Brilliant!!!
Military helicopter cock-up creates cool speakers
Experiment IV in sound
By Nick Farrell: Thursday, 10 January 2008, 8:28 AM
A COCK-UP in a project to silence British military helicopters seems to have made it possible to turn virtually anything into a stereo speaker.
As Kate Bush once put it, they were working secretly for the military. Their experiment in sound was nearly ready to begin and they only knew in theory what they were doing.
James Bullen, of arms maker NXT, told AFP his outfit had developed a honeycombed material which they hoped would dampen the sound the helicopter.
However, as luck would have it, it did the opposite. This meant that British secret missions might as well be playing the Ride of the Valkyries on loud speakers like their American allies.
Then some bright spark thought that the technology's weakness could make them all a lot of money. All that needed to be done was to use it to reflect the sound off flat surfaces.
It means that it would be possible to develop what they called "SurfaceSound " and kill off the need for speakers.
You could put bounce sound off a flat screen monitor, or the interior surface of a car, or even on a Christmas card.
Toyota is introducing the technology in the head liners of four of its car models and the material is used in screens of some mobile telephones available in Japan, apparently.
There's more cock-up cobblers here.
Can anyone else see the side effects of this? I am not sure how it all works but seeing as it can bounce sound off of falt surfaces... can you spell DRIVE BY SOUND ATTACKS :p
