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April 28, 2005

This Could Be Very Cool or Very Annoying or Likely Both

Hypersound. Subaudible soundwaves that, when directed at a person, become audible, and sound as if they're coming from inside the subject's own head.

Minority Report displayed hypersound advertisements (along with something even more annoying: computerized determination of what sort of person you were and therefore what ads might appeal to you). But it's really not sci-fi. It's something that's coming fairly shortly.

This cat just won a $500,000 prize from MIT for his HyperSonic sound system, so this is no crank making wild claims about his perpetual motion device:

Elwood "Woody" Norris pointed a metal frequency emitter at one of perhaps 30 people who had come to see his invention. The emitter — an aluminum square — was hooked up by a wire to a CD player. Norris switched on the CD player. "There's no speaker, but when I point this pad at you, you will hear the waterfall," said the 63-year-old Californian.
And one by one, each person in the audience did, and smiled widely.

...

Norris said the uses for the technology could come in handy — in cars, in the airport or at home.

Handy? It's going to be a nightmare.

Although it will be very useful if you want to gaslight someone... at least in the next couple of years, before people are generally aware that "demonic voices inside your head" may not be the result of schizophrenia but rather a prank being played on you by your geek buddy Stinky.

"Imagine your wife wants to watch television and you want to read a book, like the intellectual you are," he said to the crowd. "Imagine you are a lifeguard or a coach and you want to yell at someone, he'll be the only one to hear you."

Imagine you're walking down the street and you are bombarded with a dozen in-your-head advertisements, like "Drink Coke!" or "Hey! Great website! Agree with everything you say!"

Norris holds 47 U.S. patents, including one for a digital handheld recorder and another for a handsfree headset. He said the digital recorder made him an inventor for life.
"That sold for $5 million," Norris laughed. "That really made me want to be an inventor."

Shut up, really?

Thanks to LauraW.

Okay... This Could Be Fun Update: Hubris opines--

I can only imagine the myriad applications for the gents in my native West Virginia whose idea of flirting was to hang out of a truck and yell "what are you doin' with them titties later?!"

I've been waiting for just this sort of high-tech covert Mr. Microphone since I was 7.

Imagine driving down the street anonymously pestering a hundred women with "Hey good lookin', be back to pick you up later!"

Good times. Good times.

All Technology Is First Deployed For Sexual Purposes Update: You know those bars they used to have, and maybe still do, where every table has a phone and so you can call other tables and try to hook up with other people?

This would be better/worse. At least it would be different and a novelty... for a year, which is the best a trendy bar can expect anyway.

It would give me a chance to use the "smooth rap" I've developed for the ladies over the years, but never had the balls to use, like, (in my best Jamie Gumm "It puts the lotion on its skin" impression) "First, I will begin by strangling your pets. Second, I will break into your home and... touch things."

posted by Ace at 10:59 AM

Comments

"demonic voices inside your head" Hmmm. Have they been testing this gadget on algore?

Posted by: Old Coot on April 28, 2005 11:03 AM

OK, 500 grand to invent something that beams audio directly to your noggin.

Next step: inventor holds world ransom for 500 billion to invent something that blocks the beams.

Capitalism rocks.

Posted by: James on April 28, 2005 11:04 AM

I can only imagine the myriad applications for the gents in my native West Virginia whose idea of flirting was to hang out of a truck and yell "what are you doin' with them titties later?!"

Posted by: Hubris on April 28, 2005 11:04 AM

Ads in your head. I can't stand it anymore.

Dear God,

You can hit the Earth with that giant asteroid now.

Thank you,
Andrea Harris

Posted by: Andrea Harris on April 28, 2005 11:09 AM

Well the effing preview showed that whole thing in italics. Whatever.

Posted by: Andrea Harris on April 28, 2005 11:09 AM

Kent, this is God. From now on, stop playing with yourself.

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on April 28, 2005 11:10 AM

Finally, a perfect justification to wear my aluminum foil helmet (aka "tin hat") in public!

Posted by: Whitehall on April 28, 2005 11:10 AM

Dave,

Exactly what I was thinking of.

Man, we have to turn off the fuckin' tv sometime, huh?

Posted by: ace on April 28, 2005 11:12 AM

Hah! Not laughing at us tinfoil hat wearers NOW, are ya?

Posted by: lauraw on April 28, 2005 11:13 AM

beat me to it dammit

Posted by: lauraw on April 28, 2005 11:14 AM

Interesting side-effects

http://musingsofafatkid.blogspot.com/2005/04/inventor-creates-soundless-speaker.html over at my place.

Posted by: fat kid on April 28, 2005 11:54 AM

Maybe that's how they do the Jedi Mind Trick. You know, it's not like ESP or shit at all -- they've just got this little transmitter doohickey in their robes someplace.

These aren't the droids you're looking for. He can go about his business. Move along. Maybe the gay little hand-wave is just for Jedi style points.

Posted by: Monty on April 28, 2005 12:12 PM

I'm sure a bunch of kids in homeroom will make the substitute keep turning her hearing aid down.

Posted by: Dave in Texas on April 28, 2005 12:13 PM

Edgar Bergen made a fair living doing just this. Of course the ones he was talking to were real dummies.

Posted by: Bithead on April 28, 2005 12:21 PM

"I solemly swear by my office as a crime-fighter that this outrage will not go unavenged."

Batman

Posted by: Michael on April 28, 2005 12:24 PM

In Arnold Schawrtzegger's movie End of Days he fights with the devil, superbly played by Gabriel Byrne. In one scene in NYC, a skateboarder cuts in front of Belzebub who is walking along the street and almost knocks him down, when he protests the skater gets snotty and flips him off as he skates across the street. Satan whispered "pssstt" and it carried loudly straight into the skaters ear across the noisey street. In the middle of the street, the startled skater looked back just long enough to be promptly smashed by an oncoming bus he didn't see. Though I've practiced it every time I see the ACE on the streets of Massapequa, it never seems to work.

Posted by: 72VIRGINS on April 28, 2005 12:43 PM

I don't know- I keep thinking of the movie "Scanners" for some reason. Bleah.

Posted by: dillene on April 28, 2005 12:44 PM

Now, all we need is for someone to invent a device that will block the "beamed in to your head" ads.

Kind of like an internal version of those noise-cancelling headphones.

Now that, THAT, I would pay good money for.

Posted by: ricki on April 28, 2005 04:01 PM

Hey, I have "Real Genius" on DVD.

I see this as an invention that is going to be used in a very annoying way REAL fast.

OTOH, I wonder if this would work through water...

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on April 28, 2005 04:38 PM

He'd better take his $500,000 and use it for a down payment on his Impenetrable Fortress™. If this gets deployed for advertising, I can imagine a LOT of prople coming after him.

Posted by: Old Grouch on April 28, 2005 05:58 PM

Are you guys missing the big picture or not? I think so.

This should've been a war porn post. Can you imagine how a foreign force would react to damaging messages being broadcast directly into their heads?

Call the Pentagon now. This will be used to kill folks.

Posted by: Birkel on April 28, 2005 06:16 PM