Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: HYPERSONIC SOUND; Norris reinvents acoustics!!

This is topic HYPERSONIC SOUND; Norris reinvents acoustics!! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 03-26-2003, 07:54 PM:

Woody Norris has invented a method of transmitting sound silently with the directionality of a laser beam, up to 450 feet and soon much further, without the use of speakers. The sound seems to come from within the listener's head.

It is being used by the US military, soon to be by the Japanese in millions of vending machines, and has applications in crime fighting and as a diabolical war weapon.

A lengthy report on this extraordinary, versatile inventor and
HSS, complete with diagrams and explanations I can only partially comprehend, can be found in the New York Times Magazine of 03/23/03. Or search acoustic journals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/23SOUND.html

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 08:11 PM:

Unfortunately, the link leads to a sign up page, not to the article.

Posted by Nicholas Roznovsky (Member # 861) on 03-26-2003, 08:16 PM:

Yeah, you have to register with the NY Times before you can access their online content.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-26-2003, 08:46 PM:

Not much technical detail, but it appears from the article that he is transmitting a directional ultrasonic beam that causes the skull, or possibly the bones of the inner ear, to vibrate producing sound.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 03-26-2003, 08:58 PM:

I have heard this method of sonic delivery. You use two directional beams of ultrasonic energy that meet at a specific point in space. At that point the secondary harmonics are in the audible range. The sound is adequate to deliver information but it is poor in frequency response and dynamic range.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-27-2003, 02:19 AM:

Hmmmm, definitely something for the movie industry to consider. There are so many uses!

Just think, dts has their new player which not only provides up to 10 channels of digital audio, but you've also got their subtitling system for the deaf. Now with this new technology, they could carry a separate track on the discs hooked up to an ultrasonic broadcaster to explain to all the stupid people what just happened in the movies so they don't have to be so "dumbed down" for audiences to be able to understand.

The box office could benefit from a repeating loop saying "hey you, get your money out and ready by the time you get to the ticket window so you don't slow up the friggin' line." or "Lord of the Rings is sold out, but what you really want to see is Glitter 2".

It could also prove quite useful at the concession stand. Just imagine you are standing in line and suddenly you hear this voice in your head "buy a large popcorn, Coke and lots of candy or something very bad will happen to you!" It's suggestive selling from hell.

Even in the theater this could be useful. Each auditorium could be equipped with a phone that connects directly to the ultrasonic booth broadcaster so patrons could yell right into the projectionist's heads "wake up and fix the framing! And focus the damn movie too while you're at it!"

[Big Grin]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-27-2003, 02:28 AM:

"This area reserved for patrons in wheel chairs, that row over there reserved for dumbasses who we need to talk to ultrasonically."

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-27-2003, 08:02 AM:

Brad, your ideas are not as outlandish as they sound. He has already licensed the technology to a Japanese vending machine manufacturer which will use it in conjunction with proximity sensors on their machines to attract customers.

The part of the article that concerned me was that this can also be used as a weapon. They have discovered that transmitting screeching sounds at high volumes though this technology will incapacitate a target. I was envisioning an episode of the Star Trek with Kirk and Spock clutching their ears as they fall to the ground, when I suddenly realized the theatre possibilities. No more hassles with unruly customers. Just zap them with a targeted ultrasonic beam, and they are unconscious until the film is over. [Smile]

/Mitchell

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2003, 08:45 AM:

At ShoWest, one of the vendors had a speaker mounted in a downward-facing parabolic dish, providing a "cylinder of sound" localized to immediately under the dish. Would be useful for video displays of trailers or ads in the lobby, so you could have several different tracks playing without a cacophony of sound.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 09:06 AM:

I missed that. Did you try it?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2003, 09:13 AM:

Yes, it was quite effective.

"Beam me up, Scotty". [Cool]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 10:43 AM:

How was the sound quality? Did it hurt?

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-27-2003, 10:46 AM:

The cylandar of sound is used at the Ruben H. Fleet science center in San Diego for some of there loby displays in the SciTours area. Verry good sound right underneath, however, frusterating if you cant get near to it.

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 03-27-2003, 11:59 AM:

Registering for the New York Times is free. You choose a user name and password, and are greeted by name when you log on each time. Access to current articles including the magazine is free, for each week, but the content is archived at end of the week, and then you have access to a very brief abstract or pay a fee for the whole article.
I've been registered for years, and have found no disadvantages, while the ability to print text and photos, and to email them, is very valuable.
Unfortunately the article is too long to post, and I don't know which parts to excerpt.
But you guys haven't even scratched the surface of this new method in your comments above.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 12:06 PM:

I have too many accounts and passwords already. If it is supposed to be free, why do I have to register? To give them the free poll data?

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 03-27-2003, 12:32 PM:

There are two of those "parabolic dish" things at the "Discovery Place" Science Center in Charlotte, NC (it's joined to the IMAX theatre).

Anyway, the parabolic dishes are placed on opposite ends of this huge exhibit area, with lots of other exhibits and people between them. The sign on it said,"If you whisper into the dish, a person standing in front of the dish on the other side of the room would be able to hear it." My wife and I tried it, and it did actually work. There was tons of "room noise" with several hundred people in the room, and you could hear a conversation from "dish to dish" plain as day.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-27-2003, 07:42 PM:

Barry, Science North in Sudbury used to have a pair of C-BAND satellite dishes outside spaced a few hundred feet apart where you could do the same thing. I don't know if they're still there, it's been at least 10 years since I've been there.

John, many department stores in Canada have had those 'parabolic dishes' in their 'music departments' for quite a few years now. They use them for 'demo stations' instead of using headphones. Stores like Zellers and K-Mart have them.

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 03-28-2003, 08:22 AM:

How HSS Works

[Diagram here not copied] From "The Sound of Things to Come," by Marshall Sella

At the source, in the circuitry of the emitter, audio frequencies are ''stirred together,'' as Norris puts it, with ultrasonic frequencies and then sent out as a ''composite frequency'' that is inaudible to the human ear. The sound ''hitches a ride on the ultrasonic frequency,'' Norris says, which travels in a laserlike beam in whatever direction it is pointed. ''And here's the beauty part,'' he says. ''The air molecules themselves convert this ultrasonic frequency back down to a frequency that can be heard.'' So unlike sound that travels on radio waves and has to be converted by your stereo's receiver, you simply need to be standing in the path of an HSS beam in order to hear the sound.

...A sampling of the companies that are in active talks with A.T.C. includes Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Dolby Laboratories, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, major TV networks and film studios, cellphone makers and museums all over the world, to say nothing of the world's big-ticket speaker manufacturers. The U.S.S. Carl Vinson and the U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill are now equipped with A.T.C. speakers, and the Navy has expressed interest in outfitting every carrier in the fleet. ''The L.A.P.D. wants to try it on high-crime alleys,'' Norris says. ''The Army might use HSS for decoy troop movements. And Disney is nuts about it!''...

HyperSonic Sound, on its face, has some very alluring features for major companies. With HSS, there is no piston-like action that moves the air and causes the distortions heard from conventional speakers; there are virtually no moving parts at all, so the device generates next to no heat. All of which actually makes HSS equipment cheaper. More to the point, an HSS transmission can travel 450 feet -- at pratically the same volume all along its path. Translated: at a concert, there's no need to melt the eyebrows of people sitting in the front rows. They'd hear the music at the same level as those lounging a football field away. ''A multibillion-dollar company we're dealing with wants one that'll carry for a mile,'' Norris says. ''And that is easily possible.'' ...

This is all potentially very bad news for conventional-speaker companies, which Norris insists are essentially box merchants. That is, given the fact that there are only a handful of ''driver'' manufacturers in the world, it's often merely design that distinguishes high-end from low-end audio speakers. It's never the C.E.O.'s of major acoustics firms who go pale when they see demonstrations of HSS; it's the engineers, a fact that delights Norris no end. ''Those companies make slide rules and are being offered calculators,'' he says. ''There's a smugness that goes with being a huge company. The big fish say, 'If it's so great, why didn't we invent it?' But how'd you like to be makin' buggy whips when cars came along?'' ...

His strategy is to avoid confronting major speaker firms -- for the time being. Better to start small, to look for places that currently don't have much to do with the acoustics trade. Museums, soda machines, produce aisles. ''We're gonna go after the low-hanging fruit, places where you don't yet find sound, so HSS will not be regarded as a threat,'' he says, before showing some of the flick-knife steel that had to be buried in there somewhere. ''And when we get strong, that's when we hit with a vengeance. We'll license with some Goliath of the industry -- a Sony or a Philips. Know how many new speakers were installed in 2002, from buses to boomboxes? Fifteen billion units. In'nat cool?'' ...

In reality, HIDA is both warning and weapon. If used from a battleship, it can ward off stray crafts at 500 yards with a pinpointed verbal warning. Should the offending vessel continue to within 200 yards, the stern warnings are replaced by 120-decibel sounds that are as physically disabling as shrapnel. Certain noises, projected at the right pitch, can incapacitate even a stone-deaf terrorist; the bones in your head are brutalized by a tone's full effect whether you're clutching the sides of your skull in agony or not. ''Besides,'' Norris says, laughing darkly, ''grabbing your ears is as good as a pair of handcuffs.'' ...

Nimbly holding a big black plate, Norris stands with me in an A.T.C. sound chamber. Since he's poised behind the weapon, he will hear no sound once it's powered up: not a peep. ''HIDA can instantaneously cause loss of equilibrium, vomiting, migraines -- really, we can pretty much pick our ailment,'' he says brightly. ''We've delivered a couple dozen units so far, but will have a lot more out by June. They're talking millions!'' (Last month, A.T.C. cut a five-year, multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with General Dynamics, one of the giants of the military-industrial complex.)
Norris prods his assistant to locate the baby noise on a laptop, then aims the device at me. At first, the noise is dreadful -- just primally wrong -- but not unbearable. I repeatedly tell Norris to crank it up (trying to approximate battle-strength volume, without the nausea), until the noise isn't so much a noise as an assault on my nervous system. I nearly fall down and, for some reason, my eyes hurt. When I bravely ask how high they'd turned the dial, Norris laughs uproariously. ''That was nothing!'' he bellows. ''That was about 1 percent of what an enemy would get. One percent!'' Two hours later, I can still feel the ache in the back of my head.

[The above are brief excerpts from the report in the New York Times Magazine of March 23rd, 2003, by Marshall Sella, c. The New York Times.]

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 03-28-2003, 08:41 PM:

Speaking of using sound as a deterrent, outdoor sirens when used similar to what you have mentioned can also be used as a similar deterrent. There are outdoor mechanical & electromechanical sirens that are extremely LOUD.Such as for example the Chrysler Big Joe siren & the Federal Signal Thunderbolt. There is a picture of a T-Bolt on the main page of http://www.airraidsirens.com As for the Chrysler sien,it can be seen at http://www.victorysiren.com