Tag Archives: technology

Fun

Can you hear this?

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A while back I wrote a post on how shopkeepers in the UK were using a device that continuously emits a high-frequency whine to deter youths from loitering near their business, while being inaudible to older adults. Someone on QT3 recently posted a link to a website that allows visitors to download and play something similar, so that you can hear for yourself if the sound is audible to you. It turns out that despite being 33 years old, both my wife and I could hear this sound, and, yes, both of us find it extremely unpleasant and annoying.

Someone else then posted that students in the UK were using similar sounds as the ringtone of their mobile phones, allowing them to ring in class while being inaudible to their teachers. I can only imagine the barely suppressed glee in the classroom as all the students are able to plainly hear something that the teacher can’t notice at all. You can download these ringtones here and see at what frequency your ability to hear the sound stops. Both my wife and I could hear only up to the 15 kHz version which is consistent with the website’s claim that it can only be heard by those aged 40 years and below.

Try it for yourself and let me know your results.

Fun, Games

John Dvorak needs to learn “WASD”

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UPDATE: Apparently I forgot to add a link to the article in question the first time around. Added now.

So when was the last time PC Mag columnist John Dvorak wrote something that wasn’t pure idiocy? Here’s a line from his latest:

And when you try to take on one of these games as an adult you soon realize that there is too much weird crud, like “hit the A button while moving the joystick forward while pulling the trigger while moving the mouse with your right hand and left clicking.” That’s just to walk forward!

As someone on QT3 posted in reply, all I need to do on my keyboard is press “W” to walk forward. Perhaps Dvorak needs to get himself a better keyboard. And which game needs you to use both a joystick and a mouse at the same time? Even the use of the word “joystick” reveals how out of touch Dvorak is. It was emblematic of the Atari 2600 days, but now that flight simulators have been relegated to a niche enthusiast community, few people actually use joysticks now. The closest modern equivalent are the sticks that are now selling out due to the recent release of Street Fighter 4, but those are now called “fighting sticks”.

Also, look carefully at the last line of his column:

A game like Garage Band or Guitar Hero isn’t the answer. But what is?

Uh, “Garage Band”? Someone should take this guy to one side and kindly explain to him that he’s just making a laughingstock of himself at this point.

Science

Psionic Interface for Gamers

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I tend not to write gushy posts about the latest tech toys because I don’t care for devices looking sleek or fashionable. To me, function matters a lot more than form. However, I’m writing about this latest interface device from OCZ because it’s cool enough to make for an exception. It’s called the Neural Impulse Actuator and it’s a headband that can “hear” your thoughts and allow you to use it to interface with a computer, replacing the traditional mouse and keyboard.

Devices like this aren’t exactly news at this point, but this is the first time that I’ve heard of something like this outside of an experimental setting with specially designed software. OCZ’s device has already been demoed at a computer show to play a commercial FPS game, Unreal Tournament, and apparently will soon be in normal production with an estimated retail price of US$300.00. The makers also claim that since the device bypasses the muscles, response time for gamers will be much better. Essentially, instead of your thoughts going to your fingers and from there to the computer, they’ll pretty much go directly from your brain to the computer.

We’ll have to wait a while yet to see how much of this is true and how sophisticated an input device it proves to be. It seems to me that an important factor will be the communications bandwidth that it allows between your brain and the computer. If the bandwidth is large enough, it would cause a revolution in games design since it would allow games with many more options and controls to be designed than would normally be possible given the physical control limits of traditional interfaces.

Science

Recent Interesting Science Articles (Feb’08)

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Four articles this month, one on how behavior in robots can “evolve”, one on a new way of using stem cells, one on a controversial device to disperse teenaged loiterers in the U.K. and a last one on the creation of a material blacker than any previously known.

In the first article, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have created learning robots outfitted with light sensors, light rings and a neural circuitry of 30 “genes” that together determine their behavior. These robots were then placed in a specially designed habitat with designated areas containing either “food” or “poison” that charged or drained their batteries respectively. The “genes” from the survivors of each round, together with some randomness to simulate mutation, were recombined to form a new generation of robots that were again set loose in the habitat. By the 50th generation, some of the robots had evolved the ability to communicate with each other, lighting up to alert other robots to the presence of food or poison and even learned to cheat by signaling food where there is really poison and quietly “eating” the food by itself.

Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (Feb’08) →

Science

China Controls the Weather

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I’ve previously read that China intends to make sure that nothing, not even rain, will get in the way of its coming out party that is the 2008 Olympics at Beijing, but even I’m surprised to learn to learn of the colossal scale of their plans. The purpose built stadium for the Olympics, the Beijing National Stadium, is open to the elements, so the Chinese government has decided to implement weather modification technology that reduces the size of the raindrops over the stadium so they won’t condense and fall to the earth until after the clouds carrying them have passed by the stadium. In order to accomplish this, China is marshaling the full resources of its 37,000 strong bureau of weather modification together with 30 aircraft, 4,000 rocket launchers and 7,000 antiaircraft guns to get the necessary chemicals into the air around the stadium.

The science geek in me is amazed by the audacity of the Chinese government to impose their own weather according to their will but I’m also concerned about the possible environmental consequences of such drastic actions. Needless to say, this sort of thing will never be possible in Western countries for it’ll quickly whip up a firestorm of environmental protests and liability lawsuits over even imagined ailments from the fallout.