on the road around here (Belgium) and it clearly used the interleaved static, and it DID make the sound source much more easy to be found. However, I only heard them use it twice, and not an ambulance after that has used the sound since. Don't know the reason for it, heck, they didn't even announce they were going to use it in the first place. My guess it was an experiment.
The creator of the sound said that it contains a "massive amount of frequencies..." Shouldn't a sound like this be hard to reproduce effectively on computer speakers?
Easy way to generate white noise: cat /dev/random > /dev/audio (I forget the dd syntax used to generate short bursts). I can also do it easily from Cool Edit, and even an old NES console can do it through a 15-bit LFSR. Can you say "prior art"? I know you can.
Other noises include brown noise[?] (named after Brownian motion; integral of white noise; falls off at 6 dB per octave, that is, it contains an equal amount of amplitude in each octave) and pink noise[?] (named after Pink Floyd; sum of white noises bandpassed to octaves; falls off at 3 dB per octave, that is, it contains an equal amount of energy in each octave). It's also possible to make "in-between" noises using simple fractal methods; as falloff and fractal dimension are two ways of measuring the same thing, brown/pink/white noise becomes a mere special case.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I`m sure i heard about plans to intersperse sirens with white noise years ago. this story (or at least the manifestation of it i read in the papers the other day) went on about how the noise was created, but i got the impression from the older reports that it didnt matter.
Sounds like a sex-toy, but its the name of a type of audio processor, usually used to make a mix sound more `exciting`. Its part of the reason why adverts on tv/radio are so annoying - it makes sounds more bright and noticable, at least, until you overload on it!
Supposedly based on harmonics or what have you of sounds which babies make.
Directonality doesn't help here. Phones obvuiously up the other end of a railway carriage make me twitch. The only solution is different noises for each phone and that brings in the problem of some people's taste in such things being vile.
(eg I use a chumk of `A Very Celular Song' by the Incredible String Band and live in fear of the wrath of ageing hippies with low pun tollerance)
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
That's just got to be an aussie rip-off of The Onion. Gotta be. There's no way that it is not a joke. A sound that makes me turn my head? If I was a criminal, I wouldn't be turning my head for anything! Not even the sweet sweet melodies of "chusssh chusssh chusssh". Ridiculous!
-------
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I don't know, I got 3 karma points for it... and now I am maxed at 50....
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
The new sound could also rid everyday life of one of its embarrassing moments, when everyone in a room searches for their mobile phone when just one rings.
And at a new embarrassing moment, when the entire room is unable to resist turning to face your crotch.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I thought I was doing everyone a favor and I didn't know about the google cache.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I hate to sound like a killjoy but that kind of noise is exactly the sort of thing that screws up microphones - it's hard for a computer to filter it out. The brain does so well but I don't think our filters are that good yet. If this noise is everywhere - sirens, other people's phones, etc etc, then every time you are on your mobile and go near another source of this noise it's gonna hose your conversation completely. Mmm, call waiting - hang on, I have to answer that or you can't hear a damned thing I am saying for "HISSSSSSSSSS". That'll be useful - NOT. CB
Error 404: There is no spoon
I am sure we already have amubulances with the noise on .... You still get the siren (its load and gets attention) but inbetween there is the white noise and it really does help you locate where the siren is coming from.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
I remember that Carl Sagan once noted that all mammals are atuned to noticing the sounds of giant reptiles.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
Yes, but we won't really know how effective it is until it's in widespread use. If people get too used to it, the sound may lose its effectiveness. (Especially if it's used in annoying, non-emergency devices like cell phones.)
Right! Great Idea! Now we will have a siren that will make everyone that's driving a car look in that direction, in fact they wont be able to resist looking into that direction...
;>
I can just imagine now... "Oh it's the siren, where it is.. and you're looking around to spot it and by that you wiggle your steering wheel a little, and everyone on the road is doing that...
Greeeaat!!....
---------------
I never wanted to go anywhere. I'm happy here...
The Sig, the sig
The components for voice annoucement are certainly inexpensive enough at this point that a smoke detector can say "Fire! Fire!" or cell phone "Telephone call", "A message has arrived", or whatever. About a year ago, one of my alarms went off; I couldn't tell if it was a fire, carbon monoxide, or a burglar; they all sound similar (especially when awakened at 3am).
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Also, the sound is more like spray-painting. The schusss schuss description makes it sound like a multi-tone sound, but it's not. It's just a burst of white noise. Perhaps a better sound for outdoor use would be a large duck quack, since they are not supposed to have an echo. That way, you'd be sure to know what direction it comes from, because you'd have to be within the line-of-sound to hear it.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
This thing uses loud white noise. White noise isn't new, by any stretch of the imagination. It's really a new application of something old. I do find myself wondering if we'll start becoming desensitised to white noise after a while if this becomes commonplace, though - even if it's a harsh noise.
Will we need to start migrating towards pink noise and brown noise in future to get the same effect? :-)
now I will go to a movie and not only will an annoying cell phone sound go off... my brain will pinpoint it and draw my attention to it. I think you can save this sound for the emergencies thank you very much.
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
It's been tried before; Harley tried to trademark their engine sound. There's a rather in-depth paper on it here.
____
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
For you South Park fans :)
(Brown noise makes you defecate uncontrollably. For you non SP fans.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Hear "chussh chussh chussh", turn around and you're blind. More information about these cruel weapons here.
--
Sound of five dropped coins
Turns the head twice as fast as
Chsssh of rustling leaves
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
and this story describes how they arrived at the sound...
ahh the wonders of leeds' search engine...
What's worse about this new tone is that if the sound really is as compelling and attention grabbing as they reckon, then it will become life-threatening if it is not applied in a conservative and controlled manner. Why? Well can you imagine if every gizmo manufacturer jumped on this bandwagon... a world filled with devices that all sound the same and that you can't resist paying instant attention to as soon as they ring! A cacocophany of distraction that would be really inappropriate in most situations I can think of, and potentially life-threatening if you happen to be driving at the time.
Treat this sound the same way you treat dialog boxes that pop up over the top of everything else and which don't let you continue with other tasks until you've acknowledged it. You wouldn't want ALL your communications to arrive that way would you? And who decides which messages are consistently so important that they need an express channel directly into your mind?
The idea is interesting in a cyborg kindof way, but I sense the potential for arrogant abuse if it ever catches on.
-OzJuggler
Life's a buffer; you can only get out of it what you put into it! C:-)
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
I've seen a TV program on "the sound". It didn't sound much like chussssh, though. It sounded like a loud burst of low-frequency tones. The idea of it there was to place a sound generator under a surveillance camera. When you cross a certain point, "the sound" plays, and the subject (yes, this has been tested) tends to localise it. In doing so, they look at the camera. This prevents people from hiding their faces from surveillance cameras. This worked only when they were not told about it. The scientist himself, who knew, could stop himself localising but only by consciously thinking that he knew what it was.
There is a link to an interview with a video clip lower on the page.
Nice clip, educational.
Chussssh chussssh chussssh is not really the sound. It is just pulses of white noise. Definitely less harsh than a simple buzzer. Niceties include varying the pulse speed depending on how close you are to the exit, etc.
Pulses of white noise have a better chance of being directional and cutting through the other background noise in an emergency.
They are really just navigational aids for humans. I do not think sirens are going to go any place for a while
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
How? There's more than one 45-degree v-twin out there.
They're not as common as 90-degree v-twins though. Probably why Heskeths and Ducatis don't shake the fillings out of your teeth after 5 miles...
I tried to get a rectangular bear for months
From this article at Means of Escape:
Prototype sirens were constructed and fitted to emergency vehicles. The "broad band" noise they emitted resembled the sound of television interference. On its own, the new noise would be unfamiliar, so it was interspersed with traditional wailing sirens.This BBC article reproduced at Sound Alert (the company 'creating' the sound) suggests that the sound may be akin to rustling leaves.
My guess, combining those sources: the sound of rustling televisions.
If it is actually put in all these different devices... how long do you think it'll be before we automatically tune this one out, too? Living in New York City, we learn to tune out a lot of annoying noises... like the ubiquitous multi-tone car alarms.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Posted to missingmatter yesterday... Slashdot is so 24 hours ago...
Have you ever deer hunted or do you go on walks in the country? Often a sharp quick whistle is all it takes to stop varmin dead in their tracks.
Although this doesn't always work for deer, it has occasionally worked for deer. It almost always stops rabbits, squirrels, and birds.
What you do is let out a sharp whistle as soon as the said varment is spooked, as it is running away. You'd be amazed how often the creature stops in its tracks and turns to look at you. Of course it might start running again after it notices you, but try it.
The article makes it sound like the chussh-chussh-chussh does something similar to humans. I think this might endanger more lives than it would save.
Keeping
Now what are people going to do to tell people their phone is being noisy?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
This stuff sounds quite interesting but I have to bring up the question of whether general use will deaden reactions over time. Familiarity can be a very powerful force, especially in these sorts of circumstances.
Remember when the "new" emergency broadcast sounds came out and they were so blaringly different that you couldn't help but notice them? Remember the first time you heard a 28.8 modem connection being made after upgrading from your 14.4? Now it is commonplace and almost "pre-filtered" upon hearing...
Does anyone have any research on this aspect of the "new sound"?
Incidentally, when you drive into NH on a highway from Massachusetts, you see signs that say "Please drive with courtesy, it's the NH way." You don't see those signs when coming from the same highways that stretch into Vermont and Maine.
One of my friends thought "Yeah, right" when she saw that sign. By the time she got to my little college town, she was convinced. 20 minutes later.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Pardon me for not having a link, but supposively there are field trials going on in Great Britain where emergency vehicles are equipped with sirens that alternate between making their siren noise and emitting white noise to provide a location pinpoint. Since many people can't locate a siren when they first hear it and hence move out of the way, they hope sirens equipped like these will reduce response time.
I saw this on television though, so this trial may be long over.
Ok, I agree with you on the broadband thing. Pink noise is just "smoother" than white noise in that all the frequencies are represented at all times. White noise is "chunky" in comparison. white noise, pink noise through a sonogram. See what I mean?
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Yea, they do look blue. If your eyes work at least half right, you can see that the white noise has "splotches," while the pink noise is evenly blue. I have a better idea, instead of trying to argue with me, do some research. I'm sure numerous other people will say you are wrong too.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Ok, look. I ran white noise through a sonogram. Then pink noise. Look at them and then tell me if I am wrong.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Something tells me this sound is going to, well, sound like "Pink Noise." Pink noise is spectrally-ballanced; it contains all the frequencies from about 20Hz to 20KHz (or whatever range the audio engineer chooses). Pink noise is very "ear catching" due to the fact that the sound is so broad-band. They probably just applied an envelope to the sound and said they came up with something new. We'll just have to see.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
I knew that description sounded familiar. The door sound from Star Trek. And it must work, I just watched an episode, and sure enough, people were facing the door when the sound occurred.
They might have problems patenting a sound from a 60's TV show.
Here's a WAV file. For best results, repeat 3 times.
I can totally see myself in a smoke filled room and running towards the chssh-chssh of freedom only to run into a broken steam vent.
How many people have to die from horrible steam burns before we stop this madness? HOW MANY!
This
Static. That's what I've always called it. Static. White Noise. Broadband sound. Whatever. It sounds like radio static. You can't help but turn towards it because it anoys the fsck out of you.
I thaught his was demonstraited over a year ago as a replacement to the standard Woop of the emergency vehicle sirens (which you can't determine direction with). The idea being that a woop is a single frequency and the brain cannot determine the direction of the sound, where as the white or pink noise has the spectrum of frequencies and is so easier for the brain to decode direction from it (like a human voice you can tell where its comming from usualy)
It was demonstraited on Tomorrow's World in the UK, they combined old siren and new so you know its an emergency vehicle so you got a "DE DA DE DA CSHH DE DA DE DA CSHH"
-- Vagnerr - (www.vagnerr.com) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Now as opposed to them just disturbing your listening to the movie, you'll be forced to look away from the screen too.
And I bet, as with the animals, they start running again as soon as they notice you ;-)
(just joking, no offense) :)
Yup, it was trialled a few years back by the ambulance service in the UK and is still used in London, in combination with the normal siren, as it's next to impossible to tell where sirens are coming from.
I belive the theory is that white noise doesn't reflect anywhere near as cleanly as toned sound will, so you don't get put of by the echoes.
Next time you hear an ambulance siren, if you're in the UK, you may hear a loud cacophony between every few siren cycles - this is, in practice, just very loud white noise.
cmclean
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
Yes it is. Haven't you ever heard a police car or ambulance using this sound? It cuts in when swithing between faster and slower signalling. They have been doing it here (in Sweden) for a couple of years now. I think 'Illustrerad Vetenskap' (or maybe 'Lexicon') wrote about this for as long as five years ago.
Many offices I've worked at already have problems with phones being left on desks, ringing and annoying others. Imagine how much worse it would be with everybody in the cube farm having an instinctive reaction to turn and look at -every-single-ring-. I'll buy a sledgehammer to deal with the problem.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
I don't think that white noise would be the only sound that would be easy to localize. Imagine an alarm that played the Mac Davis classic "Having My Baby". By sheer survival instinct alone, I think that you'd be able to pinpoint that sound immediately---but of course with the express purpose of running away from it...
I think the whole point of selectable/customizable ring tones is the fact that users can make the phone their own, to fit their own personality, and considering 75% of my school population carries around a Nokia 5160, it's a Very Good Thing that they're not all ringing the same tone.
_ __
I liked the phones best that you could program in your own tones... I'm sure people could provide linkage to sites dedicated to such melodies. Nothin like the Simpsons theme letting you know someone's calling.
_______________________________________________
Great. Freaking wonderful even. Now we get to experience the joy of listing to that damned "cha cha cah Chia!" commercial song and having us unable to resist it. Changing it to "chusssh shusssh chusssh Chia!"
Of course now when our phones ring they will have embedded in the ring the sound. Our car horns will be made more noticable. So will your:
Car alarm
Door ajar alarm
Alarm clock
Home alarm system
Microwave timer
Doorbell
Fire engines
Ambulances
Crosswalks with disables sounds (I wonder if blind people will "look" to the sound as well?)
Fast food restaurant timers
etc, etc, etc...
I should become a rap star and sample the sound into something really lame, like a rap version of "Over the Rainbow" or something. According to this guy, you won't be able to ignore it. It will be more obnoxious than [insert currently most annoying song here].
Better yet, perhaps I should go into medicine with a specialty in whiplash treatment.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
Anyways, here's an explanation of how their new sound works.
It's the Internal Walkman, according to Project Galactic Guide (http://www.galactic-guide.com/articles/6R54.html) . The Internal Walkman can be a source of frustration, especially after a trip to Disney World, where upon leaving you keep deliberately smashing your head against creosote covered telephone poles trying to rid the endless replaying of "It's a small world after all" on the Internal Walkman. The only way to rid your mind of such torture is to listen to something even worse, e.g. the "Popcorn" song.
What's even worse is when jackass radio commercial producers incorporate siren sounds into advertisements ("WEEEOOOWEEEOOOWEEEOOO THE SALE AT BIG BOB'S CAR LOT IS SO HOT WE HAD TO CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!!!!!") and you pull over to let the invisible fire truck go by.
The cell phone ring has replaced fingernails on a chalkboard as the most annoying sound in a classroom. I'd like to see cell phones incorporate small analog buzzers. A 300-400 Hz "meeep" is much better on the ears than a hollow, tinny, high frequency piezoelectric squeaker. Actually any lower frequency sound would be more easily pinpointed because it travels through objects that would muffle or reflect high frequency sounds, e.g. clothing. I once had an old pager whose vibrating motor broke loose from its mount and it rattled loose inside the case, making a razz like the buzzer motor in the old "Operation" game. I found that sound to be just as easily heard yet less annoying than the beeper screech.
According to The CSound Book (http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/fpage/pub/ csbook/csbook.html), pink noise is noise in which the power density decreases 3 dB per octave with increasing frequency (density proportional to 1/f) over a finite frequency range. Each octave contains the same amount of power.
By "more safety to the user" do they mean the tone is less alarming to the person with the phone, or that people won't beat the crap out of them anymore when Take Me Out To The Ballgame starts playing in the middle of a good movie?
http://www.premierhazard.co.uk/sirent.html(Java version) http://www.premierhazard.co.uk/sirentnj.html> (non-Java version) The sounds are from Premier Hazard, a licensee of the sound.
That's the sound of shagging a badger.
But wait, it's not April first any more...
Oh well.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
It rather makes we wonder just how much attention people pay to what's going on around them while they're driving. Sure it's not always easy to _hear_ where a sound is coming from but that's why we have eyes. You hear a siren, look around and - oh, there's the fire truck. Most folks seem to develop tunnel vision as soon as they step into their SUV.... Pingu --- Everything in moderation, including moderation
Everything going chusssh-chusssh-chusssh might overload the mind as to what's important, it's true.
.wave of Sandra Bullock or Nicole Kidman saying seductively, "Over here, I want you now." That'll turn the heads of men (and women too, fearing a rival.)
Why not, instead, have a
Or why not use a fart? It has the property of turning you 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
After reading this article, and another linked to from a reader here, the sound is discribed as both a "chuusshh" and a sound that had a broad range of tones and pulses... similar to that of a waterfall.... which is extrodinarily easy to pinpoint. this makes me wonder... is this the same sound that some home theatre receivers use to test output levels? on my Pioneer VSX-09TX, which is a surround sound receiver, you have to configure the loudness and positioning of the various speakers you have hooked up, and so it outputs a test tone that sounds remarkably like the one being described....
It is well known that most wild animals can pinpoint sound far more accurately than humans; it's not our forte as we haven't had to do it to survive for god-knows how long. As such, I don't think one can compare human reactions to a wild animal.
"The article makes it sound like the chussh-chussh-chussh does something similar to humans. I think this might endanger more lives than it would save." :-)
I like to think of myself as a bit smarter than a wild animal, but by all means catagorize yourself as you see fit
Apparently this sound has some overwhelming draw to attract a human's attention and the best they can describe it is as "chusssh-chusssh-chusssh"?!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1450000/audio/_14547 37_xn0130238_.ram
"War makes me sad." - Me
Paging (your full name here)...
Please pick up the black Courtesy Phone hanging on your belt...
Paging (your full name here)...
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
Come to New York City and see how many people will get out of your way when they hear your sirens and see your lights. When I negotiate the streets going lights and sirens people seem more preoccupied with finding that parkiing spot or a yellow cab picking up his fare. I have people kick my bus (that's slang for Ambulance) or yell at me because they find my siren offensive. One guy even spit at me. Meanwhile my partner in the back trying to set up a lidocaine drip or put an inch of nitro paste on a patient is hoping I don't jam the brakes on full because some knucklhead cut me off. The sirens at the hospital where I work are many dB's louder than the FDNY trucks, and people still don't give a shit. Hope it's not your mom in the back one of these days. Last guy I t-boned said it was my fault I hit him 'cause I was speeding. FYI I was doing 25 in a 30 zone to a cinfirmed cardiac arrest.
The article says that the sound "initiates a reaction that makes you instantly turn towards [it]". If this is true (which I doubt) and the sound forces its way out of your cell phone while in heavy highway traffic, what happens to you and your vehicle when you turn your head from the road to the phone?
oh beautiful.. so, in a crowded room, instead of getting hit with that array of annoying songs/rings/whatever, we'll get bombarded by the sound of a hundred TVs transmitting snow?!?!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
"Anyone hearing the broad-band sound should immediately know the precise location of its source"
Yeah, the URL is right over here.
No, wait, here.
Oh, hell...I don't know.
Hmmm...I guess it doesn't work so well at providing its location as they think :-)
Imagine having the sound sligtly off centre channel on headphones. Initiating a chain reaction that causes your head to spin, much like in the Exorcist.
FWIW, this, or a very similar system has also been tested for use on emergency vehicles here in the UK.
With normal sirens its hard to sense the direction, so they've added a burst of white noise.
The new sirens emit a wip-wop-CHCCHHRRR sound and (Having herd one) I can confirm it works very well.
Get the EULA T-shirt
If you want the room to turn and look at your phone record "free money" and play that as your ringtone.
Philip
Signatures are broken
the deer get the proper permits, hunt during november or early december. limit of 2 bodybags per season.
It's at uspto.gov; yes, they do talk about white noise, among other "embodiments". The claims are pretty broad. Of course, sounds like these have been used before in alarm clocks, signals, and horns; giving a scientific explanation for its utility doesn't warrant a new patent.
Made you look....*punch*
When you're out in public... HOW ABOUT LEAVING YOUR DAMN CELL PHONE ON VIBRATE!!!! I don't care what the sound is, if you're at a restaurant or a movie or something, I don't want to hear your stupid little phone. Whatever the person is calling about, I'm sure it's not so important that you have to disturb EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU.
... just a little note...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
A bloody dieing alarm clock to me...
. . . hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming I would very much like to try that. If anybody knows any links of a sample sound maybe? when i play it on my computer i'll have my back turn on the speakers, and if i turn around and look at the speakers, without knowing/wanting then it works. otherwise it's just another troll story.
I saw this being tested on the TLC channel about a month ago. It basically sounds like short quick bursts of TV static. I think it is more like shhhh shhhhh shhhh.
It increases your sex appeal! Yes, all you Slashdotters can now have women feel irresistably drawn to your presence! Just set your pager to "chush", give yourself a page when your signifigant-other-to-be is around, and watch what happens ;)
This is a little dumb of me, but I think it's still valid.
Reading the title, I thought "The Safety of Sound"... I was hoping that Slashdot had finally touched on the subject of whether the loud bass we feel at a concert or club is damaging at the cellular level (ie giving us cancer by shaking our DNA apart!)
Any comments? Please keep it within this thread, as it is a bit offtopic.
It sounds very much like a spray can of raid... which could possibly mean it will not only let me know where my phone is, but will also repel ants!
They should make them all the sound of one hand clapping.
Then we could reach enlightenment every time we answer our cell phones.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Since apparently "it is impossible for people who hear the sound not to turn and face" this sound; if two or more of these phones go off simultaneously, your head will just tear clean off.
Vibrate is the way to go folks. It's only really problem for people that keep their phones in a bag (such as a backpack or purse).
The main complaint I've heard is that if you turn most phones to vibrate, then if you're in the other room you'll never hear it. My phone (a Motorola Timeport, which is begining to show its age) offers a "Vibrate, Then Ring" option which I adore.
In fact, it seems as if this feature could be extended. How about vibrate+a very faint ring on the first ring, followed by a slightly louder ring, finally capping out at normal ring volume for the last one?
Wonderful. Now when the jackass behind me at the movies leaves his phone on, I'll be biologically forced to direct my attention to the ringing sound behind me. This is the worst thing to ever happen in the history of mankind.
-s
Yup. I'm a whorin' for kharma. I used Loop Recorder and CoolEdit to capture, isolate, snip, and amplify the sound from the TV clip on one of the referenced websites. You can find an MP3 sample of the sound formerly known as white noise but that is now known as chusssh-chusssh-chusssh at: http://www.endwell.net/sound-1.mp3 I'm sure there's some psycho-acoustic stuff happening with a sound like this, especially directionally, but I'll leave me cell phone on vibrate, thank you. As for alarms, emergency beacons, etc. I'll leave it to the experts to decide further that it actually does what it appears (sounds) to do...
So now when some prick's mobile rings in the middle of peak-hour traffic the 2 or 3 people driving cars in the vicinity will all take their eyes of the road. That's just great!
Never know though... Maybe while they're distracted they'll hit one of the bank robbers trying to make a run for it
:)
I wonder if this is our innate reaction to the hissing sound of a snake ?
I read an article before about putting white noise in between breaks in police, fire, and ambulance sirens. It was for the same purpose, so that people on the road could more quicky pinpoint the direction of the noise and react accordingly. chussh-chussh makes me think of white noise. You wan't a sound sample.. unplug the cable from your tv. :)
It's called vibrating. Look into it.
IIRC the sirens use broadband sound to allow you to pinpoint them better locationally, whereas this "new sound" uses narrowband sound. It is only the narrowband which gets the involuntary response so you wouldn't look at the direction of the siren...
I'm sorry if this has been posted before, but i'm tired and there is a *lot* of nested posts on this topic, too many to read through at work :)
Anyway, a UK TV programme showed footage of this "new sound" in action. They stuck a speaker on a security camera and got people to walk past it without knowing the location of the CCTV or anything about the test. Every time a PIR detected a person walking by it played the sound and everyone instinctively looked in the general direction of the camera, catching a good image of their face. They then tested people who were aware of the system and told them not to look up no matter what - and still the same knee-jerk response to the sound.
They then got some people to watch a horror/action film and do the same walk to try to emulate the sense of apprehension that store thieves may be feeling while stealing. Response to the sound was even greater and a better image was captured.
Finally they put the same set-up "in situ" in a shop and got a policeman who specialised in catching shoplifters and the techniques they use to avoid being caught. He had no idea about the speaker, and successfully avoided getting a good face image from any conventional cameras, but *still* got caught out by the new camera.
It all comes down primitive parts of the human brain interpreting the sound as a threat, making them turn to face the danger. This is similar to being in a wood at night and hearing a twig snap.
Oh, and a lot of ambulances around where I live use the broadband sound to allow you to pinpoint where they are - it really works
----
----
Please, I are begging you! To save Dmitry from teh jail!
If this was added to the windows sound (Big groan) when they wanted you to Reactivate thier product
So now I guess we're back to mid-nineties cellphone sizes to make up for the extra battery pack and the subwoofer?
-- Spoken like a Dane - redirect all complaints to the Queen.
About a year ago TLC (that is, The Learning Channel) had a special on regarding people's problems with driving. One of the things they cited was the fact that people couldn't avoid emergency vehicles because they were unsure as to where the sound was coming from. On the show they showcased this noise on a modified police cruiser. If you're interested, the noise is pretty similar to the static noise you'd get on a television or radio, really, perhaps static with some sort of flanger applied.
The sound is just an up to date application of the sharp hissing sound used almost universally by people to attract attention. Here in the UK it is not unknown (though considered pretty rude) to make a "psst" noise with the lips, tongue and teeth to make someone look your way (think secret agents in dark doorways!). I spent 3 years installing science equipment and PCs in Ghana and found that the commonest way to get peoples attention (and considered perfectly acceptable) was to make a similar "tss" noise, then beckon to the person you want when everyone looks your way. All these sounds share the broadband hiss that through a variety of mechanisms, presumably to do with the shape and dimensions of the outer ear, and the fact that some frequencies are attenuated more by passing through the head than others, are highly directional. It can't just be attenuation through the head though, since (as the Tomorrow's World episode referred to elsewhere) it is also directional in the vertical direction - i.e. if the sound is coming from above you, you'll look up.
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
Yeah, it is not a new phenomenon at all.
As well as this white noise siren being trialled in the UK by ambulance services a few years ago, it is actually being used by a few regions, and there are still rumors about it getting installed nationwide.
There are many benefits
- you can tell the direction of approach easily
- it is an irritating noise, THAT is why people look
- They have been able to insulate the ambulances more easily from that noise, therefore making a journey with full sirens on far less stressful for the patient as it is barely audible within the ambulance itself.
So what is all this rubbish about a 'new noise'? even if the noise talked about in the article is a slightly different noise to white noise, it is definitely NOT a new idea!!