These sound-studies highlights of the week are lightly adapted from the March 28, 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.
▰ If you enjoyed the story [last week](https://disquiet.com/2022/03/22/this-week-in-sound-school-acoustics-sound-eclipse-bafta-bully-pulpit/) about the rooster making lots of noise in a San Franciso neighborhood that already has its share of challenges, then you’ll appreciate this update: the rooster has been moved two hours east, to the Parrot & Exotic Rescue Sanctuary in Modesto. “Their website says they take in ‘parrots, turtles, snakes, lizards and more,’” reports Joe Kukura. ➔ [hoodline.com](https://hoodline.com/2022/03/tenderloin-rooster-has-a-new-home-at-a-parrot-refuge-in-modesto/)
▰ “Google and Bolverk Games have published a new video game called Voice Attorney running solely on voice commands and available only on the Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max smart displays.” ➔ [voicebot.ai](https://voicebot.ai/2022/03/21/new-voice-attorney-video-game-exclusive-for-google-nest-hub-relies-solely-on-speech-controls/)
▰ Amazon wasn’t successful in reversing a suit by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute related to smart speakers. ➔ [bloomberglaw.com](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/amazon-fails-to-sway-judge-on-voice-tech-patents-validity)
▰ Nvidia has announced chip solutions for voice technology, including speech recognition. One market is the automation of menu trees for phone systems: “Synthetization could boost actors’ productivity by cutting down on the need for additional recordings, potentially freeing the actors up to pursue more creative work — and saving businesses money in the process,” reports Kyle Wiggers, in a final AI column for VentureBeat. ➔ [venturebeat.com](https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/25/ai-weekly-nvidias-commitment-to-voice-ai-and-a-farewell/)
▰ Interesting tidbit from a story about Spotify’s efforts in voice-only controls, for use in vehicles: “The jury is still out on whether hands-free voice recognition actually makes driving safer (some studies suggest drivers who use voice controls are more distracted).” ➔ [engadget.com](https://www.engadget.com/spotify-is-testing-a-new-car-mode-focused-on-voice-commands-201718184.html), [nbcnews.com](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/distracted-driving-study-finds-voice-activated-systems-can-be-dangerous-n449551)
▰ News from the Red Planet: “sound on Mars travels at 787 feet per second (240 meters per second), which is significantly slower than the sound of speed on Earth at 1,115 feet per second (340 m/s).” And it gets weirder: “the speed of sounds below 240 hertz fell to 754 feet per second (230 m/s). That doesn’t happen on Earth, as sounds within the audible bandwidth (20 Hz to 20 kHz) travel at a constant speed.” This has been dubbed the “Mars idiosyncrasy,” reports George Dvorsky. ➔ [gizmodo.com](https://gizmodo.com/the-speed-of-sound-on-mars-is-kinda-funky-new-evidence-1848704807)