Democratic Fundamentalism.org - Citizens Committed to Global Constitutional Democracy
www.democraticfundamentalism.org

Entertainment

An Audio Spotlight Creates a Personal Wall of Sound

Home    About    Books    Links    Government     Entertainment   HiTech   Medicine    Victims    News    Take Action

  Original url: for more info go to http://www.holosonics.com - The Manufacturer
  Published: May 15, 2001, New York Times

Now sound can be personal without any apparatus shielding our ears. Mr. Pompei gets letters and e-mail messages from around the world from people convinced that his audio spotlight is being used on them as a mind control device. People have written Mr. Pompei asking for devices to shield them from the audio spotlight's insidious mind control uses. The sound, reportedly, seems like it is in the person's head.

A person hears a voice in her ear, turns around and sees nobody there. No one else has heard it. Or she hears footsteps in a room, the product of an invisible presence. Is her mind playing tricks on her? Or is it a jokester, F. Joseph Pompei? A 28-year-old graduate student who is part scientist and part showman, Mr. Pompei has invented a device that projects a discrete beam of sound in much the same way a spotlight projects a beam of light.

The audio spotlight, as Mr. Pompei has dubbed it, emits a column of sound enveloped by silence, the way the glow of a spotlight is enveloped by darkness. Someone standing inside the beam emitted from his flat black disk hears the sound loud and clear. Outside the beam one hears silence or, if there are surfaces nearby, faint murmurs from the reflected sound waves. The beams can also bounce off walls to create an impression of the source of the sound. Companies are already dreaming up commercial applications for the beam. Supermarkets and retail stores may beam product enticements at customers. Vending machines may soon talk as people pass by. Dance clubs could divide up a single room into different music zones. Daimler Chrysler is looking into installing sound beams in a truck so that passengers can listen to their own music. The military could use it to confuse enemy troops. American Technology Corporation, a San Diego-based company that makes a similar product, has already sent out evaluations to military contractors, consumer electronic manufacturers and entertainment companies. It has signed a deal with the shipbuilder Bath Iron Works to install the sound beams on the deck of a new Aegis-class Navy destroyer as a optional substitute for radio operators' headsets. As for consumers, Terry Conrad, president of ATC, estimates they will start being hit by sound beams within two years.


(c) 2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006, 2007 DemocraticFundamentalism.org,      All Rights Reserved


Fair Use Notice: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The views expressed herein are the writers' own and not necessarily those of this site or its associates.