5 ms·

I'm not as familiar with Zoom, but WebEx and Cisco video conferencing hardware use ultrasonic sounds to let you start and transfer meetings from the mobile and

by troupe 5y ago

I'm not as familiar with Zoom, but WebEx and Cisco video conferencing hardware use ultrasonic sounds to let you start and transfer meetings from the mobile and desktop app to video conferencing devices. With WebEx you can turn this off in the preferences. I'd assume Zoom has a similar config setting.

Sunspark 5y ago
They do? Ugh.. hopefully not continuous emitting of pulses.. I can hear some ultrasonics due to my cochlear implant, and it's been really annoying how these days Lutron is selling motion detectors that use both ultrasonics and IR. They like to buzz, even when people are already in the room.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Have you contacted Lutron at all? Or your implant manufacturer? Something seems out of alignment.
  - Sunspark 5y ago
    I contacted the implant manufacturer when I became aware of the issue.. apparently there is even a warning that ultrasonics can damage it.. but it's not clear to me if that's just legalese or if it's actually a clear and present danger. I haven't contacted Lutron yet which is bad of me, and I really should do that, but I don't think they would care since the amount of people who can identify that there's a problem with their devices is small.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      Lutron may not care about you but they may care about an article in the news about how their products are harming people.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Today disability is an issue that is taken seriously. If Lutron's technology is affecting your disability then you should absolutely contact them, and barring a satisfactory solution you might even get aggressive with them. They cannot hurt you, arguing that people like you are rare.
      - voakbasda 5y ago
        Anxiety can be classified as a disability. Does that mean you can’t make someone anxious? That would be fun to see enforced.
secabeen 5y ago
Yes, Zoom has a similar setting. I don't think the client is listening for the ultrasonics all the time; you need to click the "Share Screen" button on the main zoom page to have it work, and it presents a "please wait" screen for 5-10 seconds after pressing that button while it appears to detect the room info.
ulfw 5y ago
That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.
  - throwaway34511 5y ago
    It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.
bigmattystyles 5y ago
Yea, and it was a battery killer on a laptop - at my company, it even had a side effect of all but pegging the CPU. The confluence of poor software meets bad device driver is entertaining.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by troupe 5y ago

Sunspark 5y ago

They do? Ugh.. hopefully not continuous emitting of pulses.. I can hear some ultrasonics due to my cochlear implant, and it's been really annoying how these days Lutron is selling motion detectors that use both ultrasonics and IR. They like to buzz, even when people are already in the room.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Have you contacted Lutron at all? Or your implant manufacturer? Something seems out of alignment.
- Sunspark 5y ago
  I contacted the implant manufacturer when I became aware of the issue.. apparently there is even a warning that ultrasonics can damage it.. but it's not clear to me if that's just legalese or if it's actually a clear and present danger. I haven't contacted Lutron yet which is bad of me, and I really should do that, but I don't think they would care since the amount of people who can identify that there's a problem with their devices is small.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Lutron may not care about you but they may care about an article in the news about how their products are harming people.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Today disability is an issue that is taken seriously. If Lutron's technology is affecting your disability then you should absolutely contact them, and barring a satisfactory solution you might even get aggressive with them. They cannot hurt you, arguing that people like you are rare.
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      Anxiety can be classified as a disability. Does that mean you can’t make someone anxious? That would be fun to see enforced.

secabeen 5y ago

Yes, Zoom has a similar setting. I don't think the client is listening for the ultrasonics all the time; you need to click the "Share Screen" button on the main zoom page to have it work, and it presents a "please wait" screen for 5-10 seconds after pressing that button while it appears to detect the room info.

ulfw 5y ago

That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?

brokenmachine 5y ago
Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.
- throwaway34511 5y ago
  It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.

bigmattystyles 5y ago

Yea, and it was a battery killer on a laptop - at my company, it even had a side effect of all but pegging the CPU. The confluence of poor software meets bad device driver is entertaining.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]