Transfer a secret audio message by poking someone with your finger
Transfer a secret audio message by poking someone with
your finger
TECHNOLOGY 13 SEPTEMBER 13 by OLIVIA SOLON
Disney Research
Disney researchers have developed a microphone that lets
a user record a voice message and then relay that message to another person
simply by touching them with a finger.
The microphone converts the voice message into an
inaudible signal which is transmitted to the body of the person holding the
microphone as an inaudible signal. It can then be transmitted from that
person's body to another person's body through touch. The recorded sound only
becomes audible when touching someone else's ear. Their ear canal acts as a
sort of speaker, allowing them to listen to a secret finger-transmitted
message. The sound can't be heard by anyone else but the person being touched.
The system uses a Shure Super 55 microphone connected to
a computer's sound card. The microphone records as soon as it hears a sound
over a certain threshold. The computer then creates a loop with the recording
which is sent to an amplification driver. The recorded sound signal is then
converted into a high voltage, low current inaudible signal. The output of the
amplification hardware is linked up to the conductive metal casing of the
microphone so that the person holding the microphone will receive the inaudible
version of their own message in the shape of a modulated electrostatic field
around their skin. When that person then touches another person's ear, the
electrostatic field creates a small vibration of the earlobe which, in turn,
leads to the ear and the finger behaving like a speaker.
The prototype is called Ishin-Den-Shin (literally: what
the mind thinks, the heart transmits) after the Japanese concept of
interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding, inadequately
encapsulated by English words like sympathy or telepathy. It was developed by
Olivier Bau, Ivan Poupyrev and Yuri Suzuki.
Suzuki told Wired.co.uk that the project was born out of
a previous project called TeslaTouch, a haptic feedback technology used to add
textures to screens. They realised that if the screen could vibrate to create
textures it would also be able to create sound. Suzuki explained that Bau felt
a similar sort of vibration in a previous generation of MacBook and worked out
that by touching the laptop and touching another person it was possible to pass
on a sound. "We were looking for some poetic way to send secret
information through the body," said Suzuki.
It took a while to get the voltage right to transmit
message. "I had so many electric shocks to get the right current and
voltage," says Suzuki. Even at the right voltage, the person on the
receiving end of the message will feel a tickling sensation.
The research had to also have some potential benefit to
Disney, and Suzuki, Bau and Poupyrev considered how it might be used in Disney
theme parks to entertain people in queues for rides.
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