Ear-Piercing Sirens Used to Drive Teens Away, or Hip High Tech Secret Communication?

Fresh off of Digg's front page.

The so-called "Mosquito" device emits high-frequency noise which is audible — and annoying — to young ears, but generally not heard by people over 20.

OK, so I've seen stories about these for a while. I would really hope that shop owners don't really buy this idea that only people under 20 can hear them. I'm almost 30 and these things drive me batty. Insta-headache.

I just think it's funny that for more than a year now kids have been using the exact same technique to secretly notify each other on cellphones.

Want to make your own Mosquito tone? Fire up Sound Forge (or any editor with a tone generator), and create a tone over 17KHz. I can hear up to 18KHz in my left ear, so I tend to push even higher. You can test yourself, just keep increasing the frequency until you can't hear it anymore. Then just edit the tone (I prefer a series of quick pulses to help differentiate from random noise), and there you have it. A ringtone guaranteed to give me a migraine!

read more | digg story

News Sound Bites - Vox in Second Life, Bionic Ears, iTunes add ons, your web security

Vox Daily has an interview with Ari Ross, a trailblazer voice over artist using Second Life as a springboard for his voice over career. It's a pretty interesting read on an example of where this business is going (like everywhere). You might recognize him from the CSI/NY episode about SL.

Engadget's got the scoop on the Carina hearing aid being developed at Envoy Medical. doodoodoodoodoo (lame attempt at writing out the bionic woman ear noise)...

Lifehacker has their list of the 23 best iTunes add ons. Some cool stuff, like album art plugins, automation tools, and digital radio.

Are you paranoid (like I am) about your web security? Me TOO! Good thing Google has these handy videos up on Youtube about protecting your web privacy!