This Website Is Literally Just a Cat Purring Forever
Purrli is the white noise generator of cat lovers’ dreams. Continue reading This Website Is Literally Just a Cat Purring Forever
Tag Archives: Audio
This Website Is Literally Just a Cat Purring Forever
Purrli is the white noise generator of cat lovers’ dreams. Continue reading This Website Is Literally Just a Cat Purring Forever
Detect Lightning Strikes With Audio Equipment
One of the driving principles of a lot of the projects we see is simplicity. Whether that’s a specific design goal or a result of having limited parts to work with, it often results in projects that are innovative solutions to problems. As far as simplicity goes, however, the latest project from [153armstrong] takes the cake. The build is able to detect lightning using a single piece of equipment that is almost guaranteed to be within a few feet of anyone reading this article.
The part in question is a simple, unmodified headphone jack. Since lightning is so powerful and …read more
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What are the known ways to gain complete access to hardware audio?
Are there any known ways to gain access to firmware (bios/EFI) and permanently change the audio in a way that would effect the quality (Clarity, Volume, Frequency Range, Dynamic Range). For instance could an attacker gain acc… Continue reading What are the known ways to gain complete access to hardware audio?
Friday Hack Chat: Audio Systems
Join us this Friday for a Hack Chat on Audio Systems. It’s going down June 2 at noon PDT (handy time zone converter thing).
Every Friday, we gather round the campfire with the best in the business to tease out whatever secrets are stored in their mind. This is the Hack Chat, and this week, we’re going to be talking about audio systems with [Dafydd Roche]. Bring your low-distortion volume knobs and porcelain speaker cable risers, this is going to be a good one.
[Dafydd] got his start in electronics in an application for a music degree. He mentioned he’d …read more
Chrome bug that lets sites secretly record you ‘not a flaw’, insists Google
Definitely not a security issue, says Google, as it moves to address flaw that could have you inadvertently starring in someone else’s movie Continue reading Chrome bug that lets sites secretly record you ‘not a flaw’, insists Google
Bring Home a Classic Synth with the DIY Fairlight CMI
[Davearneson] built a modern version of a classic synthesizer with his DIY Fairlight CMI. If there were a hall of fame for electronic instruments, the Fairlight CMI would be on it. An early sampling synth with a built-in sequencer, the Fairlight was a game changer. Everyone from A-ha to Hans Zimmer has used one. The striking thing about the Fairlight was the user interface. It used a light pen to select entries from text menus and to interact with the audio waveform.
The original Fairlight units sold for £18,000 and up, and this was in 1979. Surviving units are well …read more
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Run From the Sound of Footsteps in Blind Game of Tag
The human auditory system is a complex and wonderful thing. One of its most useful features is the ability to estimate the range and direction of sound sources – think of the way people instinctively turn when hearing a sudden loud noise. A team of students have leveraged this innate ability to produce a game of tag based around nothing but sound.
The game runs on two FPGAs, which handle the processing and communication required. The chaser is given a screen upon which they can see their own location and that of their prey. The target has no vision at …read more
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Patents on MP3 Format Due to Expire
MP3 took off in the late 90s as the digital music format. It then proceeded to slaughter the CD, and launch the file sharing revolution as well. It’s a proud format that has roots stretching all the way back to the early 1980s, when the possibility of sending music over ISDN lines was first considered. Now the patents on it are beginning to expire and its licencing program has been terminated.
The MP3 standard was the property of Fraunhofer IIS, and the original licencing model was intended such that encoders would be expensive, and decoders relatively inexpensive. This would allow …read more
Ultrasonic Tracking Beacons Rising
An ultrasonic beacon is an inaudible sound with encoded data that can be used by a listening device to receive information on just about anything. Beacons can be used, for example, inside a shop to highlight a particular promotion or on a museum for guided tours where the ultrasonic beacons can encode the location. Or they can be used to track people consumers. Imagine if Google find outs… oh, wait… they already did, some years ago. As with almost any technology, it can be used to ‘do no harm’ or to serve other purposes.
Researchers from the Technische Universitat Braunschweig …read more
