Soundless Sound System
Interesting, but a little scary too…
Elwood “Woody” Norris pointed a metal frequency emitter at one of perhaps 30 people who had come to see his invention. The emitter — an aluminum square — was hooked up by a wire to a CD player. Norris switched on the CD player.
“There’s no speaker, but when I point this pad at you, you will hear the waterfall,” said the 63-year-old Californian.
And one by one, each person in the audience did, and smiled widely.
Norris’ HyperSonic Sound system has won him an award coveted by inventors — the $500,000 annual Lemelson-MIT Prize. It works by sending a focused beam of sound above the range of human hearing. When it lands on you, it seems like sound is coming from inside your head.
What’s it good for, you ask?
“Imagine your wife wants to watch television and you want to read a book, like the intellectual you are,” he said to the crowd. “Imagine you are a lifeguard or a coach and you want to yell at someone, he’ll be the only one to hear you.”
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Apr 25th, 2005 at 16:46:44
i totally did not get the quote. so i had to read the article. interesting, but i’m a little skeptical.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 18:39:59
That’s scary!!
Apr 26th, 2005 at 12:27:11
I saw something like this on screensavers back in 2000 or 2001. I think it also has some great use for automotive applications - like a backseat DVD system. It would mean no headphones so you could still talk to the passengers, but they could watch the DVD w/o bothering you. Or, how about each person in the car could have their own radio or sound system, but still able to talk to eachother.