These sound-studies highlights of the week are lightly adapted from the February 7, 2022, issue of the free Disquiet.com weekly email newsletter This Week in Sound ([tinyletter.com/disquiet](https://tinyletter.com/disquiet)).
As always, if you find sonic news of interest, please share it with me, and (except with the most widespread of news items) I’ll credit you should I mention it here.
▰ Apple AirTags with the speakers deactivated are for sale on eBay and Etsy, raising concerns about stalking.
[pcmag.com](https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-phone-accessories/138509/silent-airtags-with-speakers-removed-pop-up-on-etsy-ebay)
▰ The director of the Peacemaker TV series, James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad), explains on Twitter how to properly set the audio on your television. I’m not a huge fan, but I cosign his message: “Forget blue tooth, especially on a Mac, and go back to directly wiring in.”
[twitter.com/JamesGunn](https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1488957124470321153)
(Via Peter Albrechtsen)
▰ I’m always ready for a reminiscence of the great Toshio Iwai audio game, Electroplankton — progenitor, as Andrew Liszewski writes, of “smartphone music-making apps.”
[gizmodo.com](https://gizmodo.com/i-miss-electroplankton-the-nintendo-ds-weird-and-wonde-1848437619)
▰ Thousands of videos collecting uploaded Nintendo game soundtracks have been disappearing from YouTube: “1,300 videos were removed last week and a further 2,200 were taken down on February 1,” reportedly. This may be related to the creation of an online Pokémon Sound Library.
[ign.com](https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-removed-thousands-of-music-tracks-from-youtube),
[soundlibrary.pokemon.co.jp](https://soundlibrary.pokemon.co.jp/en)
(Via Chris McAvoy)
▰ Looking ahead to a hybrid audiobook market that is part human-read and part advanced text-to-speech, as laid out by Sovan Mandal.
[goodereader.com](https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/audiobooks-ai-and-humans-where-do-they-stand)
▰ “Tesla is recalling more than 817,000 vehicles in the U.S. because the seat belt reminder chimes may not sound when the vehicles are started and the driver hasn’t buckled up.”
[cnbc.com](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/tesla-recalls-over-800000-vehicles-for-seat-belt-chime-problem.html)
▰ Learn all about “topological acoustic transistors,” thanks to Charles Q. Choi’s overview. They utilize sound waves instead of electrons.
[spectrum.ieee.org](https://spectrum.ieee.org/topological-transistor-acoustic), [journals.aps.org](https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.015501)
(Via Tom Whitwell)
▰ A study of acoustics at elderly care facilities explains how regulations may focus on an insufficient range of variables, notably emphasizing reverberation time over noise, especially in open plan settings.
[acousticbulletin.com](https://www.acousticbulletin.com/new-study-c50-should-be-included-in-standards-for-elderly-care-facilities)
▰ An apartment block in the Birmingham, England’s Gay Village will have sealed windows to avoid noise complaints. “According to the plans ’49 out of the 456 units would have sealed windows; 35 units would be fully sealed and 14 units partially sealed where the units are positioned at the corners with windows facing away from The Fox pub.'”
[bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-60246353)
▰ Useful tool: “A command-line tool to automatically download all releases purchased with a Bandcamp account.”
[framagit.org](https://framagit.org/Ezwen/bandcamp-collection-downloader)
(Via Saga)
▰ Wired lists gadgets and software that might help with tinnitus.
[wired.com](https://www.wired.com/story/how-tech-can-help-you-cope-with-tinnitus/)