Audio spotlight directs sound as precisely as, well, a spotlight
May 17, 2001 9:52 AM   Subscribe

Audio spotlight directs sound as precisely as, well, a spotlight What an amazing idea, although as the article says "Most of the uses of sound involve spreading it around."
posted by flimjam (5 comments total)
 
Technology along these lines is also being developed in non-lethal weapons research, mostly for crowd control: beam two intersecting ultra-low sound waves at a rioter's stomach in a crowd, it scrambles his guts, he messes himself....and you never see (or hear!) it coming!
posted by Dzolali at 10:06 AM on May 17, 2001


F. Joe gave me a demonstration of the audio spotlight when I was working at the Media Lab last year, and man alive is it ever cool. It's one of the exceptionally rare projects at the Media Lab that is both aesthetically pleasing and potentially useful. And F. Joe's a nice guy as well.
posted by mikeg at 10:21 AM on May 17, 2001


I wonder how good the sound quality is. I can imagine tons of uses for this with music, if the quality is up to snuff. mikeg?
posted by lbergstr at 6:37 PM on May 17, 2001


The frequency response doesn't go down low enough to get good bass out of it, apparently.
posted by kindall at 7:20 PM on May 17, 2001


Cut down on noise pollution. The incesent beepbeep of trucks backing up redirected to the back only.
posted by stbalbach at 7:58 AM on May 18, 2001


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