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Repel Bugs With Your Cell Phone
telstar writes "Starting Monday, SK Telecom Co. in South Korea will begin offering a ringtone designed to repel mosquitoes for the one-time price of $2.50. The ringtone, inaudible to humans, has a range of three feet, and functions just like any other ring-tone from your cell." Now if only there was a ringtone to repel bugs in code! Sorry, I'm full of bad jokes today.
I try to stay as far away as possible from someone with a cell phone.
Anyone use this software? Does it work? Seems like it could be apdapted to a PDA.
... if you're troubled by a bug you need to quickly find a payphone and call yourself? How will it work?
"Now if only there was a ringtone to get rid of CowboyNeal's bad jokes"
So how long until sharper image releases the bug-b-gone 2200, a $3999 DRM-crippled cell phone capable only of playing the mosquito-repelling ringtone and serving you warm Colombian java.
This ringing sound.... or the odors that attract them to you in the first place?
.unsigged
"Hey, Mike. Thank god you called. The mosquitos are really something out here, you should see them. Yowch! God dammit! Hey, do me a favor Mike? Hang up and call me back!"
By carefully re-adjustng the frequency of the tone down to a level that humans can hear and slowing the playing speed down 300 times, I have been able to determine that it's a guy's voice saying, "this person tastes like crap"
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Ehh... why would i buy a ring tone that i can't even hear?
[So convoluted *I* lost track of the joke]
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Maybe I should just leave it on top of my computer then...
Has Microsoft heard of this technology?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's just stupid.
Alice: Damn these moquitos are eating me alive. Someone call me.
Bob: I would but I'm waiting for Carl across the table to call me first, I'm almost out of blood.
Carl: Just a sec Bob, I'm calling Dave.
Dave: ahhhh..
Trolling is a art,
What good is this if it would run your battery down quickly? Better keep an eye on the meter so you have another power to call someone and tell them to bring you a can of 'Off'
Another case of mis-applied technology.
So I guess the only time you know you're getting a call is when you aren't getting bit.
What do I have to do to get a sig around here?! www.bearscanfly.org
develop a sound to repel Cell phone users.
Has anyone come up with the ringtone to keep your Boss three feet away from your desk when you are on /. ??
-- Sig
After Bush posed for photographs with his hand on an elephant tusk in Africa and climbed back into the truck, one of the elephants mounted his mate. That prompted the president to whisper something to his wife. The first lady responded by slapping him on the leg.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
Is a ringtone that repels the people who are calling.
What about a ring tone that works as an aphrodisiac? I'm pretty much the epitome of a walking aphrodisiac when it comes to women (:D) but I'm tired of playing the game. It would be so much easier to hit a button, have my phone ring, and watch her go mid-evil on my schlong.
Maybe they could also feature an add on ring for the next moring that makes her get the fuck out of my bed, cook me breakfast, blow me, leave and wipe, all memories of what happened, out like that thing in "Men in Black"?
I know...that is an AI-centric technology that is eons away....FUCK!!!
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
"The ringtone, inaudible to humans,....."
Ok, I give, how am I going to know when I'm getting a call then? Move to mosquito infested parts of the land, and wait for them to suddenly scatter?
Other than that, it's nice to see that now mosquitos will fall victim to people who just have to mess with their ringtones all the time.
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Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
once someone figured out how to combine this Purring Kitty Ringtone with its insect repelling counterpart, imagine what can truly be enjoyed anywhere in the dark?
Customers can then play the sound by hitting a few buttons on their mobile phones.
The idea is not to use it as a ring tone, simply to play it manually when you want to get rid of mozzies. If it actually works as advertised then it sounds like a decent idea to me!
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
When you can download high-pitched annoying sounds off of Kazaa...... look up Celine Dion
I hate my sig
Not at all. Inaudable beepers supposedly designed to repel mosquitoes are a relatively long-running case of modern snake oil. Any Boy Scout can tell you about the only thing that actually is effective against mosquitoes: Bug spray containing DEET.
Help us build a better map!
The company claimed that the service worked during tests. ...yes. But they fail to mention that every other ring tone repels the bloodsuckers just as well. The minor EM field generated when the phone rings screws with their sensory equipment.
Even if the ringtone format can represent tones that high, can the cellphone speaker reproduce them? Again, many speakers are only rated to about 20 KHz, because that's all that's useful for human beings.
And finally, couldn't you just make a device for about $5 that would actually do this right and last a whole lot longer on a set of batteries? Cell phones are not the right way to make a constant 40KHz (say) tone.
I'm inclined to categorize this the same way I categorize stand-alone sonic pest-repelling devices: well-intentioned but useless. Incidentally, that's the category I put normal cell phones in as well. :)
The Straight Dope has the full scoop on ultrasonic insect repellents. In short, they're a scam.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Use full strength Muskol and you'll be bite-free! (A great Canadian invention.)
sulli
RTFJ.
Does anything other than N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide(DEET) really repel mosquitos?
It seems that every time they conduct these tests (just in time for mosquito season) the only products that do anything are the ones containing DEET, and the products using citronella, peppermint oil, baby oil, etc. are useless.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
from the defeating-the-original-purpose-of-actually-hearin
Brilliant, guys. Simply stellar.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
I made that up.
Check out what Cecil has to say.
I'm not going to answer your last question, H., because ultrasonic mosquito repellers all have one thing in common: none of them work. At all.
[snip]
Some ultrasound firms say their products will also repel mice, rats, roaches, bats, fleas, spiders, and the like. The evidence to date suggests these claims are greatly exaggerated. At best they work only when used in conjunction with a concerted anti-pest program involving traps, improved sanitation, elimination of entry points and nesting places, and so on. So don't throw away that flyswatter yet.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
bug me?
Cigarette smoke works too. They didn't tell you about that in Boy Scouts, did they?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Just what everyone needs, a ring tone that is inaudible and repells mosquitoes only when the phone rings. How are you expected to answer the phone, whit until the bugs stop attacking you and decide from that someone must be calling?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
They should combine this phone with Sony VIAO's electric shock laptop (a few articles earlier.
But it should attract insects and then shock them. Then there's no need to recall all those laptops too.
http://www.inspirelight.net/
but annoys mosquitoes within a range of three feet
I annoy my little cousin, it doesn't repel him
Also, 3 FEET! That means it will protect my upper body, and leave my lower body for the wolves?
I mean, not even the average asian is 3 feet. At least 5, meaning 2 feet are getting screwed.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
You don't know many boy scouts do you?
Why not fork?
I think some smart ass cell phone employee should have all their company's cell phones emit the same frequency as a dog whistle. Just think what hell would break loose...
Seems a quick google search is all it takes... and few do it... -_-;;
Sound based repellers don't work. Period. End of story. Combine that with the fact that CelPhones' earpieces and speakers produce sound in the 20hz-22000hz range... this is being generous as most are more like 50hz-18000hz. Most, if not all of which is audible to humans. At the point where the volume is turned down below what you can hear, it ain't there.
Citronella doesn't really repel insects.
Deet does, but is cancerous. (100% deet is still sold in California, btw.)
Carbon dioxide will lure Mosquitoes... potentially away from you. Hence the dry ice in the corner of the backyard trick works.
Skin So Soft, from what I can see online doesn't repel and the brand which they later produced which they claim does contains citronella... so it most likely doesn't.
Seriously, a ringtone which repels bugs? If you're willing to pay for that, I've got a special soundfile which you can play which will repel con artsists: I'm broke. I've got no money.
Winged Power Photography
...I'll send you a wonder inaudible dialtone that repels mosquitos, bears and Jehovah Witnesses, attracts women and money, makes people on crowded motorway drive off your way, reduces your body fat and makes you forever young. Additionally it's not only inaudible - its presence won't be shown on your phone in any way so no woman will find out you used this to attract it, and no mosquito will be attracted to shining display. Call now! 1-900-...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Korean's are *paranoid* about mosquitos I mean freaking irrational.
Yeah, malaria(along with a dozen other various mosquito-born illnesses) can tend to make you that way.
The difference between here and there is that most of the mosquitoes ARE carrying something- I remember there was a travel advisory about it at one point. Here in the US, you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than catching, say, West Nile disease, which the press has been beating to death("dead bird found!" "dead bird has west nile!" etc etc.)
Please help metamoderate.
Dry Ice is the hot tip. Place a block in a remote corner of the area of your next outdoor grilling event, and you'll suffer nary a bite.
First of all, most cell phones store ringtones in a compressed PCM-like format, ADPCM, for instance. PCM sampling rates for most phones top out at around 22 KHz.
The speakers in such phones also can't reproduce high quality sound in even the ranges they are rated in, and the quality, response and dbm it takes to drive the speakers drops off considerably as the frequency goes significantly below or beyond its rated frequency response. Piezo elements could do it but those are rated for a single frequency or set of frequencies and all but the oldest phones still have them (those don't support ring tones anyway).
Perhaps they observed a different effect -- waving the phone in the air with the ring tone emmited will naturally rouse the insects.
I'll stick to bug spray and avoid the swamp lands, thank you.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Mosquitos find their targets from the trail of carbon dioxide left behind by exhaling. So I have heavy doubts about this Korean invention working at all. What does work so far are those traps with their own CO2 generators. (But even then it is not perfect.)
Those high frequency sound generators may repel mice and rats, but only for a short period of time. What happens is that their offspring will come back to re-infest the area. The difference between the off-spring and the parents is that the kiddie rodents will be born deaf. Rodents like roaches are highly adaptive. (Got that little tidbit of information from someone who used to work in the exterminator business.)
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
"Inaudible to humans" means one of three things...one, too low to be heard (in which case mosquitoes won't care, or two and three, infrasound and ultrasound, respectively. The problem with that is that a cell phone cannot generate sounds in those frequencies with any reliability...it's not designed to. Infrasound requires a huge driver, and if you've ever looked at those devices that supposedly drive away aggressive dogs with ultrasound you know what an ultrasound transducer looks like, and it's nothing like the piezoelectric speaker a cell phone contains for ringtones. This is just an example of what happens in countries with more relaxed consumer protection statutes.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/proprom.htm
q uito.org/mosquito.html
"Products and Promotions That Have Limited Value for Mosquito Control: Electronic Repellers"
"Hand-held electronic devices that rely on high-frequency sound to repel mosquitoes have become surprisingly popular in recent years. Prices range from $9.95 to $29.95 for units advertised in magazines. Heavy-duty repellers that claim to keep away spiders, hornets, and rats, in addition to mosquitoes may sell for more than $100.00. The manufacturer's rationale for using sound as a repelling factor varies from one device to the next. Some claim to mimic the wing beat frequency of a male mosquito. This, supposedly, repels females who have already mated and do not wish to be mated a second time. Others claim to mimic the sound of a hungry dragonfly, causing mosquitoes to flee the area to avoid becoming the predator's next meal. Most of the electronic repellers on the market hum on a single frequency. Top of the line devices allow for adjustment by the user to achieve the most effective frequency for the mosquito causing the problem. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that electronic mosquito repellers do not prevent host seeking mosquitoes from biting. In most cases, the claims made by distributors border on fraud. Mated female mosquitoes do not flee from amorous males, and mosquitoes do not vacate an area hunted by dragonflies. Electronic mosquito repellers do little in the way of reducing mosquito annoyance."
Plus, more mosquito info (like you care):
http://www.njmosquito.org
http://www.mos
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
no but the scout master always took me out for "special" walks in the woods to get away from the mosquitos.
As someone who recently had West Nile I can honestly say that it was a pretty shitty (no pun intended) evening of cramps and fever. I'll take that anyday over paranoia and semi-constant exposure to the nasty potentially cancer causing chemicals in the majority of bug sprays. Oh, and once you've had West Nile you can't get it again.
I live in Ontario and get to watch the constant commercials and news stories about the great threat of the mosquitoes. I do understand that certain segments of the population (the old, the young, the sick) should take precautions, but I don't like the fact that people are dumping chemicals in all of the standing water around to cut the mosquito population. My neighbour was dumping misc chemicals into the rainbarrel that he uses to water the lawn that his children play on. Paranoia kills common sense.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
you will see that "the company claimed that the service worked during tests." What is "the service"? The ability to download a special inaudible sound wave and play it by hitting a few buttons on the mobile phone. That is the service they are providing, and its not too hard to believe that it worked during testing. Unfortunately they are not providing you with an anti-mosquito service.
you need to quickly find a payphone and call yourself? How will it work?
Easy. Use a second cellphone with a ringtone that sounds like this.
(Of course, you could just call yourself directly with THAT cellphone, but hey, we're trying to be convoluted here, right?)
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.