NYT: A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/technology/12ring.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/t...ogy/12ring.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"In that old battle of the wills between young people and their keepers, the young have found a new weapon that could change the balance of power on the cellphone front: a ring tone that many adults cannot hear. In settings where cellphone use is forbidden — in class, for example — it is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species."</i><br /><br />Oh dear. 8O Another annoying ringtone to add to all the rest out there -- except one that many of you might not be able to hear, as it's 16kHz, which is higher than the hearing range of many people above 30. The NYT article has a link to the ringtone (<a href="http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3">here</a> -- in case you don't want to register or read the article). Can you hear it? I can -- it's a almost-painful high shriek -- but one of my officemates can't.

[Kevin Jackson]

Well, it's good to know that my hearing is still good at 35 -- at least I can hear the ringtone.

Now excuse me while I try to find some way to stop the blood flowing from my busted eardrums. :D

[Rod3]

Can't hear a thing; lost my high frequency hearing years ago. I don't miss it. 8)

You know, I don't think my dog liked that.... :lol:

[AtTheCross]

over 40 and can hear it, but it's non-directional for me

3 of 4 people in my cube area can hear it, the person that can not hear it is >=45

Youngest of the 4 is 35

[Jason Dunn]

Wow, that's an irritating sound! :evil: Though I'm pleased I can hear it, being over 30 and all. :lol:

[Don Tolson]

For those who can't 'hear it', try a good pair of headphones or speakers attached to the PC. Sometimes the speakers included in laptops, etc. don't reproduce sounds at that frequency, either!

[rhelwig]

I'm 42 and I could hear it. There was some discomfort though.

Curiously, I can only hear it if I face directly towards it. When I turn my head a bit left or right, I can't hear it.

[egads]

I voted no right off but after listening again with it turned up a bit more I can hear it in my left ear. My kids could not hear it so I though something was up. I turn up so high initially I thought I was going to shatter my teeth. I backed it down to where the kids could easily hear it and I was still able to hear it also (again, left ear only).

44 and can half hear it!!!

[SteveHoward999]

I'll be 40 in a few days, and I can hear it. Oh goodness, can I hear it! My wife doesn't believe there is any noise at all.

So if this is targetted at teenagers, how come half the respondees here who can hear it are over 30? Some even over 40. Seems like somebody miscalculeted :p

[Jacob]

I'm 31, turning 32 this year and I could hear it.

It started to give me a headache though!

[Mark Kenepp]

There was a descussion of this over at Smartphone Thoughts (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11339).

I tried listening to it through the link (http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3) in this article since I am sitting at a different computer with different speakers to see if the result would be different from the first time I tried.

The results were the same, I could not hear anything but even just a few seconds of playing the sound sure made my head feel like it was going to explode. :microwave:

Even after a few minutes since I listened to the sound my head still hurts.

Now I finally know what is the microwave emoticon's use :)

Oh, I am over 40.

[robshobs]

I could barely hear it, however, my dogs sure did. They went nuts! :lol:

Rob

[Dyvim]

Man that sound is painful. I'm over 30 and can hear it, but my wife can not (although she is older than I am). At first she thought I was teasing her so I let her play and pause the QuickTime player and I had to tell her when the sound was playing or not with my back turned.

[bkerrins]

I wasn't even close to hearing it! I'm 44 and think it's pretty cool idea that the teenagers were creative like this. I heard the sound was originally played at malls to drive the kids away. Personally, I just put my stuff on vibrate and let CallWave take a message which is better than getting a ring tone, but let kids be kids.

[Janak Parekh]

So if this is targetted at teenagers, how come half the respondees here who can hear it are over 30? Some even over 40. Seems like somebody miscalculeted :p
Well, the ringtone is conceptually based off a technology being developed to keep teens away from storefronts called Mosquito, and isn't the original tone. That system uses a different (and even higher-pitched) tone; you can try it at the BBC article page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2006/04/04/mosquito_sound_wave_feature.shtml). I'm curious what folks think about this sound, but I didn't want to clutter the poll, which is why I didn't reference it.

More discussion about cell phone speakers' ability to reproduce such sounds at BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/kids_turn_teen_repel.html).

Still ingenious on the part of the kids, if only with mixed success. Also, I wonder if the geeks here tend to protect their ears, and that's why they can hit better... :P

--janak

[dangerwit]

I can hear it too, at the age of 32 ... I can also hear if a TV is on, with volume at 0 or muted, and some of the high-pitched whining from hard drives and other PC components. Top it off, I've exposed my naked ears to airliners while out on the tarmac when I worked for an airline.

I gotta wonder though, what about good ol' vibrate mode? Why not just use that? Is the buzzing too loud?

[Janak Parekh]

There was a descussion of this over at Smartphone Thoughts (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11339).
8O I missed that. Oh well. ;)

--janak

[griph]

I'm 42 and I could hear it. There was some discomfort though.

Curiously, I can only hear it if I face directly towards it. When I turn my head a bit left or right, I can't hear it.
Well I'm 52 - and I could hear it very clearly face on - it was almost deafening when turning to the side. But then I can hear bats cries. My problem is discerning mid range sound when there is significant background noise - e.g listening to a conversation in a close group in a bar/Pub.

[jutae]

ehhhh? What did you say sonny????

[jutae]

So if this is targetted at teenagers, how come half the respondees here who can hear it are over 30? Some even over 40. Seems like somebody miscalculeted :p
Well, the ringtone is conceptually based off a technology being developed to keep teens away from storefronts called Mosquito, and isn't the original tone. That system uses a different (and even higher-pitched) tone; you can try it at the BBC article page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2006/04/04/mosquito_sound_wave_feature.shtml). I'm curious what folks think about this sound, but I didn't want to clutter the poll, which is why I didn't reference it.

More discussion about cell phone speakers' ability to reproduce such sounds at BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/kids_turn_teen_repel.html).

Still ingenious on the part of the kids, if only with mixed success. Also, I wonder if the geeks here tend to protect their ears, and that's why they can hit better... :P

--janak

Wow janak, I didn't hear that one at all....I'll be 37 Friday. I knew my Rockford Fosgate system would haunt me in my years to come.

[EscapePod]

My wife and I are in our late 50's and cannot hear it. I had my 14 year old grandson come into the room, and when I played it, he snapped his head back. He said, "Pop Pop, your PC's busted!"

:lol: ...... :cry:

[jlp]

Well one of these files I can clearly hear the other not.

However playing the file I cannot hear eats my MPx-220 battery like crazy: going down around 5 % 8O each time I played the 30 sec file; down from 90 something. AND my phone is only 5 weeks old so it's not a matter of ageing battery!!

[Mark Kenepp]

...playing the file I cannot hear eats my MPx-220 battery like crazy: going down around 5 % 8O each time I played the 30 sec file; down from 90 something. AND my phone is only 5 weeks old so it's not a matter of ageing battery!!

Hah! It all backfires on those igneous kids :twisted:

They think that they are so clever creating a ring tone that their teachers can't hear when in fact, they are draining their cell phone batteries so fast that they become useless in a matter of seconds!

[ctmagnus]

I know my hearing is going, and I could hear it. I'm going to be 30 in a few months.

[griph]

Well, the ringtone is conceptually based off a technology being developed to keep teens away from storefronts called Mosquito, and isn't the original tone.
I tried that and couldn't hear it on my PC speakers - no idea whether that was my ears fault or the sound was beyond the range of my speakers to be able to reproduce it.
On you speculation to us geeks protecting our ears? I spent my youth listening to Prog Rock and Heavy Metal - after a Black Sabbath concert (1973) where I was sat 3 rows from front and sat right in front of the right speaker cluster (the bass would have given me CPR if my heart had stopped) my ears 'sang' for 3 days afterwards! Countless other similar experiences including Pub Rock sessions where 4 young chaps with far to much amplification played to a packed and smokey room finished off my ears. My mid range has since been impaired - but oddly I can still hear high range sound. As I have already pointed out - I am 52 and I could hear the 16kHz sound VERY clearly.

[Gerard]

44 here, and both sounds were sufficiently annoying that I had to stop them quickly. My wife's 36, and she got mildly mad at me for playing the first one - until I explained why. I'll have to try these on clients. Most of my customers are doublebass players, with the odd violinist. The latter tend to go partially deaf in the left ear. But let me tell a related story for comparison.

Between 5 and 7 years ago I lived on the top floor of a house with my workshop overlooking my neighbour's grape trellis. Racoons routinely climbed all over it, trashing more grapes than they ate, making a heck of a sticky mess. As my neighbours kept hoping to make wine - not sticky patio glue - they tried a number of solutions. They settled on an 'ultrasonic' repellent device, with a frequency range between 18 and 25kHz.

When they first used that thing I went out on my porch and asked if something was wrong. Sounded like an alarm of some sort. They happily showed off their expensive new toy, saying they couldn't hear it: wasn't it great? I politely explained that I was soon going to go crazy if that loud siren kept wailing... but this fell on deaf ears, as it were. They couldn't understand the problem.

The two summers I spent there were a misery. I tried listening to my stereo turned fairly loud - 6 speakers I'd wired throughout the suite when I renovated it - but soon lost interest in music thanks to that whine. My clients all complained, whether 15-year-old kids just starting their careers or a few players in their 70's. One guy, at 82, had to stop coming over, as his hearing aid made the sound intolerable. This is all through a rather expensive double-glazed French door, which I had to keep shut just for my sanity.

So when I read on that BBC article this nonsense - "...it works by emitting a harmless ultra sonic tone that generally can only be heard by people aged 25 and under" - I just have to wonder what idiot dreamed up the 'science' behind it. Are people over 30 in Swindon all stone deaf?

And no, I've not always been kind to my ears. I spent too much time balancing a pint, while being buffeted from in front by Marshall stacks shrieking punk rock and from behind by moshers. I liked those waves of sound, hammering my chest. And kids tended to crash into the speakers, so I sort of nudged them back into the pit while trying not to spill mine nor their beer. These days I plug my ears when an ambulance goes by.

[Phoenix]

Based on my laptop's maximum volume going up to ten, I had the volume turned up only to 2. I played that sound and my head snapped back so fast it just about gave me whiplash as I exclaimed, "Ahhhh!!!". It was loud and painful, and this is on laptop speakers at a low volume and with the TV on at a moderate volume. And yes, I'm over 30.

But I've always had very sensitive hearing and undoubtedly this accounts for some of my response.

But that has got to be one of the most painful noises I've heard in a long time. Everytime I replay it, it hurts just as much as the first time.

[PDANEWBIE]

I can hear it and enjoyed it.. they should do more than a monotone line and actually put some kind of tune to it.

The funny thing is I can't hear a TON of things people normally talk to me about so maybe I ruined my normal hearing but not my 16khz hearing?

[Jason Lee]

Ouch! 8O

[Janak Parekh]

I tried that and couldn't hear it on my PC speakers - no idea whether that was my ears fault or the sound was beyond the range of my speakers to be able to reproduce it.
I have an Altec Lansing PC speaker setup, and it reproduces both sounds accurately, although the second one feels "soft". Of course YMMV.

On you speculation to us geeks protecting our ears?
Yeah, it was a purely random and incorrect speculation. ;)

--janak

[servoisgod]

Here's the company's link if anyone is interested

http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/

You can download the ringtone from them, but if you are in the US, make sure you go to the correct site www.fork.com

Later,
Aaron

[mmidgley]

dangerwit wrote:
> I gotta wonder though, what about good ol' vibrate mode? Why not just use that? Is the buzzing too loud?

I guess this is the case. The kids will have to use the upcoming technology of a slight electric shock ringer (heh).

m.

[haesslich]

I can hear it just fine, and sometimes I hear electronics whining at that pitch.... I guess I really DO have good hearing. :P

[FallN]

I can definitely here it. OMG, it's painful! My head is still hurting from hearing it. It makes my eyes water and I'm starting to feel disoriented and a bit nauseous...

I swear, if some kids are playing that ringtone I'll snatch their phone and beat them to death with it! I can't bear that sound! :evil:

[Brad Adrian]

Based on my laptop's maximum volume going up to ten...

Mine goes up to 11, and I still couldn't hear it. ;)

[Zagleft1]

Me neither, Brad. Kind of scary, actually. :roll:

[Phoenix]

Mine goes up to 11... ;)

Well, why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?

[Brad Adrian]

Well, why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?

"Because mine goes to 11. That's one louder..." LOL!!

[fivepetpalace]

OMG, I used to be able to here that high pitch, now my ears are ringing, not sure I can hear anything.... :evil:

[Roosterman]

That's funny. I started playing the ringtone and couldn't hear anything. Went and got my teenage son and asked if he could hear anything out of my computer. His response, what is wrong with your computer to make that high pitch sound? :lol:

[Cybrid]

With the sound turned up, I could barely distinguish a keening noise mixed in with the usual static from my speaker. My son however came running out of the room "Hey, wut's that wierd noise?" :roll:

[k1darkknight]

Actually, I AM 30, but I can hear at least an octave (give or take) higher than that. That said, I put "Yes, and I'm over 30" since I figure I won't lose a full octave of my hearing before my next birthday...lol

[Sheena]

I'm 47 &amp; I can't hear it, only some minor buzzing if I crank up the volume, but judging by the reactions around the forum I'm glad I can't. One thing I find curious though. Actually 2 things:

1) Judging by the stats on this poll, 20% of the youngsters can't hear it (only 25% said they could) and a whooping 50% of the over-30 crowd *can*. Did anyone actually test this to see if it would work on the target audience &amp; not the rest of us?

2) But let's say it worked perfectly &amp; only the students in a classroom could hear it &amp; not the teacher; wouldn't the screaming, general covering of ears, &amp; beatings-with-own-phone the culprit would endure be a good clue that someone sneaked in an illegal cell phone? 8O Even the good old (sometimes loud) buzzing would be easier to hide.

Sounds to me like an untested &amp; poorly thought out gimmick. :roll:

Rosie
(all sound puns unintentional)

[Roosterman]

I'm 47 &amp; I can't hear it, only some minor buzzing if I crank up the volume, but judging by the reactions around the forum I'm glad I can't. One thing I find curious though. Actually 2 things:

1) Judging by the stats on this poll, 20% of the youngsters can't hear it (only 25% said they could) and a whooping 50% of the over-30 crowd *can*. Did anyone actually test this to see if it would work on the target audience &amp; not the rest of us?

Rosie
(all sound puns unintentional)I think you're reading the poll incorrectly. The percentages are of the total number of people responding 25% where under 30 and could hear it. Only 1% of the respondants where under 30 and couldn't hear it. 50% of those resonding where over 30 and could hear it. :|

[Sheena]

Only 1% of the respondants where under 30 and couldn't hear it.

You're absolutely right. I read the "20" count as a %. :oops: Of course looking at it with a clearer head, the %'s here are of *all* people that answered the poll. If you look at it by age, only about 7% of the "youngsters" couldn't hear it, while a whooping 73% of the "elders" could. Go figure! :?

And yes, I'm not counting the poor earless fellows. :wink:

Rosie