The Nigerian city of Lagos has banned the use of car horns for one day, or drivers face a £75 fine. “The objective of the day is to reduce noise pollution,” Lagos state government’s transport commissioner, Kayode Opeifa, said. “The exercise will create awareness that horn misuse and abuse is very dangerous to health and the environment.”
Read the article on The Guardian web site.
Seven scientists and engineers from CERN have created music and performed based on the sonification of data obtained by four detectors – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – during the Large Hadron Collider run 2010-2013.
Read the full article and hear their music on the CERN web site.
Wired.com has an article on several expensive headphones, 9 of the World’s Most Outrageously Expensive Headphones, some are $5,500 ??
It has got me puzzled why consumer grade headphones are expensive, after all they are 2 speakers, a headband, and a chord. It was announced this week that Apple will be buying Beats for $3.4b (see SMH article) !
Japanese tyre manufacturer Yokohama has a press release that they have been working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), to model the radiation of sound from tyres. They claim to have conducted the world’s first simulation of turbulence around a tire rolling on a road surface and the sound that is generated.
Researchers in the department of psychology at University of Iowa have found that humans have an auditory memory of only about 4 to 8 seconds.
Their paper is available online.
The CES 2014 convention is underway in Las Vegas and a bevy of new gadgets are on display. One audio product that has shone out is ClearView’s Clio loudspeakers. The speaker comprises a transparent curved perspex sheet that is mounted in a black base that houses the drive mechanism. The curve sheet acts as the sound radiator and is driven by piezo-electric actuators on the bottom edge of the sheet. This type of drive mechanism is patented and called EdgeMotion.
Here is a photo from ClearView’s media gallery. Try to find their speaker!
On a related topic of audio, at the bottom of the ClearView’s web page is a selected history of the development of audio technology which is worth a quick look. You’ll see familiar company names like Siemens, Lansing, Jensen, Kloss, Thiele and Small, and others. Of course the history of the development of audio technology is much more detailed and many many developments are missing, but their selected list is interesting nonetheless.
The Verge web site has a news article about a ‘Magnetophone’ sculpture that generates sound. The device comprises electro-magnets, strings, sound boards, and is controlled by an Arduino board.
The founder of the Bose audio company, Amar Bose, died on 12 July 2013, aged 83.
Read the news item on the MIT web site.
Rich Lee got a magnet surgically implanted into his ear. A coil around his neck generates a magnetic field that causes the magnet to vibrate and make sound.
Story via CNET.
Michael Porter and Laurel Henderson from Heat, Light, and Sound Research, Inc. will present a map of underwater noise level around the globe at the 21st International Conference on Acoustics. Simulations were conducted to determine the noise levels in the sea due to the propulsion noise from ship travelling on along shipping lanes around the globe.
See the article from the Space Daily web site.