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Projecting Sound 'Inside Your Head'
Gregus writes "Projecting 'hypersonic sound' has appeared here before, but NY Times Magazine (FRRYYY) has an in-depth article with its lauded inventor and its applications. John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right now." Plus this story includes screwing with Mall Walkers!
It's good to know that I'm not crazy and someone has been telling me to start those fires...
It seems like many people in the industry thought this guy was a crack-pot, and didn't believe some of his theories. However, he seems to have been able to prove himself and turn many skeptics into believers. This really does have some neat, and disturbing applications.
Yea, great, mucic for the voices i my head to sing along with. Quite badly I might add.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
its not a dupe, its an echo ;)
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
Ok this is a new low for the NY Times, using pr0n to attract readers. I mean, how horny do you think we are?
With this technology, they can directly beam marketing into your head, and it's not like you can ignore it like you can print/t.v/radio ad's by switching the channels, or averting your eyes. Now they have the ability to force you to listen to it, whether you want to or not.
While research has proven that subliminal messages are, from a marketing standpoint, mostly ineffective, one has to wonder about the advertising possibilities of this type of technology.
Sure, there are the obvious "private advertising" applications mentioned in the article, but this kind of thing can be very interesting - and very frightening.
Picture - you're driving along a road during rush hour. Suddenly, your skull registers the squeal of tires and a massive crash. Or, walking down a sidewalk, a quiet voice inside your head whispers that you're all going to die.
Like any new technology, this one sounds fun, but is going to require some degree of regulations and control to avoid abuse.
This has the potential to be the worst invention ever. How would you feel about being forced to listen to advertisements while riding the subway? You can't turn it off. 20 minutes of commercials, or event (shudder) popular music.
I'm sib888, and I approved this comment.
Does anyone happen to have heard this one? What's so freaky about it?
Dyolf Knip
Hello, "Minority Report".
... what Field of Dreams was about?
"transmitting" sound to other people? Sounds like a copyright circumvention device to me.
Is this a dupe, or is this a different technology? The previous story, if I recall, had multiple speakers to focus on a single point. This one seems to have only one. Anyone else remember?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Till some artist thinks its funny and puts a recording of fingernails on a chalkboard on their CD... and projects that sound inside your head.
will it make floor-shaking bass sounds when I listen to music in my head too?
...can someone find a mirror? I've tried, but...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
For those that looked at me funny while I was wearing my tin foil hats: Apolgies will be accepted in verbal and written form from 6AM to 11:30PM.
Your apologies will be accompanied the cursory "I told you so"
~Z
March 23, 2003
The Sound of Things to Come
By MARSHALL SELLA
No one ever notices what's going on at a Radio Shack. Outside a lonely branch of the electronics store, on a government-issue San Diego day in a strip mall where no one is noticing much of anything, a bluff man with thinning, ginger hair and preternaturally white teeth is standing on the pavement, slowly waving a square metal plate toward people strolling in the distance. ''Watch that lady over there,'' he says, unable to conceal his boyish pride for the gadget in his giant hand. ''This is really cool.''
Woody Norris aims the silvery plate at his quarry. A burly brunette 200 feet away stops dead in her tracks and peers around, befuddled. She has walked straight into the noise of a Brazilian rain forest -- then out again. Even in her shopping reverie, here among the haircutters and storefront tax-preparers and dubious Middle Eastern bistros, her senses inform her that she has just stepped through a discrete column of sound, a sharply demarcated beam of unexpected sound. ''Look at that,'' Norris mutters, chuckling as the lady turns around. ''She doesn't know what hit her.''
Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ''whispering tubes'' to convey their dour messages.
As Norris continues to baffle shoppers by sniping at them with the noises he has on this CD (ice cubes clanking into a glass, a Handel concerto, the plash of a waterfall), some are spooked, and some are drawn in. Two teenage girls drift over from 100 feet away and ask, in bizarre Diane Arbus-type unison, ''What is that?''
Norris responds with his affable mantra -- ''In'nat cool?'' -- before going into a bit of simplified detail: how the sound waves are actually made audible not at the surface of the metal plate but at the listener's ears. He doesn't bother to torment the girls with the scientific gymnastics of how data are being converted to ultrasound then back again to human-accessible frequencies along a confined column of air. ''See, the way your brain perceives it, the sound is being created right here,'' Norris explains to the Arbus girls, lifting a palm to the side of his head. ''That's why it's so clear. Feels like it's inside your skull, doesn't it?''
In the years Norris has demonstrated HSS, he says, that's been the universal reaction: the sound is inside my head. So that's the way he has started to describe it.
Just to check the distances, I pace out a hundred yards and see if the thing is really working. (I've tried this other times -- in a posh hotel in Manhattan, in another parking lot in San Diego -- but HSS is so often suspected of being a parlor trick that it always seems to bear checking.) Norris pelts me with the Handel and, to illustrate the directionality of the beam, subtly turns the plate side to side. And the sound is inside my head, roving between my ears in accord with each of Norris's turns.
The applications of directional sound go quite a bit beyond messing with people at strip malls, important as this work may be. Norris is enthusiastic about all of the possibilities he can propose and the ones he can't. Imagine, he says, walking by a soda machine (say, one of the five million in Japan that will soon employ HSS), triggering a proximity detector, then hearing what you alone hear -- the plink of ice cubes and the invocation, ''Wouldn'
the most abused technology in history. I have visions of teenage drive-by "screamers" hitting pedestrians with targeted high-decibel music as a prank.
What about sonic weapons? Is there any reason why a rigged emitter couldn't be built that would emit a signal loud enough to rupture the eardrums of a specific target? Or at the very least, cause excruciating pain?
I think the inevitable barrage of targeted advertising will be the least of our worries with this new technology.
While the technology is cool and perhaps one day will be refined for home music consumption, its ability to be used as a non-lethal incapacitating weapon is scary. What could a corrupt government do with these devices. Would public protests against the government eliminated by these devices? (under the normal guise of controlling the crowd and responding to protesters crossing police barriers.)
The bit about different people in the car only hearing their own music is cool. The annoying pop machines and, even worse, PRODUCE ISLES, are just awful. I mean, I can look away from an obnoxious billboard etc, but there is no way to stop this! Not even plugging your ears, since it is IN your head!
Also, using it for emergency sirens? One of the biggest problems with CURRENT emergency sirens is that it is VERY difficult for the human ear to tell which direction it is coming from, because of the specific frequencies used. If it projects the sound INTO your head, there will be no way in HELL to know where it is coming from.
Another problem with using it for sirens is that it is important to hear the siren well before the emergency vehicle reaches you. This system appears to be LOS, so how well will that work? It would only work if the ultrasonic sounds can penetrate through surrounding houses and so on, which would be FAR worse than current sirens, as the walls of your house wouldn't dampen it! And if it CAN'T penetrate through your walls, then I don't see how CARS wouldn't block it, too; It is VERY important that people inside of cars be able to hear the siren!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
didnt make me log in... maybe i'm just lucky
It turns out, if they direct high levels of bass into your head, it will explode. The military however is very please by this discovery.
Just use these:
:-D
username: annoying
password: annoying
works on a lot of website.
By this i swear i'll bash the first vending machine that tries to lay that kind of trick upon me... God how i hate commercials. this just is not right. im already crazy enough by myself thank you
I want everyone to be very aware of the fact that there will be people out there that will be VERY VERY disturbed by this technology.
This must be one of the worst and frightening inventions I can think of (right next to vx gas).
If this sort of thing happened to me, I would gladly stop in my tracks, figure out where this is emanating from, and quickly smash it to pieces.
No freakin way is someone going to beam crap into my head. The possibilities for abuse is ASTRONOMICAL. God, the North Korean government would love something like this.
-Anonymous Coward
Can we slashdot soundwaves now?
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
Fry: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?
Leela: Of course.
Fry: But, how is that possible?
Farnsworth: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. [He holds up an egg and injects it with liquid. The egg explodes.] Although in reality it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.
Fry: That's awful. It's like brainwashing.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The real winner will be the engineer that develops a practical system to counter-act such a device. A small device such as a watch that can detect the signal and then send a destructive wave to cancel the signal would be good.
or whatever that game was where you shot at the people using calls such as 'im naked, and i have a pizza..' imagine the hunters expressions after 6 hours in a tent.. :-)
At least the war on the environment is going well
I think there are certainly some uses for this technology. One of the best examples was a museum. When you stand in front of a painting, you and you alone hear a description of it. For others, I'm sceptical. For example, most of the soda machines I see are tucked away. Generally, if I'm close enough to see the machine, its because I want to buy a soda. It seems a little senseless to advertise to someone who is in the process of buying it. Other examples he mentions, such as kids in the back seat of a car are easily handled with current technology -- headphones. I don't see any added benefit.
They explain the concept on how to disable the enemy with this technology. Take the reverse baby crying sound and crank up the output signal for the speaker. What's to stop someone from buying the speakers in the future and doing the exact same thing to civilians/police? I'd hate to see this type of technology in the hands of terrorists. Imagine sonic bombs taking out city blocks (given that the inventor says 1% output could nauseate the author for hours, what do you think 100% output would do)?
No one ever notices what's going on at a Radio Shack. Outside a lonely branch of the electronics store, on a government-issue San Diego day in a strip mall where no one is noticing much of anything, a bluff man with thinning, ginger hair and preternaturally white teeth is standing on the pavement, slowly waving a square metal plate toward people strolling in the distance. ''Watch that lady over there,'' he says, unable to conceal his boyish pride for the gadget in his giant hand. ''This is really cool.''
Woody Norris aims the silvery plate at his quarry. A burly brunette 200 feet away stops dead in her tracks and peers around, befuddled. She has walked straight into the noise of a Brazilian rain forest -- then out again. Even in her shopping reverie, here among the haircutters and storefront tax-preparers and dubious Middle Eastern bistros, her senses inform her that she has just stepped through a discrete column of sound, a sharply demarcated beam of unexpected sound. ''Look at that,'' Norris mutters, chuckling as the lady turns around. ''She doesn't know what hit her.''
Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ''whispering tubes'' to convey their dour messages.
As Norris continues to baffle shoppers by sniping at them with the noises he has on this CD (ice cubes clanking into a glass, a Handel concerto, the plash of a waterfall), some are spooked, and some are drawn in. Two teenage girls drift over from 100 feet away and ask, in bizarre Diane Arbus-type unison, ''What is that?''
Norris responds with his affable mantra -- ''In'nat cool?'' -- before going into a bit of simplified detail: how the sound waves are actually made audible not at the surface of the metal plate but at the listener's ears. He doesn't bother to torment the girls with the scientific gymnastics of how data are being converted to ultrasound then back again to human-accessible frequencies along a confined column of air. ''See, the way your brain perceives it, the sound is being created right here,'' Norris explains to the Arbus girls, lifting a palm to the side of his head. ''That's why it's so clear. Feels like it's inside your skull, doesn't it?''
In the years Norris has demonstrated HSS, he says, that's been the universal reaction: the sound is inside my head. So that's the way he has started to describe it.
Just to check the distances, I pace out a hundred yards and see if the thing is really working. (I've tried this other times -- in a posh hotel in Manhattan, in another parking lot in San Diego -- but HSS is so often suspected of being a parlor trick that it always seems to bear checking.) Norris pelts me with the Handel and, to illustrate the directionality of the beam, subtly turns the plate side to side. And the sound is inside my head, roving between my ears in accord with each of Norris's turns.
The applications of directional sound go quite a bit beyond messing with people at strip malls, important as this work may be. Norris is enthusiastic about all of the possibilities he can propose and the ones he can't. Imagine, he says, walking by a soda machine (say, one of the five million in Japan that will soon employ HSS), triggering a proximity detector, then hearing what you alone hear -- the plink of ice cubes and the invocation, ''Wouldn't a Coke taste great
Qapla'!
Maybe the mental environment, as technology is getting more and more advanced, is becoming something we have to actually take an active role in. Maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak, and instead of just crazy black-masked anarchists smashing starbucks windows, we'll have soccer moms and white-collar workers taking baseball bats to asshole ad-machines. Imagine how YOU would feel, if some coke machine rained messages directly into your head every time a car or anything tripped the motion-sensor across the street. oh, to dream... ben
I'm deaf myself, and I wonder if this thing could work a lot better than ordinary hearing aids.. would be seriously cool, and be much cheaper.
I'm too sexy for you.
You could've hired me.
No problem getting chicks now. Just play "Look at that stud, isn't he sexy. You KNOW you want to sleep with him, badly. Don't wait. Take him now!"
Wow, that's your definition of 'good' headphones? Any pair of crap 1$ headphones will do that. REAL headphones will project a soundstage, and unless you have a hollow head with people in it, a soundstage should be *outside* your head.
Try some real headphones, like Sennheiser or Staxx.
Grado, I mean please. The Bang and Olufsen of headphones...
while [ $YOU == "fucker" ] ; do
/bin/laden /dev/null
mv
done
I officially declare this the unfunniest attempt to make a UNIX joke I've ever read.
Congrats, Jacques.
actually, a really old primitive set of monophonic headphones will make the sound appear to be in the exact center of your head
The only thing great about this is the fact that this has a better range, but headphones and speakers already have the ability to place sounds in certain places.
My headphones the Grado SR80s can place the sound anywhere all the way around my head, including the inside my head sound.
State of the art speakers can already place sound in different areas, look I dont care if they put ads on these new speakers, I'll have my headphones on and they will be blocked out.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Chalk another one up for Elanor White and the schiz^D^D^D^D^D Veterans of the thousand psychic wars.
Oh, Elanor, I KNEW you were right, but now I have proof! I'd better start some of your DIY projects NOW! (search on "Diary #134" for her plans to make a cap to simulate EW weapons from common household items!)
Like Elanor says: "Skeptics: You must explain ALL occurrences taken together as a complete SET, or you have explained NONE of them." Go, Girl!
(/chuckle)
"These are not the droids you were looking for."
Yes, innovation is baaaaaad.....
Please explain how you would go about projecting sound at a person 100 yards away with your cheap headphones.
---
The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
But I expect them to really keep their 'projectors' and speakers really protected... Because I can tell you that i'll break or block them...
I was recently travelling, and had a layover in Pittsburgh, PA. Waiting 2 hours for a plane to take off is the Pitts (pardon the pun ;-)), but what made it infinitely worse is that I was sitting next to the end of a conveyor belt. The airport had 3 alternating audio messages, stating that "You are nearing the end, please watch your step". These repeated constantly over and over again for 2 hours!
Luckily I had headphones (at least until my laptop ran out of battery.. ugh!).
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
This technology doesn't suddenly make it possible for them to force you to listen to things on a subway. They could do that already with loudspeakers. The fact that they don't, and that so many mass transit systems ban radio et al unless you use headphones, suggests that this invention won't change this.
Uh. D00d, you just overwrote /dev/null. Now your system won't boot.
Asshat.
I've read a couple of posts that suggest the reader would likely hunt out and smash the offending advertising emitter using this technology. I'd suggest that you'd even have the legal right to do so!
This technology creates the offending sound 'in your head'. Litteraly, the sound is created by the resonating waves heading your eardrum or bones in your ear. This is as close to abuse as you can get, imho. You can't turn away or tune it out.
It's one thing for an ad to sit there waiting to be looked at, or a background noise which are human brains are accustomed to tuning out. It's yet an entirely different thing to have sound resonating in your head which you cannot stop nor have really much sense of the emminating source.
Just think of the problems caused by billboards on the freeway... 'Um, excuse me, while your driving by at 60 mph, would you consider a nice refreshing
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
This must be a good example of the old "wow, I came up with a strange idea that worked, so I guess I have to build the device now"-law. It's silly. Why aren't there an organization called "inventors with social conscience" or something like that.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law
Back in high school I used to drive around with friends shining a 2 million candlepower spotlight into bedrooms of people we didn't like, or ringing the doorbell and waiting until they answered the door to blind them. I imagine that I wouldn't have been nearly as bored with a sound "spotlight" to bother people.
chillax137
"That's right, Bob, a very impressive rally from the Sand Monkeys. Looks like we might have a ballgame here after all. At the hand of the first quarter, the score is Cowboys 50000, Ragheads 12. Stay tuned for more action, we'll be right back."
Nail on blackboard
White noise
Perfect sine tone, but damn loud
'You Suck' over and over again
N-Sync
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
LOL,ya..uh huh wait'll i get my hands on one of those sound projectors.
not only will you hear what i want you to hear but you can bet it will contain the fruits of my own research into low freq.sound and brainwave entrainment in the alpha range.
hope i dont have to steal a coke machine to get one,but imagine if you will:
" now watch this"flyneye said with a boyish grin on his face as he aimed ths silver plate at the blonde on the sidewalk.the blonde had just walked into a column of erotic sound and subliminal suggestion coupled with brainwave entrainment.slowly her hands crept into the wasteband of her jogging suit while the other cupped her ample breast."she never knew what hit her" said flyneye " now just watch as i go strike up a conversation with her"......
it'll be cool kinda like x-ray specs but with interactive results.im getting my tickets for the miss america show now LOL..........
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Hmmm... As far as it being used on subways I think that could actually be kind of a good idea. There could be two types of subways: one that's you pay for (like you already do) and you don't have to listen to any advertisements and one which is free in which you have to listen to these advertisements. For people that are broke or just really cheap the latter would be a good choice to have.
Its fascinating how this guy comes up with such easy and common sense concepts without in-depth calculus analysis or any of those engineering proves one might go through before constructing a prototype. He is one of those guys like Einstein who just works by his instincts and achieves the results. Who would have thought of a club where you dont have a 30 kW sound system and you dont hear the beats thump the walls?> Or even better - now you dont need to build nightclubs in residential or abondoned places.
Ah, and that would not be annoying for the non-intended audience, in what way?
Read the article and get a clue what the system is about.
---
The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
I'm sure he'd reply, but his system is probably down for the moment.
The other direction, the steerable microphone with strong off-axis noise rejection, has been around for years. I have one, and it's not a big parabolic reflector; it's four small microphones and a DSP. Combine that with the ultrasonic speaker and you have a hands-free phone that's useful in office environments. You could probably mount the microphones on the speaker, because the outgoing signal is ultrasonic until the impedance of the air downconverts it. So the outgoing audio can be filtered out from the microphones.
Now the RIAA can restrict 'collaterial hearing' from your car stereo..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
neither did I.
We have one of their units at work, and have been using it since the fall. It really does work - you're able to point sound at someone 20 feet away, yet the person standing next to them hears nothing. Also, any sound reflecting surface (concrete walls) that the beam is aimed at effectively becomes the sound surface itself. The only downsides to the unit is that bass is nonexistent - high frequencies only. Also, volume is fairly limited, but it works well enough. I believe we paid about $800 for the device, so it's not that terribly expensive.
It's really fun to aim it out the window of our building at passing people below. (God speaking to them, etc)
ProTools has been declared a terrorist weapon. Thousands of bubblegum pop musicians are being rounded up and shipped to camp x-ray...
This is Jesus, Kent.
You believe that? You've been lied to. Go listen to some Totem Acoustics System 1s, and tell me again how your Grado POS headphones can compare?
triggering a proximity detector, then hearing what you alone hear -- the plink of ice cubes and the invocation,
''Wouldn't a Coke taste great right about now?''.
If you recognize the face of a person within the "target" area you could target a personal message.
From a Coke machine to a known customer: "Hi Bob, It's Tuesday! You always buy a Coke on Tuesday!"
From a hacked Coke machine at a sleazy motel: "Hi Bob! It's a Tuesday! You always bring your secretary here on Tuesday!"
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
This gadget would be worse as a barker. It will transmit that sound hundreds of feet down hallways anoying all the people there. Can you imagine dozens of these things all trying to get you to buy shit?
Currently we think of people who destroy public equipment and hear voices as crazy. We won't if anyone is dumb enough to use one of these things.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It isn't enough that we have the raging cattle noise of endless traffic, engines roaring, tires squealing, horns honking, drivers' groaning, the people who can't seem to sit still and have to babble all the time, especially into their cellphones, the buzz of planes overhead, and all the other noises that drown out the relaxing sounds of nature and valuable silence, visual noise bombardments in the form of billboards, TV advertisements, and other such idiocy, but now we're going a step further and attacking our minds seemingly directly with yet more noise?
The Amish and Catholic monastic life suddenly seems a lot more attractive.
I opt out of the noise pollution.
http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html
(Includes data sheet, white paper, FAQ, etc...)
Well one things for sure if this kinda technology falls in the wrong hands there will be catastrophic effects. Imagine using pyschology with this kindof technology, something like a silent assassin that delivers only subliminal messages to his victim (someone in power most likely). What would he be able to do? Of course that depends on the person. I guess it could be used in alot of positive ways example enjoyment. But imagine all the other possibilities. Like thought focusing, the ability to actually see clearly pictures in your head with the use of directed frequency. Sorry i'm just babbling. L8rz.
I'm sure someone here has a recording of a baby crying and the ability to reverse it and put it into an MP3.
I've gotta know what this sounds like.
Headphones are like any speaker, they are designed for a different sound. The BEST home theater setup wont be the BEST for music, and vice versa. Sennheiser, while good, are only good for their kind of music. Music with delicate highs and a full frequency range. Mostly classical and the like. Awesome soundstage. Flat frequency response. However I wouldn't own a pair of Senns because I don't listen to that kind of music. Not only that, but they need a LOT of power. Normal headphone jack? no good. You need a dedicated $200+ headphone amp(the DSP Sennheiser sells is NOT an amp, btw) Grado cans on the other hand sound much faster and alive, great for rock, or any kind of faster music. They also have a better sounding bass. Listen to Rush with the Sennheiser HD-600(most expensive non-electrostatics they make) and then listen with the Grado SR-60(cheapest open-air Grado makes). TOTALLY different sound, and despite the lack of bass in the Grado low-end models, I bet a donut you'll like the SR-60 better. The SR-225 is probably the best value, and some say best sound of the SR line, but I went for the 325's. the RS line uses wood so a smoother sweeter sound, I can't wait to get some myself. Downfall to Grado: soundstage. Almost none. Its a very in-head sound. With Senns you'll sometimes wonder if you left some speakers on by accident. High-end Grados still sound perfect and smooth, but you know their headphones. Even so, Senns sound so dead on the wrong music, a pair of $50 sonys would be just as good. Do electrostatics like Stax sound better than normal dynamics? well, I've never tried any myself, but most people who spend like 10k on headphone setups still don't buy Stax. Best soundstage headphones going around right now? People say the AKG K1000, but they sorta cheat, the drivers are held away from your ear. Funny looking things. btw, did you know you can make your own electrostatic headphones at home? I believe you use clear plastic wrap to produce the sound.... 30 Helens agree, Grado is Great.
So, can someone explain, in high-school-physics terms, how this might be possible ?
>|<*:=
Noise always requires physical movement. Oscillating movement has destructive potential.
Whoever owns one of these gadgets that is closest to my grandmom when her next aneurism hits will be sued for millions. Oh, the pain and suffering she will have endured! It will have practically destroyed my life! I'm gonna be rich, rich I tell yas! I'll be taking bids starting at 75% of winnings from interested attorneys beginning next week.
I found a baby crying WAV at http://ladywing.crosswinds.net/wavs.html.
Without editing it, you can play it backwards in the Quicktime Player by pressing ctrl-[left arrow], and ctrl-L will loop it.
Anyway, it actually sounds pretty much the same played both ways.
Guess I should learn to use the html paragraph tag in /. forums.
doh'ith!
In fact, there may or may not be any echoes at all! You know that whistling sound from amplified noise feedback? Well if there is no sound, there is no feedback, and there is no whistling!
Please, spanish audience to the left, and english audience to the right..
love slashdot. populate it. use it. abuse it. hate it. kill it. miss it. stop following links, they only kill servers.
Bart: Rod! Todd! This is God!
Rod: How did you get in my head?
Bart: Whaddya mean, how did I get in your head? I created the universe! Stupid kid.
Todd: Forgive my brother. We believe you.
Bart: Talk is cheap. Perhaps I'll test a guy's faith. Walk through the wall! I will remove it for you.
Rod: [thud]
Bart: Ha ha ha.
Todd: What do you want from us?
Bart: I got a job for you. Bring forth all the cookies from your kitchen and leave them on the Simpsons' porch.
Rod: But those cookies belong to our parents.
Bart: Ugh! Look, do you want a happy God or a vengeful God?
Todd: Happy God.
Bart: Then quit flapping your lip and make with the cookies!
Todd+Rod: Yes, sir!
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
"Kent, this is Jesus. You've been a naughty, naughty boy."
Between this and that plane with the huge laser mounted in it, doesn't it seem like the US military is milking the 80's movie Real Genius for ideas?
Reading the article, this inventor sounds like the "I'm crushing your head" guy from Kids in the Hall.
Look at you! I'm beaming sounds into your head! Hah hah hah!
How would this be different than, oh say, someone lacing something in the pulbic domain with LSD (it probably won't kill anybody outright, it's undetectable, disorients users.) Seems like good old Orwelian terrorism. (Terrorism (from Webters): Systematic use of terror (cause of extreme anxiety) especially as a means of coercion.) If there are any lawyers reading this - do us a favor and find the people this twerp has harrased and get a class action going. Ditto the post on finding countermeasures, and fast.
Unbelievable that "personal countermeasures" are going to be required just to walk down the street!
"It's really fun to aim it out the window of our building at people passing below..." Laugh it up next time you get poisoned. See my post on assault. ferra....
Agreed it could be put to some great uses. But as the creator and others (posting here) have proven, it's far more likely to be used as a weapon than as an aid. I'll be learning everything I can about it to come up with a counter.
Bullshit. If one of the pilots were a relative of yours, you'd be grieved by the loss, but proud of the sacrifice.
Unless you're a whiny, selfish prick, of course.
I have the Grado sr125s, great cans, for the price. I audioditioned the Sennheiser...680? I think, or 580? I cant remember, but wasnt impressed for the price/performance ratio. Lots of people find the grados uncomfortable, but I wear them 7-8 hours a day at work, no discomfort. Grados reminded me much more of my home Klipsch rig (Heritage Klipsch) in their forwardness, I wouldn't trade them for all the Sennheisers in the world.
I guess you would be proud to sacrifice your loved ones to the incompetence of army personnel. Yeah, right.
But then again, you probably do nothing except jacking off to patriotic websites all day, so you don't really know what pride and sacrifice is.
I would be proud to sacrifice my loved ones in a valiant crusade against evil. Yes.
And you're right about the jacking off, but the websites aren't patriotic. Unless pussy is patriotic. Which I guess it is. ("Pussies for peace!") So I guess you were right after all. I do nothing all day except jacking off to patriotic websites.
Just like hitting somone over the head with a bat does. Hopefully the law will step in and liability of owenrship/production of such devices will curtail abuse. But that won't keep it out of the hands of the cops/shock troops...
BTW what are the military applications of this? What's to stop them from making someone's head explode? I think the unstoppable noise would probably be the most annoying. How do you put brainplugs in?
Any technology can be put to destructive use (passanger airplanes). However, What this author (and seemingly others, who have posted here) has already done should be grounds for criminal prosecution. One thing to have a sign at the front of the museum saying "Understand that if you stand within 5 ft. of an exhibit you will be recieving ultrasonic waves which will vibrate your body to create an audible description of the work..." Quite another to harass passers-by with random noise without explanation. I hope the creator gets his mansion taken away.
Anybody have some links to a DIY plans on this? ;)
We can only hope the "valiant crusade against evil" thing is a joke. Really, I can't believe you're actually buying it. I for my part have not heard that much bullshit talk on TV since I saw a Hitler documentary (it had lots of speeches, too).
Just saw some "progress report" on the war in the news. They mostly tried to ignore the questions about friendly fire and stressed that at least Saddam didn't use any of his imaginary weapons of mass destruction yet. Is the public really that dumb/ignorant?
I think a fellow at MIT has been doing exactly this for at least five years. Here is his company's home-page: http://www.holosonics.com
Is this patent infringement are these actually different?
A joke? No. Which part do you not buy? The part about evil? That's okay. I'm glad you can't recognize evil. That means you've never seen it.
No, the public isn't dumb. We understand that this is a war. Why are we not talking about friendly fire? Because we only have heard of one instance of it, and we're not 100% sure yet that that's actually what happened.
And the fact that you think Saddam's weapons are imaginary just shows that you're a fucking idiot. There are "imaginary" weapons lying in the Kuwaiti desert in smoking pieces after being shot down by Patriot missiles!
Too bad you didn't do time.
Yeah, right. I'm sure you have seen things so "evil" in your life that you just have to believe it. Like for example the guy that always stole your lunch money in school.
Concerning friendly fire: Did you hear about the guy who threw a grenade into an American command tent in Kuwait? He was supposeldy American! Great army you have there.
And a scud missile with a conventional warhead is hardly a dangerous "weapon of mass destruction". If it was classified as such, why does the military tell that they STILL HAVE NOT FOUND any hard evidence that these weapons actually exist? And how many were scuds shot down? FOUR! OH MY GOD FOUR MISSILES! THE UNIVERSE IS GONNA DIE!
I had a similar idea a while back, just with a little more sinister application. It involved using two ultrasound sources with frequencies differering by something like 7Hz (cant remember exactly, but it was supposedly the resonant frequency of the gut), aim it at someone and make them feel distinctly queasy. Thankfully for all my classmates, I never actually got to try it out (I'm not sure if the guy in the article used the same method, and whether my idea would have worked), but if he were to transmit the sound at the natural frequencies of certain objects to that specific object, some pretty spooky effects could be generated, and nobody would hear.
(Time to go set up a haunted house I think.. smashing wine glasses, voices in peoples heads, strange feeling in the stomach - 'must be a ghost passing through me'). I'd make a fortune!
It's always amazing how many retards claim to be speaking on behalf of the "American people". Keep going you moron! If the army hadn't rejected you because you were too fat and ugly, you would maybe know by now how much "fun" a war actually is.
Let's roll!
Just when you thought it was safe to buy that amplifier bundled with 6 speakers and a subwoofer, the next thing you know - you need a new amplifier cause they'll be a speaker added for beaming stuff right into your noggin.
This is getting insane. Anyone know some companies that produce sound-cancelling hardware I can invest in? I have a feeling about something...
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I immediately thought of Real Genius when I read this. But none of you young'uns would remember that movie anyway...
My understanding is that they were not the illegal SCUDs, but a medium range weapon that would most likely be considered a defensive weapon. Sorry to butt into your pissing match of a thread.
"But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?"
"It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal."
"Superliminal?"
"I'll show you. Hey you! Join the navy!"
"Uh, yeah, alright."
"I'm in."
The Simpsons is the sum of all wisdom.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You're wrong. The UN said that missiles with a range of more than 90 miles are illegal for Iraq. These babys flew more than 110 miles. They're either Scuds or al Samouds or al Fatahs or al Husseins, all of which are illegal. Saddam Hussein is a fucking liar, and every reasonably intelligent person in the world knows it. Except for the idiots who refuse to believe the facts right in front of them, of course. There's a word for those kinds of people. They're called "crazy," and should be either ignored or, if they make a nuisance of themselves, shot on sight.
That's it? That's all you've got? Boy, you're dumb.
Does this story leave anyone else with a craving for a Mokie Coke?
This space available.
It's called a reaaaally powerful headphone amplifier...
DO a search on www.headwize.com, a guy named Apheared once built one that let his Grado SR80s be heard through a steel door in the middle of New York City.
It's a portable amp that ran (runs?) off 16AA batteries... (ok, maybe not so portable!)
This
That's it? That's all you've got to answer? Boy, you're dumb.
.... if Spike Lee had one of these.
...it sends a "destructive wave" to destroy the transmitting device!
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
News just in: "US Army fails to invade Germany because they were unable to find Berlin on a map!"
What else could I have said? I was accused of being "fat and ugly." What do you expect me to do? Say "nuh-uh?"
Marines? Aren't this the guys that are trained not to use their brains anyway? I doubt they are able to differentiate a map from, say, a Whopper with cheese.
I've seen quite a few documentaries about the marines which also included interviews with some of them and have to say the old "Americans are dumb!" argument fits perfectly here.
I could tell the dipshit doing 45 mph in the fast lane to GET THE *&%$ OUT OF MY WAY!!!!
Damn it, you ARE fat and ugly. I expected you to lose some fucking weight and get an education so you'd be able to do something else besides shoveling in potato chips and "being patriotic" while watching the war on TV!
Spinal tap could use this technology when they're on tour!
It's very special, because, as you can see--the numbers all go to 11. Right across the board. Eleven, 11...
And most amps go up to 10?
Exactly.
Does that mean it's louder?
Is it any louder? Well, it's one louder, isn't it?
It's not 10.
You see, most blokes are going to be playing at 10--you're on 10 on your guitar, where can you go from there? Where?
I don't know.
Nowhere!
Exactly!
What we do, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? You put it up to 11.
Eleven.
Exactly. One louder.
Why don't you just make 10 louder, and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?
{confused} This one goes to eleven.
Spinal Tap Rules!
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
I've got the feeling that they'll use those Mentos ads as both advertising AND as a battlefield weapon....
Burma?
Except that the guy who threw the nades into the tent was actually AN AMERICAN SOLDIER.
So I can send messages like:
- Hey dude, your tire's flat
- Go home, or learn where the accelerator pedal is
- You moron, speed up
- Do you know how I can get to Chestnut St. ?
- Yo mamma's fat
and direct it to a car.
I'm more of a cookie man. Potato chips aren't my thing.
Ever thought of dipping them?
No, not the cookies.
The NYTimes article describes the protoype used as being very portable.
flash forward.
Can you imagine a protester using this to tell a politician what they think about the politician? or dozens of protesters.
Or aimed at Bill Gates at Comdex. or any other celebrity.
more subtly done, just a quiet voice wispering in the ear "you're evil" or something. Even with glass in between, the glass should resonate nicely.[?]
This will turn being a celeb into a living hell.
I can envision the havok teenage boys with these things could do.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The article is pretty thin on the details - does anyone here know or have some idea how this technology works? The article makes some vague references to ultrasound, does it maybe utilize interferance patterns or something?
Ignoring the whole advertising thing-not because it's not a ghastly prospect, just because everyone else seems to have touched on it already-I think the government having this is just as bad. Consider, folks protesting something just plain wrong-not war maybe, but, I dunno, baby eating. And these are popular protests that the government is ignoring, so they escalate to civil disobedience, ala civil rights protests. Do we really want the government to be able to cripple things like that?
On the other hand, I suppose it's entirely likely that the Supreme Court might ban these on an invasion of privacy basis. We can but hope.
Okay. We're dumb. We're also kicking the ass of every sand-monkey we can find. And don't think we won't turn left at Baghdad and take care of a few other problems that have been pissing us off of late.
There are many saying how it's an invasion of personal space, etc. Talking to the people who presented it they pointed out how a loudspeaker blares out over a large area. This system would be projected only in the area near a vending machine, store front window display, TV screen in a store, etc.
In a store with a lot of TV screens hawking different products each one would have it's "sound zone" which you could easily leave.
--Chief, is that you??? == Agent 86
Check out:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0081249
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
I remember reading about this some time ago. Hmm, possibly within the past year.
At any rate, an interesting device. But looks like it has far too many non-beneficial uses - narrow cast marketing (hell, we have too many adverts already), protest/crowd control (where did that constitution go off to?), weapons (like we need more), 'suggestive control' (ok, more adverts), etc. While the beneficial uses are too few - rescue vehicle siren (can the sound go through metal & glass and distract someone from an +800 watt car audio system?), 'private' audio without disturbing others (yes, but it is mono or stereo at best, and anyway it has lousy bass; what are going to do - watch lifetime/oxygen channels all the time?).
Interesting, but has dubious societal benefits.
I'm sure that this 'sounds' like great tech to advertisers. It's too bad I will be forced to direct it at you at your home, work, and anywhere you go. I won't be gentle.
I have a right to silence in 'my head' and will defend that right like a crazy motherfucker hearing voices.
Got it, Madison Ave?
So now they (people with this device) can violate you person any time... Combined with audio technology you could truly injure people.
Dear old Grandma is dead, but if someone has a sound byte from her they can pretend to be Grandma talking to you...
ALSO, we have week minded people in this country that think they hear things in records and kill themselves and others...
So HOW, JUST HOW is this a good technology?
Greatoak
-"Kill the band, Kill your family, then kill yourself. Make sure you get your whole head in front of the shotgun. Thank you for calling..."
And a muslim.
Time to bust out those tin foil hats boyz!!1
It leaves no marks, or physical evidence of its use.
This part made me ill:
At first, the noise is dreadful -- just primally wrong -- but not unbearable. I repeatedly tell Norris to crank it up (trying to approximate battle-strength volume, without the nausea), until the noise isn't so much a noise as an assault on my nervous system. I nearly fall down and, for some reason, my eyes hurt. When I bravely ask how high they'd turned the dial, Norris laughs uproariously. ''That was nothing!'' he bellows. ''That was about 1 percent of what an enemy would get. One percent!'' Two hours later, I can still feel the ache in the back of my head.
There is no way to tell that the author has undergone this 'minor' attack. I'm afraid I see uses for this device like torture, interregation, and harrasment. I'm guessing that distraction at the right time (such as driving, or crossing the street) can make quick work of a political 'radical' or 'troublemaker'. 'Hearing voices' could brainwash a victim, or cause that person to commit suicide, murder or other acts, just to get the voices to stop (negative reinforcement).
Imagine yourself sitting at home alone when this device is used against you. A whispery voice calls you by name, startling you. You look around, your heart racing. You KNOW you are alone, but you know you heard something. Or did you? Convinced you were 'imagining things' you go back to reading your book or surfing the net.
"We are watching you." The voice whispers again. You jump up, terrified. Grabbing your red Swingline stapler, you shakily call out, "Whoever is doing this better fucking stop!"
Your voice seems to echo back at you as you glance around. The voice sounded like it was right behind you! You start looking around the room. Was that door open like that when you came in here? You're not sure.
Suddenly manical laughter mixed with inhuman groans and screams erupts as if all around you. Your scream and the scream in your head twist around each other as the room spins. The laughter is louder and the screaming changes to pain. You grab your head and it seems as if it is going to come off your shoulders. You drop to the floor and vomit from the pain. You black out.
Excuse my "Choose your own Adventure" writing style, but I really wanted to point out that people are easily manipulated when confronted with the unknown.
The military and police forces WILL use this, and certainly MISUSE this technology.
This device has far more potential for evil than good. *Especially* since the 'good' uses are primarily advertising.
This is the scariest thing I have read on slashdot.
i don't give a damn about this sound device
but i WANT THAT CHOPPER !!!!!
the only question now is how to raise 50k $ ????
anyone else interested for the chopper ?
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
Drat! You miss nothing!
l
"Well, 99, we are what we are. I'm a secret agent, trained to be cold vicious and savage. . . . Not enough to be a businessman."
Check out: http://www.cinerhama.com/getsmart/innovations.htm
so now make that same device target only one person. while they are walking by. from 400 feet away.
Wow.. so pretty soon you'll be able to hook up an amplifier to a soda machine and shatter the skulls of anyone who wanders by. This is going to be an interesting future o_O
Remember the personalized advertising? One machine scans your eyeball to identify you, another projects personalized 3-d ads to your eyes and ears to entice you to buy their latest product...
I know what you mean! I thought that movie was pretty cool a few years back when I saw it. I would love to have some of the tech they use in that movie, that is for sure!
Jeremy
TOTALLY different sound, and despite the lack of bass in the Grado low-end models, I bet a donut you'll like the SR-60 better.
OK, I'll take you up on that...
Ok, I like the Sennheiser HD-600 better (It makes working man sound AweSOME...)...
So, ah, make mine a maple bar.
Do you deliver?
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
Remembered it when I read the line. Great jokes. Starts off with Val Kilmer being asked if he is such and such. 'I hope so' he retorts, 'I'm wearing his underwear'. One of the few movies with ultracool nerds I can think of...
Just a thought on a possible application of this technology:
I don't know what state laws are about your hearing capabilities in order to get a driving license (it could be dangerous to have someone driving the roads without being able to hear a siren... but then again, we have teenagers blasting car stereos all of the time anyways.) but something like this might be useful. Put a microphone on the outside of the car that picks up random noise from outside and, if it hears anything like a police/firetruck siren [you don't want it to pick up EVERYthing or you'd go crazy], it could "tell" the driver about it.
Or maybe having some kind of apparatus/booth so deaf people can practice their speaking. A recording can say a word and they can try to repeat it. Talking into a microphone with a delay on the playback could allow them to learn to adjust their pitch/tone/accentuation/etc....
Just a thought. (and no, I don't know anything about being deaf or even know anyone that is deaf. This is just me thinking out loud.)
Karma: NaN
YAH! My plans of world domination using subliminal messages is now going to come true. Now all I have to do is find either (a) a really good advertising agent or (b) A crackhead 60's singer.