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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."
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
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
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
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.
Having a phone that can tell you where the door is and what obstacles are in the way in a smoke filled room would be bad how? or could map the area of a new apartment your going to buy or sell is bad how? How about the constant mapping of a cave? Detecting shifts in foundation of your house over time? How much room on the inside of the stomach of that whale that just ate you and the little wooden boy? That is just off the top of my head. Just because you cannot think of a use does not mean someone else will not. This is really cool tech and I am sure people will find tons of uses for it. Just a few years ago no one was thinking about using the audio port of a smart phone for credit transactions.
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.
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.
>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.