Driving Away Teens With High Frequency Noise

ars writes "The New York Times is reporting on a device called the Mosquito invented by Howard Stapleton designed to drive teens away by emitting a high frequency noise at 75db. Apparently most older people can not hear the sounds, but teens can not stand it. Reports are that it works quite well, but some older people can hear it too. He found the prefect irritating sound by experimenting on his children."

Biological or Environmental?

[ajax0187]

Does this really work because they're teenagers, or because they just haven't lost the upper levels of their hearing? I remember reading that we can (originally) hear up to 30,000 Hz, but as we get exposed to loud noises, we gradually get more and more deaf as our ears lose more and more of their capability. Something like the first concert you go to cuts out the upper 2000 Hz of your hearing. Which brings up an interesting point - will this work on teens exposed to so much loud noises (music, lots of concerts, construction, trains, etc.) that it just won't work on them?

By the way, a great role model for fathers everywhere:

"Okay honey, how much does this hurt?"

BZZZZT!!!!

"Ah, turn it off, turn it off!!"

"In a second honey. Daddy has to hurt you to show how much he loves you. Now, how about this?"

BZZZZT!!!

"AHHHHHH!"

Horrible and Disgusting

[JustinCEO]

This is a morally repugnant and disgusting device. Think of the implications of this device: an entire age group of people, both good and bad, ambitious and aimless, hardworking and lazy, are, irrespective of who they are, and entirely based on their age, are being treated like animals or pests to be driven away. Not to mention it apparently doesn't work very well according to the summary. I can only wonder if technology had advanced in our society a little faster than our morality did if hucksters would have been marketing "Negro Repellent Devices" to the discriminating and gullible bastards of an earlier era. Shameful.

No problem

[JanneM]

Just shoplift some earplugs.

Seriously, this shopkeeper exhibits a view of people that would make me very hesitant to be a customer at his store. He is saying, effectively, that "My interest in you is in your money and nothing else. If you spend money, I love you. If not, you're a creep and should not be in my sight." And, really, that is not the kind of person I'd like to be in any kind of relationship with, be it business of personal.

Re:Proper use.

[cagle_.25]

However, it hasn't yet been legally tested whether or not he can blast loud noises into the neighborhood. What if someone is standing on the sidewalk and is bothered by the noise? Public nuisance or not? Judge Judy will decide.

My experience

[glitch0]

I frequently whip out my tone generator in class and put it at high frequencies very loud. Gets hilarious when half the class is yelling about a noise and the teacher thinks they're crazy.

On another note, would those neat Bose active noise cancelling headphones remedy this problem? I know it's rather easy to build active noise cancelling headphones, and if this happened anywhere in my town I would make pairs of these for everyone just to spite them.

Also, I tend to have worse hearing than most of my peers due to the fact that I play drums rather extensivly. Would this stop me from hearing the sound?

Re:Legality?

[Bradee-oh!]

Many forms of discrimination are illegal for government agencies and many/most public businesses and services. Private discrimination is a different matter. I could keep black people, hispanic people, white people, blind left-handed people, or people who voted for Bush off of my private property simply because I wanted to. The government couldn't do anything about it. On that note, I could keep teens out, as well. No matter the inventor's intended use, there are plenty of "non-infringing" uses for this device. Suggesting it's would be illegal because it discriminates against teens shows a gross misunderstanding of (American) law.

Huntington metro station in northern Virginia

[orangepeel]

This just looks like an ultrasonic animal repeller to me. Here's an easy Google Search [google.com] that shows how common they are. The thing is, anyone with decent hearing will hear these ultrasonic devices too -- and yes, they are extremeley irritating, to the point of being painful. My parents live way out in the country and use one to keep deer away from their garden, and another one to keep their neighbor's cats away from their parked cars. Having to suffer around 2 of those things any time I visit my folks, I can easily recognize the high-pitched agony-inducing devices now.

And as a result, I suspect there is a powerful one in use at the Huntington metro station [wmata.com]. It's cranked way up, frankly to the point that I worry about hearing damage when I walk through the protected area. I can hear the sound just inside the entrance, aimed right at the turnstyles (slightly stronger at the side near the fare card machines). In this case, I imagine they're using it to keep birds and squirrels out of the station. The station itself is in a surprisingly wooded area, nestled into the side of a small hill. I'm sure they found an ultrasonic animal repeller was the only thing that worked at keeping critters out of the station. It nearly keeps me out too ... it actually makes me feel slightly nauseous if I hang around in that entrance area too long.

A hearing aid works too

[BlindSpot]

I belong to a club that's made up of mostly seniors, so I'm one of just a few people there under 40. A few years ago (I was 25 or 26 then) I was playing with one of our long-time members when I began hearing this really high-pitched whining noise, right on the high edge of my auditory range. Wasn't super loud, but definitely loud enough to notice if you could indeed hear it. After determining to my satisfaction that I wasn't crazy, I deduced the noise was coming from some definite source. I asked my opponent if she could hear it, and she said no but wondered if it was her hearing aid. She turned it down and sure enough, the noise went away! Apparently I was the only one who could hear it.

Two more occasions I heard the noise and immediately asked her to turn it down and it went away, so that pretty much confirmed the first time wasn't a fluke. I dunno exactly what was happening, but I figure the hearing aid was generating feedback when turned up too loud. After all they are just compact microphones and speakers.

I tell you, when I heard this noise and I couldn't figure out what it was, I started to get really agitated. The agitation was to the point that where if someone heard it for a sustained long time they could seriously go insane or even try to kill themselves. It was bad. The sense of relief I felt when the noise was turned off was quite profound.

So anyhow, I didn't RTFA but if they're talking about using this device on a long-term basis to keep teens away from somewhere, this is tantamount to torture. I think anybody considering using this for anything other than security in imminent danger (e.g. teens harassing you) deserves to lose the rest of their hearing too.

Re:this country is strange

[shoolz]

If a group of 45 year-olds start hanging around a storefront cursing, drinking, stealing, and deterring the attendance of honest paying customers, and the shop owner takes steps to deter the presence of those 45 year-olds, would you be claiming that the shop owner is anti-adult?

Re:Wonderful

[TubeSteak]

Did you RTFA?

"So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in South Wales.
Evans and a 12-year-old friend who did not want to be interviewed were once part of a regular gang of loiterers, said Gough's father, Philip. "That little girl used to be a right pain, shouting abuse and bad language," he said of the 12-year-old. "Now she'll just come in, do her shopping and go."

These kids in England are acting like monsters.

Its one thing to have a knee jerk reaction to a group of youths, it's another thing to have a reaction to a horde of insult spewing, object throwing assholes.

This tool is being used to deal with specific & localized problem, namely abusive & loitering youths. If you had RTFA you'd realize that this is behavior anyone would find abhorrent, not just the older generation.

Shit like that reminds me of all those hate-spewing pre-teens on Xbox Live. They have the most vile mouths you've ever heard. If the Xbox controller had a button allowing me to send an ear splitting squeal of pain into the little prick's headphones, I'd do it.

Why? Not because he's 11 years old and hasn't hit puberty, but because the bastard is calling me a cocksucking nigger jew.

I think maybe you're the one having a knee jerk reaction here.

Re:What's was wrong with...

[BigCheese]

I prefer the shotgun filled with rock salt or a fire hose.

Re:Wonderful

[icleprechauns]

As bad as it may sound, Steven J. Levitt, author of the award-winning Freakonomics, said that the lowering crime rate is because of the legalization of abortion about 2 decades before. Teens that otherwise would have been neglected and possibly would turn to the streets were aborted instead, so syousef may actually be pretty correct.

What part of this country? (overgeneralization)

[Tau Zero]

The teenagers aren't anti-teenager (duh!). So who are you talking about?

Yet as a group, teenagers sure are very ostracized, looked down, and picked on.

You might have noticed that teenagers are less well-socialized, less acquainted with work (as illegal aliens have taken many of the jobs once performed by teenagers as professionals-in-training), and otherwise contemptuous of the virtues of the society which makes their comfortable lives possible.

Call it anti-boorishness, anti-hypocrisy, anti-jerk. But until kids get sneered at for saying "Yes, sir" and helping old ladies across the street, don't call this country anti-teenager.

Re:TVs

[ian_mackereth]

I'm in my mid-40s and still hear that 16kHz whine from many TVs and monitors when the PC's turned off. I learned to protect my hearing when I was in the (Royal Australian) Air Force. While the young d00ds were being macho and enduring the loud noises as jets flew overhead, the brass who'd been around awhile had no qualms about wearing earplugs or putting their fingers in their ears as appropriate. My fellow (then) teenagers probably ended up cool, but deaf.

Classical music works too

[jebiester]

A cinema in my town had the same problem with large groups of teenagers loitering at the entrance. Once they started playing nice classical music (not even loudly) they all dissappeared. I guess it was no longer a "cool" place to hang out any more. I think the makers of this device should have tried their first option, at least it's less iritating to customers.

Re:Can you hear me... Can you hear me now...

[Coeurderoy]

Thanks for the explanation, from somebody that has an acceptable level of hearing, this is quite interesting.

I do hope that at least once you have filtered out the people that do not like to "work" (have a meaningfull conversation) it leaves you with enough interesting people that you can meet at some quite place.

It also points to some interesting suggestion for hearing aid maker, since the level of computing power available is going up, I would guess that two improvements should be possible either now or soon.
1) compare the sounds that are comming in from both side of the head and boost up what is "similar" (i.e either in front or directly behind you)
and boost down the rest (what is not in your sphere of direct interest)
2) provide some level of environment profiling that enables you to "say" I'm at a disco, or at home, or ..., and choose which sound bands should be filtered, and which should be increased.

Re:Proper use.

[VMSBIGOT]

Would typical noise ordinance laws have any effect on the use of something like this? Also, alot of gas stations are located close to residental areas, and I could imagine the outcry from neighbors who have to listen to this all day/night.

Not to mention that alot of gas stations/fast food joints have a high % of teenagers working there.

Re:Can you hear me... Can you hear me now...

[elgatozorbas]

Your suggestions have been addressed a long time ago.

One of the problems associated with the first generation of hearing aids (besides unstability) was that the 'cocktail-party effect'. If you are at a gathering of many people (such as a cocktail party), people with normal hearing are able to focus on a nearby conversation and block out the others. Initially hearing aids could not do this but more recent models have an increased sensitivity in the direction right in front of you.

To achieve this multiple microphones are used. Even wireless communication between the left-ear hearing aid and the right-ear hearing aid is now being investigated. Also denoising, dereverberation (removal of room effects to make sound more clear) are investigated. I work in signal processing myself and this is a very active area of research.

One step further are cochlear implants. For people with total hearing loss but intact nerves in the inner ear it is possible to attach electronic contacts (obviously through an operation as these contacts are inside their skull!). Apparently sensitivity to signals of different frequency resides at different areas in the ear, therefore the incoming sound is decomposed into a number of frequency bands, the output is which is sent to the appropriate area. This technology can really make (some) deaf people hear and have conversations. However, the dynamic range is very limited iirc, 8 dBs or so.

Google for 'cochlear implant'...

Re:TTC

[Tom]

This is being used over here in Germany in several cities. Apparently it not only keeps gangs away, but also drug dealers, bums and other folks who loiter around at train and subway stations.

I wonder if that says more about these people or about the music.

Re:Far more effective...

[romeo_in_blk_jeans]

The whole 1980's notion of "keep those damn kids outta my store" is passe. This would be great to keep teens out of industrial areas, warehouses, and the alley behind the store after hours. It wouldn't be turned on during the day. After all, you want teens to come to your store. 15 to 18 year olds with an income source often don't have many financial responsibilities and, as a result, have a relatively high percentage of disposable income.

And yes. I agree with you. Shooing teens from my store during the day is a bad thing. I want them to spend as much of their cash as they can, preferably in my store.

Re:Resonant frequencies...

[macwarriorny]

I was a student music teacher long ago and taught in a classroom (school was built in the mid 60s) that had the same type of acoustics, in fact, the particular note was A above middle C. The first time I had a choir of about 40 junior high kids sing that note in unison I thought the blackboard was going to vibrate off the wall. It was very weird.

Re:Far more effective...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty obvious he meant all the TVs in all the school rooms that were left on in the building. As he walked the halls throughout the day, it gave him a migraine by the time he went home. Apparently, his ears are good at hearing very high frequencies.

I have a similar problem, I can hear electronic components "whine". The solution for me is to turn on some music, it helps. Also, when a TV is turned on, I can hear the static field forming. I can also see the capacitated energy in the phosphors fade away when the TV is turned off, though others say they cannot. And, it's hard to sleep at night sometimes, because I can hear clocks ticking away as if they were knuckles cracking.

On the bright side, I can hear silent whispering conversations from across the room at my job even though they think no one can hear them. And, I can hear sounds at a pretty large distance outside with crystal clarity.

What is amusing is that in high school they thought I was deaf one time, because they gave me a hearing test in the cafeteria of all places. Usually, they give it to you in the nurses office, but for some reason they couldn't at that time. At any rate, I could hear every single conversation, chairs smacking the floor, backpacks slipping off arms, mouths crunching food, people laughing and it distracted me from listening to the high pitched tones.

Oh, that reminds me, if you have good hearing listening to people eat food is stomach turning. The sound of it isn't so bad if I am also eating food at the time because it distracts me from the sound.

Re:Proper use.

[cagle_.25]

... but it's a harder question than one-line definitions allow for.

Agreed. And the cases you posit are reasonable boundary cases to try. Nevertheless:

(1) Sperm, egg, and people with XXY, X, XYY, or XXX genetic makeup are all genetically human. However, sperm and egg are not organisms (a fairly standard definition can be found in the Wiki under Lifeform). The others are.

(2) Identical twins are separate organisms and therefore not a point of confusion. Conjoined twins are, OTOH, a problem. At this point, I'm willing to accept that a very small number of rare situations will be difficult to determine and might require the drawing of an arbitrary line. How would you want to sort out conjoined twins?

(3) Persons with autoimmune or degenerative disorders are still functioning as organisms. The boundary case would be someone who is brain-dead.

your definition of "human being" is, um, crap.

Thanks for the support. It's the best I have for now, and it seems to be more clear than some vague notion of a soul, or of mental function.

Re:Proper use.

[anothy]

calling your definition crap was overly harsh, and just not civil. i'm not normally quite such a jerk, even online; i appreciate you not getting steamed over it. now on with it:

1) "Sperm, egg, and people with XXY, X, XYY, or XXX genetic makeup are all genetically human." why? chromosome count is a pretty standard method in definitions i've heard before. i'll agree that sperm and eggs are not lifeforms/organisms; good point.

2) i'll agree identical twins aren't a problem given a re-reading of your sig (i'd previously parsed it as (genetically human && genetically distinct && functioning organism) whereas i think you mean it as ((genetically human && genetically distinct && functioning ) organism); simple english ambiguity). conjoined twins are still a problem. i think cognitive function and personality distinctness are the logical constraints, although they're difficult to know for some time, and it's slightly trick to exclude things like MPD or get into minimum cognitive function levels, which is a scary place to be.

3) i'm not convinced you're right here in all cases. given, for example, one of the fundamental functions of an organism is turning food into energy, would someone who's body has stopped doing that (which would obviously cause them to die pretty soon if uncorrected) stop being human with the onset of the disease (rather than with death)? clearly these are fringe cases again, and i wasn't intending to lump all degenerative or autoimmune diseases in with each other, but illnesses where the body is literally attacking itself make definitions of "function" tricky.

i don't have a better definition. my initial reaction was based on an (apparently inappropriate) assumption that, given the definition's placement in your sig and how that space is most commonly used, you were dogmatically putting it forward as a settled fact; your willingness to discuss the matter and admit flaws says pretty loudly that i was off the mark on that one.