How Engineers Create Artificial Sounds to Fool Us

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9533769.stm

by d0ne • 15 years ago

80 50 15 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

patio11• 15 years ago

There is a secondary purpose for sounds on digital cameras: it makes it obvious to people in the vicinity that someone has just taken a photo. This is, indeed, mandatory in some places. I don't believe there is an actual law on the books, but government guidance in Japan is that if you make a camera or phone with a camera feature it has to loudly announce itself and it should be impossible to turn that off short of damaging the device. (This is largely to prevent sexual misconduct.)

For example, if you turn down the volume to zero and set my phone to manner mode, it will ring on taking a picture loud enough to hear 20 feet away.

Similarly, current model electric cars (Prius et al) are designed to run less silent in certain circumstances, mostly for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists around blind corners. (I don't know if they shipped that one to the US yet.)

gaius• 15 years ago

Indeed. And the reassuring clunk of the car door is as much to get you into a calm frame of mind before driving as anything.

tomjen3• 15 years ago

I know that there has been some talk about it here, but there is no sound on my Android phone default camera app.

Anyway is there a sound when you take video on yours?

Because if not, it seems kinda pointless.

rmc4• 15 years ago

Ditto, my android doesn't make a sound if the phone is in silent mode

lelele• 15 years ago

My Nokia 5800, set to silent mode, does not make any sound, it just flashes. Just tried it indoors.

ramchip• 15 years ago

Is it sold in Japan?

I have a Sharp camera-phone, and in manner mode it does make a sound when taking any picture - except for the OCR and business card reading modes, in which it's impossible to save the image anyway. I found it inconvenient when I was at university and wanted to take the blackboard...

I've seen silent regular cameras, though.

fastfinner• 15 years ago

I am a photographer and I know I'd hate this feature. It makes street photography a lot more difficult.

I assume by sexual misconduct you mean someone taking pictures in the bedroom (as opposed to photographing women at the beach, which is public space - unless specifically prohibited). I feel that is too specific a protection to make the lives of legit photographers difficult. Instead, more severe punishments could be implemented to protect men and women whose sex videos are filmed without consent.

rmc4• 15 years ago

I assume by sexual misconduct you mean someone taking pictures in the bedroom

More likely taking photos of someone in a semi-public place, e.g. changing rooms, on a train, in a café, etc.

sgk284• 15 years ago

In Japan, groping women and taking pictures up their skirts is a very very common practice among men. That's why they have women only passenger cars on trains[1]. The camera sounds are there to deter this behavior.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-only_passenger_car

awaz2• 15 years ago

The engineers are NOT creating artificial sounds to fool customers. As the article describes, customers would not buy a good product just because it does not sound good (which means customers are fools). Engineers are designing the products knowing that their customers are fools.

TeMPOraL• 15 years ago

"sounds good" might be a part of a product "being good". I believe humans care not only about practical aspects, but emotions and broadly understood "user experience" as well - no matter how hard they try not to admit that.

biot• 15 years ago

People enjoy things that please their senses. This applies to cars, dating, software, food, and just about darned near everything. Perhaps on Vulcan everyone chooses strictly for logic, but humans base many decisions on such illogical concepts like how something makes them feel. I guess we're all fools that way.

robryan• 15 years ago

Makes producing products/ services and marketing more interesting than if everyone acted in completely logical and rational ways.

ugh• 15 years ago

No one in this story is a fool. There is nothing wrong with wanting certain things sound a certain way.

awaz2• 15 years ago

I used the fool word in my reply to show that the story makes a wrong point. Engineers are being smart in Including the sound aspect, customers are being smart in paying attention to the sound as a cue. That means the author of the story is a fool :)

kleiba3• 15 years ago

I live close to a pretty crowded street. Lots of trucks, cars, motorcycles. Besides the environmental benefit, one thing I've been looking forward to for years is the reduced noise that electric engines would bring about. Reading a sentence like:

Nissan's new electric vehicle has a speaker fitted under its bonnet and a synthesiser in the dash to generate engine noise.

makes me so aggressive, I cannot even tell you. I think when you've never experienced any other kind of car than a loud one, then yes, you will start relying on your ears when you cross the street. But I think that's just a matter of what you're used to. If cars always had electric engines from the beginning, do you think people would get run over all the time today? I don't think so, because they would have adapted.

I think the transition from combustion to electric engines will be slow enough for people to adapt to them. And gosh, it would be such a niecer world with less car noise...

Joakal• 15 years ago

Wouldn't it be pretty easy to find the source of noise?

Swizec• 15 years ago

What about blind people? They rely pretty heavily on hearing the car.

Or what about people walking down the street and a car creeping up on them from behind. It's scary having things rush past from behind if there is no warning. Let alone very dangerous.

As much as you might think humans are awesome and only need eyes, fact is that as most other animals, when it comes to danger, we mostly rely on our ears.

That's why phones ring. That's why fire alarms ring. That's why alarm clocks ring. Everything that needs our immediate and utmost attention ... is loud.

Nitramp2• 15 years ago

Modern luxury class cars are already surprisingly silent, in particular when driving less than 50 km/h. That's exactly the speed in situations pedestrians or blind might be endangered. Doesn't seem to be too much of a problem yet.

kleiba3• 15 years ago

Electric cars still make noise: the wind, the tires, and for trucks the cargo can too sometimes. It's just that they would make considerably less noise.

Blind people usually don't simply jaywalk a crowded street, they cross at the lights. And you'd still be able to hear moving cars.

I don't think phones ring because we rely on our ears in times of danger. It's because hearing is one of the senses that doesn't require exclusive focus (you would not want to stare at your phone all day until it starts blinking, although in some offices they do). Smell and taste wouldn't be alternatives for obvious reasons, but feel could be, and in fact phones can vibrate. Some wrist alarm clocks do too. And fire alarms are nothing we're exposed to every hour of the day.

I acknowledge that the fact that cars are pretty loud could be helpful in reducing accidents. But apparently your theory has a flaw, or else no one would ever get hit by a car. Now, one could say that more people would get hit by cars if all cars were super-silent, but my original point was that this is just because we're not (yet) used to more silent cars. I think pedestrians would change their behavior and get used to them.

For people living on highly frequented roads, continous noise can become a very stressful factor. It drastically reduces quality of life and can negatively affect your psychological and physical health. That doesn't mean that every person living on a busy street gets sick. But I would still argue in favor of reducing noise where possible, and more silent engines could be one factor.

rmc4• 15 years ago

Everything that needs our immediate and utmost attention ... is loud.

All cars within earshot need my immediate and utmost attention?! Nonsense.

mootothemax• 15 years ago

When I lived in London, I cycled everywhere; the number of pedestrians who would blindly walk out in front of me was astounding. From my experience - and my bike certainly wasn't silent - electric cars without engine noises would be lethal.

thret• 15 years ago

Lethal to people who don't look where they are walking. Natural selection thinning the herd, I think it's a fair trade for reduced noise pollution. I'd be surprised if iPods haven't already begun the process.

jules• 15 years ago

The eyes have a field of vision. The ears hear 360 degrees. This seems like an inherent advantage of the ears.

abecedarius• 15 years ago

I'm hard of hearing, and car noise significantly decreases my quality of life. Almost anywhere you go in the city, there's too much traffic noise for us to talk. Meet at a coffeeshop or something and there's too much noise inside to talk. So I too was really looking forward to electric cars, and dismayed by this. The worst was hearing about a push to make quiet cars illegal -- yes, that might be the best practical safety measure in the current state of the art, I don't know, but must we stop all innovation? Is there no other imaginable way to address the problem?

(I don't know how much quieter a street full of electric cars would actually be. Would like to find out.)

Tichy• 15 years ago

Car traffic in general significantly decreases my quality of life - and probably my life expectancy, too.

kragen• 15 years ago

The EV1 SUV was pretty much silent. Leaving a parking spot, it sounded like a bicycle. Without the ratchet. At freeway speeds, car noise is dominated by tire noise, so presumably the EV1 was equivalently loud there.

GeneralMaximus• 15 years ago

As much as I hate traffic noise, I don't want to have people driving around in completely silent cars. Electric scooters are very popular in New Delhi (see http://www.heroelectric.in/; I even own one of those), and they barely make a sound. More than once I've been startled by a scooter approaching from behind. Moreover, it's impossible to account for them when I'm on a bicycle.

1053r• 15 years ago

As a person who signed up to buy the Nissan leaf early, and a current owner, I was also pretty upset about this, at least until I got the car.

The noise that is makes is barely audible from within the car. It is a very faint whistling / turbine sort of noise, and I have to turn it on and off to get my passengers to hear it, even with the windows open.

Additionally, there is a switch to turn it off if one hates it. However, after driving this car daily for a few months, I wish it were louder. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten stuck behind a pedestrian or biker who is proceeding directly down the middle of a street or parking lot, and has no idea I am behind them. I creep along at 5 miles an hour, and I can either honk at them (very rude), or just wait for them to notice me. They usually figure it out after 30 seconds or so, and many times they jump and do a double take when they realize I "snuck up" behind them. A little more artificial noise would eliminate this problem.

pbhjpbhj• 15 years ago

>I can either honk at them (very rude)

// A car horn is there to allow you to warn other road users of your presence. Sounding the horn to make someone aware you are there makes things safer, they avoid being run over. If they scowl at you then smile broadly and wave.

Recently I've noticed where I am people have stopped saying "excuse me" (the pedestrian equivalent or beeping your horn) they just stand waiting. I find it annoying as that can mean you're delaying someone without knowing it.

dkarl• 15 years ago

I feel pretty lucky that automobile owners in the early 20th century weren't required to stop every quarter mile and shovel a load of horse manure onto the street. Honestly, that's how I feel about requiring a car to be more noisy. The only reason people rely on cars being noisy is that they always have been noisy. It's not like engine noise is the only thing separating life and death. Consider parking lots, which are exactly the kind of close-quarters, limited visibility place where engine noise would be vital, if it were really vital. When a parking lot is too busy to pinpoint the engine noise of a nearby car -- when there are cars all around, shopping carts jangling over rough pavement, people talking, PA systems blaring announcements, noise reflecting off all the metal surfaces -- does that make it a deadly environment? No. People are careful, and accidents are rare. Relying on sound is not a necessity; it's just a habit that has become a mistake.

The danger is based entirely on people needing to adjust their assumptions about cars, which has basically already happened for people in the United States, where hybrids are now commonplace. The longer we can hold off this insanity the more obvious it will be that it is insanity. Who in 2015 will assume that cars are noisy, if we don't commit the folly of making them noisy? In 2020? Or we could choose to make cars noisy now and be stuck with the noise pollution forever.

d_r• 15 years ago

Another classic example would be the "tone" sounds you hear when entering digits on a modern cell phone. Completely cosmetic, but probably just makes sense for consumers. And there's just something pleasant about hearing those tones rather than a generic beep (or nothing.)

Nitramp2• 15 years ago

Arguably these have a function; consumers got used to them from multi frequency dialing in the past, so if you're used to the tones it provides an additional source of error correction (for example to find that you pressed 5 twice instead of 52 which you intended). The frequencies are there for historical reasons, but they do have a purpose.

ianterrell2• 15 years ago

On dialing they might be cosmetic, but the tones are still used to communicate with remote services. When the machine says "Press 1 for English," it's relying on getting the right tones (1209 Hz and 697 Hz in DTMF). Sure, they could be sent in the background without letting the consumer hear them, but they're still being generated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signa...

jwr• 15 years ago

Except few modern devices actually transmit there frequencies in-band. They get encoded and sent out-of-band, then recreated (if needed) on the other end.

dmitri1981• 15 years ago

A friend of mine once worked in a cosmetics factory and told me that by far the biggest difference between a £5 and a £20 lipstick is that the more expensive one makes a satisfying click when you put the lid on.

rmc4• 15 years ago

Market segmentation at work.

Silhouette• 15 years ago

My personal favourite one of these is the noise the ATM makes while you're waiting for your cash. The internal mechanism is almost silent in modern machines, but without some sort of audible feedback to tell them something was happening, customers reportedly started to assume machines were broken and walk away...

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

Interestingly, you can make a pretty good instant assessment of the quality of a piece of pro audio gear by its density relative to other devices of the same function. Denser is better, until you get up the the very top of the price range when density suddenly drops due to a switch in the tech used, eg. digital amps.

ImprovedSilence• 15 years ago

I'm curious as to weather or not this is sarcasm? I remember the owner of a small company that makes top of the line a/v equipment (the type of stuff Saudies wih oil money put in their private jets) come talk in one of my college courses. He showed us the inside of a case, and where they added weights on the inside, so it felt 'solid'. And thus sold it at a premeimum.

p.s. I'm a horrible speller, Somebody make a keyboard app with a spell checker, eh?

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

It isn't sarcasm. Good quality pro audio gear weighs a ton. I know this because I've schlepped lots of it around. I've seen enough of it opened up to know that it doesn't have weights added to it. The kind of people who buy this stuff often open it up as soon as it comes into their possession, out of curiosity. Any brand adding weights to their products would soon be laughed out of the market.

Good quality in this context doesn't necessarily mean audiophile sound quality, it means consistently high performance and low failure rates over many years of abuse.

As I said, when you get to the really top end stuff, it stops holding true. Weight is the last thing to be optimised as you go upmarket.

This is pro audio gear I'm talking about, not so called "high end" consumer stuff. I mean the stuff which has rackmounting brackets, not the stuff with a delicate finish. "Audiophile" kit is synonymous with snake-oil, as that guy who came into your college demonstrated.

ajb• 15 years ago

Another similar thing is voip phones. These don't bother transmitting if there is no-one speaking, but the other party will get worried that the call is disconnected if they don't hear any noise. So the other phone generates 'comfort noise' to indicate that all is still well. In fact, usually the comfort noise is generated to roughly match the spectral envelope of the real noise, so that when the silent party starts talking again, there isn't a strange transition in the sound of the underlying noise.

eru• 15 years ago

Don't GSM mobile phones work similar?

sltkr• 15 years ago

My favourite example of this is my iPod nano: it has a built-in speaker only to make a clicking sound when I use the (non-mechanical) clickwheel to browse through menus. The speaker is used for nothing else. If I have my earbuds in I can't even hear it. It only exists to say "click" whenever I scroll up or down a menu.

Logically, there is no reason to include such a useless feature into an MP3 player. But apparently the perfectionists at Apple's design department felt the clicking sound of the mechanical wheel on the old iPods was an essential part of the user experience. And that's the difference between Apple and the manufacturers of cheaper clones.

blankslate• 15 years ago

As a motorcyclist, the sound of traffic is almost entirely a non-issue; I can wear canalphones with music at a volume where I can't hear any traffic noise, and still negotiate peak hour inner city traffic.

But then, as a motorcyclist I pay more attention than just about any driver (including myself when I'm behind a wheel). For example, I'm never surprised by a vehicle suddenly appearing in my rear view mirror on a bike, because I move my eyes in a reflexive pattern between the road and both mirrors every few seconds.

If you're really paying attention, sound is almost a non-issue on the road - but that puts you in a very small minority of road users.

djcapelis• 15 years ago

Hate the keyboard clicking sounds on iPads and iPhones. It's like the first thing I turn off.

How Engineers Create Artificial Sounds to Fool Us

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