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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?"
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.
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.
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
(And I thought my Nokia singing "Oops, I did it again" every time I get a call was bad enough...)
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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:
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A new sound ... that is less intrusive yet easy to pinpoint
Cellphones that fart. That's just great.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
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.
http://www.soundalert.co.uk/research.htm
I still can't find actual audio files, though.
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Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
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.
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
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!
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
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?
"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.
"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...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?
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
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
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.
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?
"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 :-)
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