Live data from Hacker News

New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

osa.org

71–80 of 134 posts

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#71
post #34

Reminds met of the book series Daemon by Daniel Suarez [0], only there they use nonlinear acoustics to get this effect (if I remember correctly). Nice books, nice ideas by the way. Edit: They call it Hypersonic Sound System, not nonlinear acoustics, see [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series) [1] http://daniel-suarez.com/daemontech.html

Really great, underrated series. The book was also very prescient in predicting rise of a distributed digital currency, especially given that it was published before Satoshi's Bitcoin paper was published.

I agree! I have been looking for the same epicness in his later books but it never hit that level again imho.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those depressing sentiments reflect an unfortunate reality of our time. The world wasn't always bloated with spammy advertising, and I'm hopeful that fad will eventually give way to more human-friendly business models. Yes, any new technology comes with potential for abuse. But I'm still excited that maybe one day this tech could be miniaturized enough (or deployed responsibly) to give me wireless virtual earbuds wit…

A consumer always pays, whether by paying or looking at advertisements. But the modern world offers nice alternatives now. I can watch movies and episodes without ads (thanks to Netflix), and can listen to all the songs in the world without ads (thanks to Spotify). Because I pay instead of watching ads. A lot of platforms and products offer the choice between looking at ads or letting you pay. But of course, everyone…

Well of course, everyone wants free stuff without paying for it. That's just as much an economic principle as the one you brought up.

However, I don't think services which offer a free-but-with-ads-version are the issue here. After all you could just not use those services.

I think the way bigger issue is the ubiquitousness of advertisements/spam in our daily life. Most e-mail traffic is spam. If you walk around in your city you most probably get to see an ad every couple of meters. And this is not just your local butcher putting up a sign with today's specials. These are footholds of international corporations which manipulate your emotions so they can sell you their shitty products (Oh, I forgot, it's not shitty, after all if I believe the ads your corporation somehow has some deep connection to my family life and that's what makes the product so great!)

How it ever got like that is insanity in its own right. Now giving these public space polluters another tool for manipulating people? I can't see much good coming off of it.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#73
post #55

Two big caveats with this tech (from the paper): - it's really silent. They claim that the signal is audible, but under pretty much ideal conditions. - creating arbitrary sound with this approach is hard. Each laser sweep generates a sharp wavefront that is audible, but that only eorks ehen the sweep is at the speed of sound. This limits the frequency at which you can emit those pulses and their shape is fixed, too.…

They mention 2 methods in the article, the sweep method, and plain old modulation. If the 2 methods could be combined it might work better.

The sweep could be sped up by several orders of magnitude, and the modulation could be coordinated with it to create traveling pulse trains toward the listener that would have higher fidelity.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#74
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A consumer always pays, whether by paying or looking at advertisements. But the modern world offers nice alternatives now. I can watch movies and episodes without ads (thanks to Netflix), and can listen to all the songs in the world without ads (thanks to Spotify). Because I pay instead of watching ads. A lot of platforms and products offer the choice between looking at ads or letting you pay. But of course, everyone…

At one point the TV was without ads too! My point: a netflix with ads will be more profitable than one without. However they cannot get away with that right now, competition, etc. Maybe never, but there's a reason ads came around, even for people who paid for television.

It still is, if you watch only the BBC in the UK.

Of course, people still moan about “being forced to pay for it”, even when you tell them how to legally stop paying for it.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is going to be Altered Carbon or Ghost In The Shell type of crap. Whatever you Google for will follow you everywhere , and nag you until you buy it...

Precedent suggests that it'll nag you after you buy it... maybe both.

“We noticed you bought a gravestone for your mother. Your mother‘s birthday is coming up soon, would you like to buy her a box of chocolates?”

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#76
post #74
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point the TV was without ads too! My point: a netflix with ads will be more profitable than one without. However they cannot get away with that right now, competition, etc. Maybe never, but there's a reason ads came around, even for people who paid for television.

It still is, if you watch only the BBC in the UK. Of course, people still moan about “being forced to pay for it”, even when you tell them how to legally stop paying for it.

You can't legally not pay for the bbc and then watch, say, ITV, though.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#77
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precedent suggests that it'll nag you after you buy it... maybe both.

“We noticed you bought a gravestone for your mother. Your mother‘s birthday is coming up soon, would you like to buy her a box of chocolates?”

Also here’s 15 other gravestones to complete your collection.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#78
post #46
post #36

Was this used on US diplomats in Havana?

No, that was probably just crickets: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/acs1zv/the_sound... Thread includes sound samples.

The sound heard around some of the possible attacks may have been crickets, but that doesn’t explain the symptoms.

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#79
post #74
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point the TV was without ads too! My point: a netflix with ads will be more profitable than one without. However they cannot get away with that right now, competition, etc. Maybe never, but there's a reason ads came around, even for people who paid for television.

It still is, if you watch only the BBC in the UK. Of course, people still moan about “being forced to pay for it”, even when you tell them how to legally stop paying for it.

How would you do that?

Re: New Technology Uses Lasers to Transmit Audible Messages to Specific People

#80

Imagine the scary future of retargeting. - Doctor, I hear voices in my head - Don't worry, it's just ads

* Futurama - S01E06 - Didn't you have ads in the 20th century? - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"

Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on tv and radio...and in magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree."

Post reply on HN