
How Engineers Create Artificial Sounds to Fool Us - d0ne
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9533769.stm
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patio11
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.)

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fastfinner
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.

~~~
sgk284
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>

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kleiba
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...

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Swizec
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.

~~~
kleiba
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.

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kiiski
"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)."

One could say the same about cars. Silent cars would require much more focus
and no amount of adapting will change that.

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kleiba
I disagree. Take for instance a city like Amsterdam (or any other Dutch city
for that matter). People ride bikes there. Lots of bikes. Fast bikes. When you
go there for the first time, you better make sure you walk on the right side
of the side walk, or else you're actually in danger of getting run over -
you're just not used to them, and the bike lanes often are on the side walks.

But you do get used to that - you simply start looking out more carefully.

I see no reason why it should be different with cars, especially since you
would probably hear even a silent car more easily than a bike.

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ajb
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
Don't GSM mobile phones work similar?

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dmitri1981
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.

~~~
rmc
Market segmentation at work.

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sltkr
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.

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Silhouette
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...

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d_r
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.)

~~~
ianterrell
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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-
frequency_signaling)

~~~
jwr
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.

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JonnieCache
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.

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ImprovedSilence
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?

~~~
JonnieCache
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.

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awaz
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.

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

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blankslate
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.

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

