Posted by Nora Young under Uncategorized
Imagine this scenario. You’re sitting in the living room watching TV. In a chair nearby, someone is listening to music, and in the hall, someone else is listening to the radio. Sound like a recipe for noise pollution? Maybe not.
The “Audio Spotlight” aims to beam sound in such a tightly focused way, that people nearby can’t hear it at all. There’s an example of the audio spotlight used with an advertising billboard in Manhattan right now.
Here’s the unedited interview I did with Joe Pompei, president and founder of the company behind the Audio Spotlight.
Click above to listen to the full interview, or download the mp3.
Posted by Dan Misener under
Episodes
Note: As part of Spark’s holiday programming, segments from this episode have aired previously. Think of it as a remix.
On this episode of Spark:
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
Download the MP3, or subscribe to the podcast.
Posted by Nora Young under
Help Us Out!
Maybe you’ve heard one of these stories. A spouse finds out that a ‘better half’ is being unfaithful by snooping through email inboxes, or tracking software spies on what websites that spouse is visiting. Well take that one step further. Now, digital evidence is starting to turn up in divorce cases, as
this New York Times article explores.
Do you have any stories of divorce and digital evidence? What do you think about the use of email correspondence in divorce cases. We’d like to get your thoughts on the air.
Posted by Nora Young under
Help Us Out!
Say, have you noticed that pink consumer electronics are getting more and more common? There are baby pink cell phones and PDAs, presumably to market to women. Really? Is that the best they can do?
It’s a generalization, sure, but do you think women have a different approach to technology than men do? If you’re a woman and you were going to design an electronics store, how would it be different than what you find out there now? Share your thoughts for an upcoming segment on Spark!
Posted by Dan Misener under
Interviews
On the October 24/27 episode of Spark, Nora interviewed Cory Kidd, an MIT researcher who’s developed a robotic weight loss coach — sort of like your own personal robot version of Jenny Craig.
Cory was studying how social robots compare to more traditional ways of tracking weight loss. Since we last heard from him, Cory has completed his study, defended his PhD thesis and formed a company based on his research.
This week, Nora did a follow-up interview with Cory about his study results. You can hear the whole thing above, or download the MP3.
Posted by Dan Misener under
Episodes
On this episode of Spark:
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
Download the MP3, or subscribe to the podcast.
Posted by Elizabeth Bowie under
Uncategorized
People from the Spark community offered some very helpful tips for how to assess how much energy you’re using in the home, and what to do about it.
Here are some more interesting links we’ve discovered recently:
New York Times article on “vampire” power loss (has some valuable links to energy appetite of average appliances)
The Treehugger blog offers tips on “greening” your electricity
And on greening your computing
You can monitor how much energy your devices are using with products such as this
Or this:
Those tips on monitoring devices came to us from the comments section of our original post. Plenty more good information where that came from that post. Check it out.
