30 ms·
Researchers create personalised sound projector with $12 webcam
- mmikeff 7y agoCan I please have an electric car that is silent to everyone except people/animals that might need to be warned?
- timthorn 7y agoStudents at Southampton have done a similar thing with wavefront generation and are commercialising it: http://www.audioscenic.com http://www.audioscenic.com
- kchamplewski 7y agoI've had the opportunity to experience theirs and it really was quite a unique experience - the locality of the audio was comparable to over-ear headphones (although the quality wasn't quite as good, but that's to be expected with most speakers). It'll definitely be interesting to see what kind of products they can get to market with this.
- berbec 7y agoI'll buy one the second it hits the market. Beamform the television sound only to {my wife, me} so {I, she} can sleep!
- AstralStorm 7y agoWireless headphones and earphones provide vastly superior sound quality to this design. This design is only worth it if you're allergic to having anything on your head. Or you want to do directed marketing. (For all the bustle about consent, that part is trivial to ignore.)
- harry8 7y agoMan have i got some epic tech for you! Headphones, you're going to love them! They even can work without wires... ;-)
- achow 7y agoTotally. I would pay higher for a laptop with directed sound, so that at open offices (or public place) I can watch one off videos (typically for reference) without getting into hassle of wearing headphones.
- alistproducer2 7y agoTcl TV's can send the sound over WiFi to a phone. I can listen to TV via my phone, hear clearly, and nobody farther than 5 feet can hear a thing. It's a solved problem.
- SeriousM 7y agoAnd here, right now, we see the rise of personalized ads for every shop front. "you look hungry, what about eat at our restaurant?" "we have the perfect skin camouflage for your [white, black, brown, yellow] skin tone" "we see you will give birth soon, buy diapers now"
- fourthark 7y agoIn addition, our method has been designed to require user consent in order to function. This requirement ensures the technology cannot be used intrusively, nor deliver sound to an unwilling audience. Golly I hope so.
- AstralStorm 7y agoReading between the lines, is by removing a trivial module you can use it without anyone's consent.
- adam0c 7y agoso what stops people intercepting these audio messages, using the same idea you could use a parabolic mic to track and hear the individuals audio
- AstralStorm 7y agoShape of the wavefront. It is very directional elliptical, you would need very high sensitivity microphone to attempt a capture off angle. Directivity is about -50 dB off axis potentially. You can further enhance it some with active noise cancellation.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoWhat about capturing sound as it scatters on the listener's head?
- SiempreViernes 7y agoI guess you need a good model of their head to post process a readable message out of the distorted audio.
- NikkiA 7y agoThe '6cm diameter sphere in front of the target' is kind of confusing, since most people's ears are further than 6cm apart and not 'in front of them'. I suppose this is a way that the whole thing isn't quite ready for 'personalised ads' just yet.
- raihansaputra 7y agoWill that be their maximum precision? If they can target a 6cm sphere, they probably can adjust to a larger volume.
- NikkiA 7y agoI don't know, it seems a small goal to aim for if they specifically chose 6cm, so it'd seem like it's a (current) limitation of what they're doing. It doesn't seem like it'd be a limit that'd be too hard to increase though.
- harimau777 7y agoHmm, I could see some more sci-fi, dystopian applications: - Gaslight someone by making them hear voices - Threaten someone then arrest them when they attack since to bystanders it appears to be unprovoked - Similar to the previous one, provoke/trick protestors into "unprovoked" violence - Trick someone into walking into oncoming traffic - Harass someone without anyone else noticing
- tzs 7y agoMaking people hear voices has been done for advertising [1]. Here's a video of what it sounded like [2]. [1] https://adage.com/article/news/hear-voices-ad/122491 https://adage.com/article/news/hear-voices-ad/122491 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAeb3RBZ1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAeb3RBZ1Y
- ctack 7y agoMore about the metamaterials and sound lens tech here: https://phys.org/news/2019-05-academics-spotlight-lego-like-bricks.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-academics-spotlight-lego-like-...
- soneca 7y agoI understood correctly that are two innovations here? The face-tracking and the ability to direct sound precisely. I would be very interested in the sound direction solely. My use case is to project sound to me, in a bed, without my wife, sleeping next to me, hearing a thing. I like to sleep with music and she doesn't. A directed alarm would be nice too. Is this technology already available some where?
- Stephen304 7y agoThe article refers to 3D printed acoustic lenses, and previous research also uses 3D printed lenses (https://courses.physics.illinois.edu/phys406/sp2017/Student_Projects/Spring16/Dan_Gandy_Guangya_Niu_Physics_406_Final_Report_Sp16.pdf https://courses.physics.illinois.edu/phys406/sp2017/Student_...) Does anybody know if any of the files for these are public? I think it would be fun to experiment with this idea at home.