December 03, 2004

sound beams, cones and spheres HyperSonic Sound: the new (but long wished for) tool for directing sound in a 'beam' at a very small area or a single individual- creating the inevitable military and marketing buzz (two demos: .wmv trade film, simple flash).
  • What kind of horrible tv-show is that wmv taken from??
  • Jumps immediately to mind... We were working secretly For the military. Our experiment in sound, Was nearly ready to begin. We only know in theory What we are doing: Music made for pleasure, Music made to thrill. It was music we were making here until They told us All they wanted Was a sound that could kill someone From a distance. So we go ahead, And the meters are over in the red. It's a mistake in the making. --Kate Bush "Experiment IV" It's KaTe's world, I just live in it.
  • There's some sort of problem with this technology, otherwise it would have been on the market by now. It's been at least 2 years since I first read about this, and that's almost 50 'tech-years'. I know there's a patent issue, because two companies have competing patents, but my understanding is that their patents cover different areas of the technology. There's also the military interest, but no matter how much better the profit margin in defense work, a company would make more money selling 50 million units to the general public. In the end I wonder if it simply doesn't work that well in the real world.