HyperSonic Sound hailed as wave of future

elpasotimes.com | May 27, 2003 | By KEVIN MANEY -USA TODAY

[FryingPan101]

Rarely is an invention so unique and so simple that in 15 seconds most people who experience it realize it could alter everyday life. But that's what happens to just about anyone who steps out to the back parking lot of American Technology Corp. (ATC) in San Diego for a demonstration of its invention called HyperSonic Sound (HSS).

Essentially, HSS does for sound what the laser did for light — intensely focuses and channels it so it can travel great distances without dispersing. In the usual HSS demo, a technician points a cereal box-size speaker at someone standing on the asphalt 100 yards away. Amid the din of the nearby freeway, the technician plays a recording of the sound of ice cubes clinking into a glass.

To the listener, the sound comes across as if it were through headphones. The effect is totally unlike a sound blaring from a distant speaker over oppressive car noise. Take two steps to the side, out of the sound beam, and you hear nothing at all. Step back in, and there it is again.

"It offers huge benefits over your standard speaker systems," says Sony executive Simon Beesley, who is working on building HSS into sound systems for commercial settings, such as stores or restaurants.

Though the technology is several years from becoming mainstream, HSS could be used to make laptop speakers that blare music to the person in front of the screen, while no one else could hear it.

It could allow a grocery store to play audio advertisements that seem to come from, say, the display of Duracell batteries, yet the ad could only be heard by the shopper directly in front of the display.

An HSS-equipped car could play one CD for the parents up front and another for kids in the back, and neither would hear even a whisper of the others' music.

ATC plans to sell HSS for niche applications and other uses that don't directly challenge the conventional speaker industry. "Later, we'll go after mainstream speakers," says Woody Norris, who invented the technology for ATC.

Given the enthusiasm at Sony and other companies, HSS probably will make its way into products of all kinds.

[FryingPan101]

FYI

[Mr. K]

way cool

good post

[Fester Chugabrew]

The sound of silence is becoming more and more like gold.

[theFIRMbss]

>Though the technology is several years from becoming mainstream, HSS could be used to make laptop speakers that blare music to the person in front of the screen, while no one else could hear it...

There are already
enough of us who hear things
no one else can hear...

[IYAS9YAS]

Cool! I'm gonna mount one in my car and send Polka music at the drivers of those little thumper stereo cars.

[IYAS9YAS]

Just thought of that...boy, you could really mess with someone's head that way...Can't wait to try it!

[RightWhale]

A civilian version of the sonic tank used on Dune. We don't need this.

[PISANO]

WHHHOOOOAA!

[RockyMtnMan]

It could allow a grocery store to play audio advertisements that seem to come from, say, the display of Duracell batteries, yet the ad could only be heard by the shopper directly in front of the display.

AHHHHHHHHH!!! Popup advertising offline to!!!

[ex-Texan]

Sounds slightly dangerous to me . . .

[Prodigal Son]

It could allow a grocery store to play audio advertisements that seem to come from, say, the display of Duracell batteries, yet the ad could only be heard by the shopper directly in front of the display.

It will also allow one to really mess around with the neighbor's dog or mess with elderly relatives.

Think about the possibilies. If you knew a schizophrenic, you could whisper to him like Hannibal Lecter did to that fellow in Silence of the Lambs and get him to go and off somebody for you.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

No doubt there will still be many who resist this inovation won't use the new technology and continue to irritate their neighbors playing rap music with 500 watt speakers played at full volume at 2:00 AM.

[jwh_Denver]

Cool! I'm gonna mount one in my car and send Polka music at the drivers of those little thumper stereo cars.

Great idea. You might want to get an opera CD when you really get hacked.

[Prodigal Son]

Yeah, I find the instore advertising annoying enough as it is.

I've got a weird sense of humor sometimes. Went in the local Woolworth's the other day and they had a monitior set up with a "video on a loop" extolling the virtures of a product that was essentially an oven mit shaped dog/cat brush. The advert made it seem like the equivalent of landing men on the moon. I wasn't in a hurry so to kind of freak people out I stood there with my mouth all agape staring at it like I was totally hypnotized by this amazing transmission. You'd have had to have been there I suppose, but I got a nice comedy jolt out of the odd looks people gave me...

[hottomale]

Just plain hair tickling I tell ya.

[ARCADIA]

...and all these years I thought it was my dog talking to me... :-)

[jpl]

Poor, miserable lad. He's ticked off because he knows that the new tax cuts will only encourage more people to emigrate here from socialist Canada.

[philetus]

How much volume can you pump into this? Could you aim it at someone and blow their eardrums?

[Some hope remaining.]

HSS could be used to make laptop speakers that blare music to the person in front of the screen, while no one else could hear it.

Wouldn't the sound disperse once the sound waves hit someone? Like if I'm sitting in front of my laptop listening to it, would the sound waves then bounce off me and then others could hear it too?

[Some hope remaining.]

So if I had one of these and I'm sitting in the audience for a tv show, like "who wants to be a millionaire" or something, I could aim a covert speaker at a contestant and give them them answer without anyone else knowing...