On the sonic aspects of naval intelligence:
“Basically, any instrument that can digitally eavesdrop on the military’s stuff is of concern, including seismometers, which measure vibrations so low most wouldn’t typically consider them sound.”
From an article by Matthew Braga at theatlantic.com, via the great 5 Intriguing Things email list by Alexis Madrigal, an editor at The Atlantic.
This entry cross-posted from the Disquiet linkblog project sound.tumblr.com.
That fly on the wall could be the vibration of your cellphone:
“In the age of surveillance paranoia, most smartphone users know better than to give a random app or website permission to use their device’s microphone. But researchers have found there’s another, little-considered sensor in modern phones that can also listen in on their conversations. And it doesn’t even need to ask.”
From an article by Andy Greenberg at wired.com.
This entry cross-posted from the Disquiet linkblog project sound.tumblr.com.
There may have been no better place than io9.com to keep track of Comic-Con, and this popped up in a summary of the Person of Interest panel. That’s the CBS series with an admirably long-game approach to narrative. It’s about an AI coming into sentience. That AI has become more of a character, and as the series enters season four it now is up against a competitive AI:
“Pressed for an answer about whether or not the AIs would get voices, Jonathan Nolan responded, ‘We’re working on the voice thing. But you may not like where it goes.’”
Full coverage at io9.com. It’s rarely advisable to read comments, but there are some strongly worded concerns in the resulting thread about lending voices to the AI, worth checking out if only as an expression of a point of view.
This entry cross-posted from the Disquiet linkblog project sound.tumblr.com.
Nick Shchetko at blogs.wsj.com/digits surveys recent app developments related to “always on” microphones.
There’s Rainforest, a chainsaw-detection tool halfway through its Kickstarter campaign.
He also lists examples that “assess the quality of sleep, explain why a baby is crying, tell you when you’re stressed, identify mental disorder, track gunshots and even help to crowd-monitor endangered cicada species.”
And then there’s BodyBeat, prototype pictured above:
A crude prototype of BodyBeat, revealed in mid-June, uses an external custom-made microphone to track body sounds, such as breath or cough, with the ambitious aim to detect illnesses or record food consumption.
The microphone is placed on the neck with a 3D-printed neckpiece, which is plugged into a small audio processing device that is wirelessly connected to a smartphone. BodyBeat authors plan to redesign the system for better usability in commercial applications.
It may sound far-fetched. But there could be plenty of market opportunities for systems like BodyBeat. Breathing sounds are indicative of lung conditions, and data on what users consume ”“ say, how often do they drink or eat certain products ”“ can provide important data for diet tracking apps.
There are certainly limitations to sound-detection technology. The quality of embedded microphones remains a concern, for one. “The problem is you can’t create a robust app because everyone is using different microphones,”said Alexander Adams, who helped develop BodyBeat.
Found thanks to Alexis Madrigal’s http://ift.tt/1lPwWYp.
This entry cross-posted from the Disquiet linkblog project sound.tumblr.com.
