What’s the biggest thing in audio at the moment? Some believe it’s HyperSonic Sound.
Woody Norris (above) has taken the ultrasonic beamformer used for crowd control and de-weaponized it.
HyperSonic Sound uses an ultrasonic piezoelectric transducer to emit sound at frequencies above the human ear’s 20,000-cycle threshold. Unlike low-frequency waves, the high-frequency signals don’t spread out as they travel through air. These waves combine with normal audio from a CD or MP-3 player, interfering to create an audible signal, focused into a beam.
Over the next few years we can expect a huge use of the HyperSonic Sound system. Thousands of soda machines in Tokyo will soon bombard passersby with the enticing sound of a Coke being poured, and several U.S. supermarkets will promote products to shoppers as they walk down corresponding aisles.
American Technology currently sells the HyperSonic Sound System for $600.
A HyperSonic Sound system consists of an audio program source such as a CD player or microphone, an HSS signal processor, and an ultrasonic emitter or transducer that is powered by an ultrasonic amplifier.
The music or voice from the audio source is converted to a highly complex ultrasonic signal by the signal processor before being amplified and emitted into the air by the transducer (emitter). Since the ultrasonic energy is highly directional, it forms a virtual column of sound directly in front of the emitter, much like the light from a flashlight.
All along that column of ultrasonic sound, the air is creating new sounds (the sound that we originally converted to an ultrasonic wave). Since the sound that we hear is created right in the column of ultrasonic energy, it does not spread in all directions like the sound from a conventional loudspeaker, instead it stays locked tightly inside the column of ultrasonic energy.
In order to hear the sound, your ears must be in line with the column of ultrasound, or, you can hear the sound after it reflects off a hard surface. For example, if you point the ultrasonic emitter toward a wall, you will only hear the audible sound after it has reflected off the wall. This is similar to shining a flashlight at a wall in a dark room. You do not see the light from the flashlight, you only see the spot of light on the wall.
No other audio reproduction device available today is said to provide this unique ability to focus sound into a tight beam.
The potential seems limitless. Museums can direct the narration about a specific display only to the people standing directly in front of it. Cities can create “virtual tours” by placing “sound spots” on every block.
Audio source material could be stored on a $50 MP3 player (or a $250 Sony PSP). A PSP device, incidently, might also provide ad-hoc network architecture for hotspot virtual tours.
I hear bird songs, whales and insects.
“To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wildflower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.”– William Blake
