Imagine light: in its most basic form, it will spread out in all directions until it reaches a point of contact (for instance, your eye). But since the beginning of civilization, there has been an attempt to control light: to reflect it, to block it, to shape it. With the advent of such technology, we’ve been able to create lasers, computers, x-ray machines—the achievements which stem from the ability to control light are enormous.
Now, imagine sound: we’ve had to put up with a lot of crap from sound, when you compare it to light. We need several layers of thick material to soundproof a room. Any ‘reflection’ of sound—an echo—is weak and feeble at best. And we can’t ‘shine a sound’ at someone the way we can ‘shine a light’.
All of that is about to change with the invention of HyperSonic Sound.
Invented by Woody Norris (the same guy who invented the popular Jabber headsets for cellphones), HyperSonic Sound is like a ‘sound spotlight’. However, it doesn’t just direct sound to one (and only one) location; it gives the impression that the sound is being created at that location. And you don’t hear it until it hits you.
How is this possible? Sound is a pressure wave. On a speaker, sound is made on the face of the speaker. Hypersonic sound, however, is made at billions of points along a column of air. Aim it at someone’s ear, and it sounds like it was made right next to the ear.
“That means you go to a rock concert or a symphony, and the guy in the front row gets the same level as the guy in the back row, now, all of a sudden,” said Norris in a recent talk at TED. It can also work in everyday applications—like cars, for instance. You can have one stereo system in the front for the parents, and a DVD player in the back for the kids. There’s no hassle or fuss of dragging headphones around.
It doesn’t stop there. With this new ability to direct sound, “we create silence as much as we create sound,” claims Norris. “ATMs that talk to you; nobody else hears it. Sit in bed, two in the morning, watch TV; your spouse, or someone, is next to you, asleep. Doesn’t hear it. Doesn’t wake up. ”
Perhaps in a few years, you too will have access to the wonder that is hypersonic sound. One day, you might be able to sit in a lecture with a hypersonic sound system that sends the voice of your professor right to your ear—or, perhaps preferably, a system that directs your prof’s voice away so that you can really sleep in peace. Imagine the possibilities.
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