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Projecting Sound 'Inside Your Head'

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the voices-will-have-to-make-some-room dept.

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!

14 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. I saw this on CNN a while back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. This is scary.. by phelddagrif · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:This is scary.. by MattCohn.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not only that, but if you read deeper, the Navy is using this as a weapon.

      In reality, HIDA is both warning and weapon. If used from a battleship, it can ward off stray crafts at 500 yards with a pinpointed verbal warning. Should the offending vessel continue to within 200 yards, the stern warnings are replaced by 120-decibel sounds that are as physically disabling as shrapnel. Certain noises, projected at the right pitch, can incapacitate even a stone-deaf terrorist; the bones in your head are brutalized by a tone's full effect whether you're clutching the sides of your skull in agony or not.

    2. Re:This is scary.. by blakestah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ear plugs will block it.

      So will headphones with a hard external shell.

      If someone puts sound someplace in public, there is really no way to avoid it now. The difference is, with HSS, you can have fine spatial control over the exact position of the sound. If anything, there should be a lot more quiet in public, and perhaps more sound in very specific locations.

      I kinda like the idea that you could, in principle, use a hard surface to totally reflect the sound without loss and direct it at someone else.

      A mirror, if you will.

      Or, you could use a waveguide to do it.

  3. This will likely become... by iiioxx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. while the technology is cool by McDrewbie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.)

  5. conversely by rigelstar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. Seriously cool by SexyAlexie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  7. Re:Grado SR 80 by iggymanz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    actually, a really old primitive set of monophonic headphones will make the sound appear to be in the exact center of your head

  8. Applications by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This thing has lots of uses. Kiosk systems. Trade shows. Phone booths. But the killer app may be audio (and video) conferencing.

    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.

  9. Got one at Work by mistermund · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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)

  10. You can license HSS technology here by GuNgA-DiN · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Check this site out:

    http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html

    (Includes data sheet, white paper, FAQ, etc...)

  11. Applications? by mivok · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!

  12. The first time this happens to me by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    there will be one less HSS in the world, and one less operator.

    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?