
A comforting lie - colinprince
http://www.dansdata.com/gz148.htm
======
zw123456
The comfort noise that he is referring to is the white noise that is
intentionally introduced by modern digital cell phones. Most cell phones have
a CODEC that will detect silence and rather than wasting valuable bandwidth on
nothing, a silence packet is sent that says something like "quiet for the next
250ms" or something like that. The GSM specification for the AMR CODEC
provides for a feature called comfort noise. It turns out that on the other
end, if the listener hears total silence, they worry that the connection was
lost. So instead it will provide white noise, specifically +/\- 2048 (of a 16
bit word). Since a pseudo random number generator on the phone is typically
used, it is making white noise, similar to the white noise you hear on an old
fashioned analog phone or as the author references, a radio tuned to no
station and you hear random static a percentage of which is cosmic MW
background radiation from the big bang. It is ironic that with all that
digital technology and people still like the comfort of white noise in the
background, not complete silence. Of course the carriers could instead use
some extra BW and transmit the actual background noise of whoever you are
talking to.

~~~
VLM
"Of course the carriers could instead use some extra BW and transmit the
actual background noise of whoever you are talking to."

Another effect is the overall system would get more complicated and latency
would increase because you'd need some fancier echo cancellers.

~~~
pjc50
It's less complicated and unrelated to echo cancellation; you just tell the
transmitting codec to always encode whatever audio you've given it, rather
than detecting silence.

(Echo cancel is usually in the local audio path before data is passed to the
codec. So the outbound codec would hear silence rather than an echo of inbound
audio. At least that's my experience of working with PJ-SIP)

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raintrees
And my copy of Linux Mint still uses the shutter-click-motor winding sound for
screen shots... Since the photos get dropped in the Pictures folder, it is one
of the few ways I know it happened, unlike the copy of Ubuntu I am running on
another box that shows the Save As interface.

So we developers keep adding the comfort noises, as well.

At least Mint didn't use the AOL's "File's done" announcement :)

~~~
VLM
"shutter-click-motor winding sound"

Anecdotally my kids are rapidly approaching teenage years and they have no
personal experience with film cameras, or floppy disks. Most attempts at real
world icons fail miserably because 1) multicultural 2) one glyph can't explain
anything complicated which is why our writing uses alphabet and words.

Notice that however poorly point 2) was written, it contained 15 words and
many letters, not a iconic graphic interpretation resembling mating centipedes
on a teacup, or whatever GUI icon would be appropriate.

Its almost 2015, the GUI concept is dead and starting to smell, just some
haven't noticed yet.

Nothing in IT is ever new and everything in the rotating wheel comes back into
style and I GREATLY look forward to the inevitable return of simple text menus
as the dominant UI.

------
couchand
Remember that it's not always about comfort, sometimes it genuinely is about
usability. Consider Skeuocard [0]: it's much easier to enter information when
the place you're entering it looks like the place you're reading it from.

[0]: [http://kenkeiter.com/skeuocard/](http://kenkeiter.com/skeuocard/)

------
ourmandave
One "comfort noise" that Just Ain't Right is the fake engine noise they pipe
over the speakers of cars that have a lot of sound proofing, etc.

It gives you feedback (which increases safety) but it raises trust issues.

~~~
jimmaswell
I once tried to start a car that was already started because its engine was so
quiet.

~~~
jleader
Note that in current gas/electric hybrids, the concept of "started" loses most
of its meaning. The system as a whole can be "on" or "off", but doesn't
intrinsically make any sound that distinguishes the two states. The gas engine
subsystem will get turned on and off at the whim of the controller; if the
engine is up to operating temperature and the battery's charge level isn't too
low, the controller will turn off the engine whenever its power isn't needed
(stopped at a stoplight, driving very slowly, coasting down a hill, etc.). On
some models, it's also possible to press a button to tell the system "delay
starting the gas engine as long as possible". Hence the concerns about hybrids
"sneaking up" on pedestrians.

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RexRollman
Sony's Magic Cap had a skeuomorphic interface as well. I always wanted to try
it, given that Bill Atkinson was involved, but I never had the chance.

The Wikipedia page has a screenshot for those who haven't seen it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Cap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Cap)

~~~
shawn-butler
When I first saw them I assumed Magic Cap was also influential in some early
Android pre-1.0 concepts.

Rubin was an engineer on Magic Cap either at General Magic or when it was
still Apple if I recall correctly.

