back to article Japanese ultrasonic speakers fire out digital info rays

Japanese boffins at Tokyo’s Keio university have been showing off new transmission technology which uses ultrasonic waves to send digital information in highly directional bursts. Unveiled at the Open Research Forum 2012 in the capital last week, SteganoSonic features two plates covered in small ultrasonic speakers and a …

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  1. jon 72
    Boffin

    Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum

    Internet Protocol over Xylophone Players (IPoXP)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCT7SisWh38

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Schultz
    Thumb Up

    Multiple speakers == acoustical phased array

    for directional sound transmission ... sounds like a neat idea, but surely has been done before? So now they coupled that technology to the good old modem?

    Just for reference, the register already carries stories about phase manipulation for radio waves for magical information multiplexing (twisted radio) or to build better antennas (super antenna) and elsewhere scientists play with photon phases to achieve the same goal ('photons with helical phase structure'). Seems to be all the rage for information transfer those days.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's new about this?

    ^^^^ See Above

    1. Luther Blissett

      Re: What's new about this?

      It's worse than we thought. Directional ultrasonic acoustic devices have been in existence 10+ years, operating in the utlrasonic 200kHz-220kHz range to carry audio which is demodulated using sum and difference tones within a small space confined by the acoustic collimation. For example, combining 201.000kHz and 200.000kHz creates an intermodulation tone of f1-f2 which is 1.000kHz. The perceived effect is uncanny - you take a step into the 'hot' spot and suddenly you u hear music. Practical devices havs been investigated by the Coca-cola company to create an 'ambience' around vending machines, and by the US DoD in higher power versions to create a different kind of 'ambience'.

  5. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    Uh oh..

    I remember ultrasonic TV remote controls, and the fact that one of our dogs somehow managed to have a harmonic in his bark that would change channels.. I surely hope they have dog-tested it (the animal in question has sadly passed away)..

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Great Weapon

    What a great weapon it would make.

    You want our data? Here... take THIS!

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    Neat but not new

    That said I wonder if there's something in the original report (presumably in Japanese) that El Reg has missed?

    Embedding low frequency data in audio tracks has also been done (at least experimentally) for some children's toys.

    Not sure if it took off.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Great

    Not gonna be able to get the dog off the computer now.

  9. Ed_UK

    Typo?

    " transmit audible frequencies so that a user's table could pick up the machine-readable URL"

    Either they have some very fancy furniture in Japan, or that's a typo for "tablet" perhaps.

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