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Material Turns All Surfaces into Stereo
An anonymous reader writes "According to James Bullen of NXT, 'The UK ministry of defense was experimenting with a way to dampen the sound in helicopters and developed a honeycombed material that did the opposite — conducted sound.' Cambridge-based NXT christened it "SurfaceSound" and arranged for it to be crafted into Toyota cars, Gateway computers, Hallmark greeting cards and more.
NXT is working on ways to put the technology to use in touch screens that promise to be part of a new rage in 'natural interfaces' for computers, mobile telephones, televisions and other electronic devices.
Toyota has SurfaceSound in the head liners of four of its car models.
NXT recently made a deal with greeting card giant Hallmark to use the technology in 'big cards with big sound' when opened, Bullen said."
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
I want them to make me a suit of that stuff!
Now possible!
Just wrap the FlexiHalo (tm) speaker around your head and listen in infinity.0!
proud caffeine whore
Stereo means there are two sound sources. Not to say that one couldn't put two separate panels (which I presume is the case with the car systems) to handle each channel, but in the case of the greeting cards it's gonna be monaural.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
That's great, I've always hated mono surfaces. So flat and everything.
With any luck, in a few years we will be able to turn six surfaces into 5.1!
Not turning any surface into a speaker.
For that you need something like these speakers from Thinkgeek, which stick on to any surface and make that surface the speaker.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Great, now we can finally conveniently announce the demolition of the Earth when the time comes!
Now I can give Earth a demonstration of the greatest announcement system in the history of the universe before I demolish it for that hyperspace bypass.
To the UK government and NXT for turning what would have been a money-sucking venture (in the near-term application, assuming war/conflict/helo-deployment NOT inevitable) into a commercial spin-off and apparent success.
(No, I'm not dissin' DARPA, I just don't know of/haven't seen in the new an intended DOD effort that nearly-IMMEDIATELY spun off into commercial success. I don't doubt they exist, I just have to Google them...)
Now, I wonder if those sound conductors will work in love chambers... gotta keep the neighbors awake...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Just imagine a Hawaiian shirt that not only looks loud but is loud.
The British Army now has ideal way to deliver the World's Funniest Joke to the battlefield. They are reportedly looking for a large number of English to Persian translators willing to work in isolated conditions.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
I misread the headline as "Material Turns All Surfaces into Sterno"
which, although a boon to the catering industry, would be somewhat troubling.
Fortunately, they're just talking about NXT's cool speaker transducers that have been around for quite some time now (yawn...). Given that the laws of acoustics do still apply, even if the speaker is flat, the "cabinet" needs to be properly designed to produce good sound.
I've got a portable speaker that incorporates the technology. Logitech mm28 -- I think I paid $15 for it, although it's discontinued now. Although it does sound fantastic for a tiny $15 speaker, the bass is a bit lacking, and the thing distorts all to hell when the volume is turned up. To be fair, it can be driven *quite* loud, which seems to indicate that the transducers are quite powerful, and that Logitech forgot to include some sort of volume-limiting circuit. It's more or less the most simplistic NXT design you could imagine, as it's a rounded rectangle panel with an NXT transducer a third of the way from either edge.
All in all, with a bit of refinement, it could be turned into a great product, and it's easy to see how there could be many applications for this. Even though it might not produce audiophile sound (at least, not as lotitech had it configured), I imagine that it could be quite handy for "hiding" speakers in various locations, and could definitely be used to improve the sound quality of mobile phones. It also avoids many of the pitfalls of other "flat panel" designs.
Poking around their website reveals that they've got a pretty nifty portfolio of technologies backed up by some hard science -- they've even applied the same technology (in reverse) to produce touch screens.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
uh...didn't you mean the vogon destruction of earth rather than takeover? you know, something to do with a hyperspace bypass? :>[/pedantic bastard]
ed
Ministry of Defence? I would have thought it would be developed by the Ministry of Sound...
the Vogons have been able to do that for a long time and do wirelessly.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Sure, taxes are great, but I'd like to see how much cash the military makes on the amazing tech their scientists come up with.
Between stuff like this (mil-spec gear modified for use in civilian life) and the medical breakthroughs they've created over the years, if the military were a standard corporation, they'd have cash coming out of every orifice not used for firing projectiles or enticing teenagers to join their ranks.
NXT has been flogging this technology for years. This is nothing new but every few years they seem to get the media to think it is.
. waterwingz
Ah, if only it were true. The underlying technology was patented by Britain defense researchers in 1991 and licensed to Verity Group, a big audio company, in 1996 (see the end of this article for a readable history here). Verity has been the company funding the money-sucking venture all this time. Even with their resources, it's taken them ten years to get this technology into the market in any big way. NXT is hardly a poster-child for quick commercial spin-off success.
all the useful ideas come from either porn or war
Table-ized A.I.
I dread pulling up at a traffic light next to a baser, especially once they start coating their cars with this shit. I'll have to coat my car with the same material, sample their noise and play it back a half-wavelength out of phase so I can cancel it out. If that doesn't work, plan B is the monster truck lift kit.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
of BES speaker fame. He used to make speakers out of styrofoam. They sounded great. His demo was using a door as a sound conductor. Honeycombs are nothing new at all. Look up 'geostats' to find them.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I can see this at Christmas.
*Little Jimmy* Here you go grandma!
*Grandma* Why thank you Jimmy you're such a
{100 decibels} WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!...
*Grandma* Augh!
[THUD]
*Little Jimmy* Grandma? Grandma? Why'd you go to sleep?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is a pet peeve of acousticians everywhere.
Sound and vibration are DAMPED.
DAMPENING is for dishtowels.
Ut Tensio, Sic Vis
Ah, screw Alice. (When she grows up a bit, anyway;) Think of the packaging for those interactive porn games.
;)
In fact, if you can make a bit of paper play sounds, heck, who needs the game there? The magazine could be its own game. Rub the girl in the photo there and hear her moan, rub her there and she... umm... sorry, gotta go to the bathroom. I'll... uh... do some brainstorming and get back to you later
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Imagine the scene: thumper car stands at traffic light, with the sound turned up high as usual - windows are always down on those sort of cars because they have to make sure everyone hears just what a horrendous lack of taste they have.
A very large "I have loadsamoney" car silently pulls up beside it (say a Rolls or something). Guy in the back never even lowers his newspaper but says something to which his driver nods politely and pressed a button.
Front window adjacent to the thumper silently slides down, and a beautiful engineered speaker pops up - it plays one single, long violin note. All very classy.
The violin note resonates with every piece of glass in the thumper car. It all breaks, the turned down windows shatter inside the doors, the windshield spiders then crumbles, even the driver's watchface goes to pieces and his sunglasses shatter into pieces that are only saved from falling by sticking to his goatee.
Speaker pops back down while the window quietly slides shut, light goes green and the car glides forth, leaving a disassembled thumper behind..
Yum..
Insert
I know you were trying to be funny, but this would finally be a card my grandfather could have a chance of hearing.
Shawn's Tech Articles
That's good, because honeycomb speakers are big...yeah yeah yeah! They're not small...no no no!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.