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Echolocation For Your Cell Phone
sciencehabit writes "In a few years, an iPhone app may give you a 3D layout of a room as soon as you step into it. Researchers have developed an algorithm that spits out the shape and contours of complex structures (including Switzerland's Lausanne Cathedral) using data compiled from four randomly placed microphones. The technology, which relies on the same sort of echolocation bats and dolphins use to navigate, could be used to develop more realistic echoes in video games and virtual reality simulations and to eliminate the echo from phone calls."
Someone's been watching The Dark Knight...
Lucius Fox will use it, but under protest.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Well, this will be fun. Bruce Wayne is probably the only one that could sue Apple for patent infringement and win.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Won't somebody think of PRISM?
That is all.
Now all I need is some ninja training, and I can become a real life Batman!
Want to bet Google tries to use this to do indoor mapping ?
why do you think Steve Jobs faked his death?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So it will only ever be an iPhone app? FFS, just say mobile app unless there is something that will truly limit this to an iPhone.
Other than being cool, what would the point of this be? If it's light I can see with my own eyes. If it's dark, there are already flashlight apps that cause light (instead of sound) to be projected, and I can still see with my own eyes instead of looking down at my screen. If I'm blind, I can't see the screen anyway. And yes, I read the last sentence in the summary, which doesn't really seem to have anything to do with giving you the layout of a room.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they didn't accomplish something and I'm not saying it's not cool, I'm just saying it's useless in the real world.
Sounds like right out of a military R&D lab.
One of these on a reconnaissance robot and you get the 3D layout, as well as everything moving.
A rat-sized robot.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
More details than just the story can be found in the supporting info of the publication, which includes pictures of the test setup and the resulting spectrograms. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/06/12/1221464110/suppl/DCSupplemental
From the web page of one of the authors: Acoustic echoes reveal room shape (pdf).
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Can it find the typical contours of my %$*&!@ car keys!
I *gasp* read the actual document (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/06/12/1221464110.full.pdf+html) and it sounds like some pretty complicated work. It relies on a bunch of separate microphones to listen in an absolutely silent room for the exact same noise and the echos of bounces. Since you know where the microphones are in relation to each other you can compute when the initial sound and echos hits each microphone and from there reverse construct where the sound must have originated and the echos tell you what it bounces of off.
The math is a bit beyond me after being out of university for so long, but it seem similar to transliteration using in GPS where thanks to very fast sensor readings you can figure out where you are in relation to a fixed signal. To compute the shape in the in a noisy environment I wonder if you can use a "known" sound where you could listen for only that and filter out the regular noise. Either way the computation involved would be impressive but maybe not for the elusive "5 years time" computer.
It would be cool to have something like this in my fishing boat where instead of a dot on the screen I could get something that tells me where the fish are and what kind too. :-)
Maybe you could arrange them in a golumb ruler layout to further speed up processing... *sigh* Making websites pays well, but I miss computers science.
No image of the 3D reconstruction to look at?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
*hurls iPhone at mugger instead of Batarang*
"Do'h"
*slinks away with cape between legs.....mugger shrugs and picks up phone*
mugger: "Cool!"
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
An app to use your phone to find things? What I really need is an app to help me find my phone.
Yes, yes, I know all about WheresMy* - but that doesn't help when the batter is dead. :D
to power the location-finding mechanism when the main battery is dead
I've been waiting for years for that little automatically updating map that video games promised me.
Think about the possibilities of being able to grey it out too - imagine the convenience when hunting for your car keys, being able to see a ghost map on your phone of everywhere you've looked and say "Aha! That corner's missing! The extra treasure must be there!"
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
It would be cool to have something like this in my fishing boat where instead of a dot on the screen I could get something that tells me where the fish are and what kind too. :-)
At what point do you stop cheating and start fishing? What's so wrong with having intuition about where the fish are? There are plenty of tell-tale signs that would give you clues to where the fish are hiding.
I admit, I don't boat fish because it's absolutely way too boring. I prefer walking up the mountain river, pickup up river stones to see what bugs are underneath. Maybe boat fishing is just too different an animal that my tactics would not adapt well, but I doubt it. With enough experience, I am positive I could do just as well with a contour map of the water's floor and my own two eyes as the guy with the expensive boat with all kinds of sonic weapons.
Recreational fishing should be low-tech. Having endless gadgets to push the odds ever in your favor defeats the purpose.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
http://boblansdorp.blogspot.com/2012/10/microphone-and-speaker-based-sonar.html We used the speakers to make clicks, and the microphone to pick up the sound :)
would love this! making finding you anywhere that much easier!
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
Don't know why but when I first read the title I read it as alcoholism for your cellphone
Windows on a box is essentially a room with a view.
Recreational fishing should be low-tech.
OMG. Other people are having fun but they're doing it wrong!
Seriously, why do you care how other people fish?
Yeah ... that'd be great. Use some Google goggles, see in the dark using sonar and walk through the house in the dark.
...
I'll still have one hand over the family jewels when I walk in the dark though, trust in technology only goes so far
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
I start to care when I find their trash littered all over the forest. I start to care when their loud boats zoom right into my casting line in the inlet. I start to care when their efficiency affect the experience for everyone else.
But all of that is besides the point. Recreational fishing is a meditative thing. You do it on the weekends, or for a couple weeks at a time, so that you can escape the daily grind and restore part of your soul. The more machines you add to that experience... you know the rest.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
It doesn't use echolocation to show you the room, though; it provides a direct visual map of the room, selective details about its contents (such as items sitting on shelves), and it works instantly. I think the app is called "Assistive Light" but I have also seen versions called "Flashlight". I always assumed iPhone had this, too....
Why did the submitter choose to advertise Apple in this post. Apple is not supporting the research and has nothing to do with this story. The submitter is incorrectly assumed that because it is "cool" technology that Apple must be behind it. I have just two things to say to that "Apple Maps!" The iPhone is not a by-word for innovation and has not been for some time so stop giving the corporate free advertising.
80% of fish stocks will be gone by 2040
I would love to use this too in my travels.
Genetically enhanced soldier freeing himself using his voice and the computer in his brain:
The Human Division, Episode 8: The Sound of Rebellion
Live action Zork.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
>Recreational fishing is a meditative thing.
For you, where do you get off trying to tell people how they do their recreational activities. You do things your way because they are fun for you. I do them differently because what you describe sounds painfully boring.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I guess it would be boring if you were terrible at fishing and never had success.
I understand why people need to cheat and have all these machines to make it easier. It indeed would be boring to be a bad angler and unable to land fish.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.