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The 'Mac OS X' Song

While there are dozens of Windows-themed songs out there, few thought of rubbing those neurons together to compose a song using the sound effects in Mac OS X. Well, this guy did, and it sounds pretty cool. He's also putting the project up for grabs, so you can continue or completely alter what he's started ...

26 September 2008
04:04 GMT

Mouse Power for Volume Control

  One of the many reasons we buy computers is also to play our favorite movies and music. This is the case for both our home PCs and our travel mates - the notebooks. There are dozens of multimedia players out there and, naturally, everyone has a preference in this respect. Most of them have common commands so i...

24 September 2008
09:21 GMT

Sound Studio 3.5.7 Fixes Automator and AppleScript Issues

Sound Studio 3 is a Mac OS X app focused on recording and editing digital audio on your computer. The software can digitize tapes and even vinyl records, record live performances, and more, and has now been updated to include the latest tweaks and bug fixes.Using the third installment of Sound Studio, you can also cr...

26 August 2008
23:01 GMT

Weird Frog Hears Only Sounds It Wants

A frog living near the noisy springs in central China was found by researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of California to have the ability to tune its ears to hear only certain sound frequencies, as opposed to hearing all the sounds in the acoustic spectrum at the same time, as humans do. Pre...

23 July 2008
06:29 GMT

X-ray Reveals Why Stradivarius Violins Are so Valuable

It's almost amazing how violins made by applying three century old technology cannot be matched in sound quality by violins made through modern technology. No wonder some of these musical instruments value several hundred million dollars each and made Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu some of the most famous mast...

2 July 2008
08:38 GMT

How Gun Suppressors Work

Gun suppressors, most commonly known as silencers, are generally used to 'quiet' down the loud bang created by the sudden expansion of the explosive discharge that is propelling the bullet out of the gun barrel and through the air. The vast majority of guns are not built to accept suppressors, although some...

14 May 2008
08:57 GMT

How Microphones Work

Often referred to as mike or mic, the microphone first became commercially practical with the invention of the carbon microphone by Thomas Alva Edison in October 1876. Back then microphones were called transmitters. Practically, the microphone is an electronic device capable of capturing minute air pressure waves or ...

8 May 2008
08:40 GMT

Future Language Issues Can be Detected even in 3-Month Old Infants

You don't have to wait for the age of speech learning. A team led by Professor of Neuroscience April Benasich, at Infancy Studies Laboratory at Rutgers University in Newark, found just how the brains of 3-month old infants differentiate sounds signal language issues.The methods developed by this team can assess ...

16 April 2008
04:32 GMT

World's Oldest Recording: Since 1860

This is the world's oldest audio recording, from an era when today's recording technology seemed fairy tales. American specialists have found and listened an 1860 recording of a folk song. This pre-dated by 17 years the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison, which recorded him singing a children's song ...

28 March 2008
08:28 GMT

How You Can Pick Up at a Noisy Party

In the middle of a crowded party, you approach and manage to talk with your preferred "target", with all the thundering background noise. This has been a mystery: how can we ignore background noise to focus just on the voice of our interlocutor. It has been believed that the brain differentiates sound sources by ass...

28 March 2008
06:34 GMT

Mac Does Its Job While User Is SoundAsleep

A lot of Mac owners will leave their Macs on over the course of the night or even days at a time for one reason or another. The Mac, as any computer out there, makes sounds. Surely you've left the volume at maximum falling asleep while the machine was downloading an important piece of software, prompting you to ...

27 March 2008
16:51 GMT

Creative: Asustek's Sound Cards Don't Support EAX

Asustek recently released a new series of sound cards targeted at the enthusiast and high-end markets, which somehow ended Creative's supremacy on the market. Until Asustek arrived on the market, users who would like to enjoy a Hi-Fi audio experience had to knock on Creative's door. Things are about to chan...

26 March 2008
07:30 GMT

A Weapon of the Future: Ultrasound Gun

Forget the rubber bullets and water jets. The weapon of the future for controlling the mob will employ sounds. Or you may use it against the little monsters of the Halloween or an annoying neighbor. The handheld sonic gun, called Sonic Devestator, can emit intense ultrasonic charges capable of causing intense pain an...

22 March 2008
04:46 GMT

Phone Call Without Speaking

Until a machine will read your thoughts, a first step has been made: New Scientists signals the development of a neckband that decodes your nerve signals into speech. For the first time, you could make a phone call without opening your mouth.A trained individual can transmit motor messages to its vocal cords without ...

19 March 2008
06:12 GMT

Foxconn Introduces High-Definition Integrated Sound Motherboards

Foxconn has announced a strategic agreement inked with digital audio expert DTS to deliver onboard digital sound with the DTS CONNECT and DTS Surround Sensation technologies into its upcoming motherboard products. "DTS CONNECT™ ensures simple installation of groundbreaking audio capabilities for the PC, breathing new...

7 March 2008
11:08 GMT

New Phone Service Tells You Whether He/She Loves You or It's Just a Lie

The human brain can be fooled, but not this phone. Our mind orientates too much based on the voice, but what a lier may not know is that there are non-perceivable patterns in the sound of a voice that can betray him/her. A new high-tech mobile phone device can secretly decode, based on the pitch and sound analysis of...

23 February 2008
04:30 GMT

iPhone/iPod Headphones that Let You Hear Everything

No, it's not an add-on for your MacBook Air, but one for your iPhone or iPod. Airdrives, the "Stereo Earphones for iPhone and iPods," feature this integrated discrete microphone that enables hands-free dual use from MP3 earphones to iPhone headset and, check this out, allow their user to hear life's surroun...

21 February 2008
09:48 GMT

Your Mother Tongue Influences How Your Brain Develops

Well, the development of your brain is not only influenced by genetics, diet and intellectual stimulation, but also by... your mother tongue! "Everyone has a brain stem, but it's tuned differently depending on what sounds are behaviorally relevant to a person, for example, the sounds of his or her mother tongue,...

20 February 2008
04:35 GMT

How to Hunt in the Dark Underwater

Shrews have always been considered an ancestral model of mammals, the model of how primitive mammals must have looked during the dinosaur era. But a new research made on water shrews and published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" reveals highly sophisticated methods for hunting underwater smal...

20 February 2008
04:04 GMT

A Snoring Partner Shortens Your Life

A snoring partner means more than a bad night sleep. A new research published in the European Heart Journal shows that it can increase your blood pressure, no matter if you are awake or asleep. Hypertension is a risk factor for heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and dementia. In fact snoring can reach 90 decibels,...

15 February 2008
14:06 GMT

How Does Our Ear Reflect the Sounds?

A healthy ear reacts to the sounds it receives, emitting soft sounds in response. These sounds can be detected by sensitive microphones, which enable doctors check newborns' hearing, as a deaf ear doesn't reflect the sounds. A new study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and...

13 February 2008
02:46 GMT

Beaked Whales Hear Through Their Throats!

Beaked whales get their name from the shape of their snouts and their large size, but these cetaceans are close-related to dolphins. This family of toothed cetaceans is amongst the least known mammalian families. They measure between 3,4 to 12 m (11 to 40 ft) length and weigh 1 to 15 tones. They make deep dives and f...

11 February 2008
03:28 GMT

Sex and Sax: How Is It Possible?

Did some of your intimate moments get higher when you played the CD with Kenny G, David Sanborn or Candy Dulfer? Now, a research published the journal "Science" has solved the mystery of how jazz saxophonists reach those shaking piercing high notes that amateurs cannot. By expertly shifting the shape of their vocal ...

8 February 2008
02:45 GMT

4 Amazing Bat Senses

1. In the depths of the caves, where current airs, temperature and humidity are practically constant, bats seem to know exactly when it's time to go hunting. In fact, when atmospheric pressure decreases (before a rainfall), the insects gather at low altitude and are easier to be preyed. The atmospheric pressure ...

2 February 2008
07:19 GMT

Male Hummingbirds Sing with Their Tails for Sex

We've known that the bird's trills are produced by a very complex organ called syrinx, located on their trachea. But a new research published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society B" journal shows that in fact their chirps may be produced via the most unexpected means. A hummingbird species has been foun...

1 February 2008
03:59 GMT

Sound Waves Keep Your Computer Cool!

Prepare to throw you cooling fans and heat sinks out the window! Scientists say they won't be powerful enough to cool your future computer processors anyway, and liquid cooling techniques will be implied in just a few months or years. However, cooling computer chips with liquids are not as efficient as they migh...

24 January 2008
08:54 GMT

Acoustic Cloak Bends Sounds Around You!

Let's not fool ourselves, invisibility cloaks have been built and they do exist; they don't work exactly as they should is another thing. However, Duke University researchers said they hadn't done enough to improve the technology and decided to test some acoustic invisibility devices before resuming th...

18 January 2008
03:53 GMT

How Do Musical Instruments Work?

Sounds are vibrations transmitted through the air as waves to our ears. The frequency of the sounds is given by the number of vibrations per second, measured in hertz (Hz). Humans can perceive only sounds with a frequency of 16 Hz to 20 kHz (20,000 Hz). Most musical instruments produce sounds with frequencies of 27.5...

17 January 2008
07:11 GMT

Will We Ever Achieve Invisibility?

The universe is a world of infinite possibilities. Well, at least theoretically. Theoretical physics predicts anything from parallel universes to time travel. But, as we came to find out, neither of these two concepts are really so easy to prove. Invisibility cloaks are not different. Although physicists clearly show...

12 January 2008
06:29 GMT

Our Auditory Neurons - 10 Times More Sensitive than a Cat's: One Tenth of an Octave

There must have been something about our hearing that enabled us to differentiate speech and music from other sounds. The human ear can detect sound frequencies of 16Hz to 20 kHz, no matter if tones were high or low, near or far. But our ears are simple compared to the remarkable ability of single brain neurons to ma...

11 January 2008
04:16 GMT

10 Things About Hearing, Sound and Noise

1.Movement or chocking of the objects produce sounds. A sound is the vibration of elastic waves through different environments (solid, liquid, gaseous), with a frequency between 16 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz) (which is detected by the human ear). 2.Human ear has three parts: external, median and internal. The external e...

27 December 2007
16:56 GMT

Your Right Hemisphere Gets You 'Hooked Up in da Club'

The left cortical hemisphere realizes this through an acoustical technique named "simultaneous masking", which enables the brain to distinguish one sound even when it comes together with competing sounds and noises. Also named frequency masking, the process often takes place when two or more sounds with a similar fre...

19 November 2007
04:05 GMT

Guitar Hero III Sound Issues

This must be some sort of a joke. Not only does Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock feature less game modes than expected, but it also delivers poor sound quality. In fact, the game actually lacks a bunch of channels, while some even claim that the game doesn't output in stereo.How is it even possible for a game th...

12 November 2007
04:34 GMT

From CPU to GPU Starvation - Microsoft Acknowledges Audio Glitches in Vista

Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista, advertised as an evolution in comparison with its predecessor, Windows XP, is nothing short of a resource hog, swallowing every crumb of CPU cycles and digesting even the last bits of RAM thrown at it. And yet, while the Windows client has been experiencing iss...

1 November 2007
08:09 GMT

VIA Partnerships with QSound Labs

VIA Technologies just announced a partnership with the QSound Labs company, one of the leading providers of audio and voice software applications, that is aimed at providing a superior sound technology that can be used with Microsoft Windows Vista enabled computer systems, including multimedia, laptop and desktop pla...

26 September 2007
08:21 GMT

Compact Design and Superior Quality from Logitech's New Speakers

Logitech just announced the launch of a new audio speaker system, the Logitech AudioHub Notebook Speaker System with Integrated USB Hub, which delivers exceptional high quality audio in a unconventional design as it combines a 2.1 one-piece speaker system and three integrated Hi-Speed USB ports in a compact form that...

11 September 2007
09:30 GMT

Addicted to Yahoo Messenger's Old Sounds? Here's How to Install Them!

Yahoo Messenger 8.1 comes with numerous additions compared to the older versions, including new sounds that are meant to enhance the chatting experience provided by the past releases. Although I really like the new sounds implemented into YM, some of you might want to use the old audio files into their instant messag...

24 August 2007
15:41 GMT

Logitech G51 Sound System

Logitech announced the release of another piece of hardware designed for gamers as an extension of the G family of computer gaming peripherals, the Logitech G51 Surround Sound Speaker System. This new sound system is composed of a 5.1 speaker setup that features a 360 degrees surround sound system for the ultimate au...

23 August 2007
08:40 GMT

Like Bats and Dolphins: The Boy That Uses Echolocation

We know that echolocation is extensively used by bats, dolphins and by some bird species. Based on the echo made by the sounds or ultrasounds they emit, these species can make an auditive image of their environment. It is literally like seeing with your ears. We, as humans, can't really imagine this. But when t...

30 July 2007
14:26 GMT

Why Is Our Hearing So Keen?

Humans can hear sounds between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. Bats and dolphins go much further: they can hear sounds over 20 kHz (ultrasounds), while dogs and elephants hear sounds under 20 Hz (infrasounds). For 30 years, researchers stated various hypotheses on how specialized cells in the mammals' inner ear amplify sounds...

30 July 2007
06:56 GMT

New Software Determines Dolphin Species Based on Their Whistle

We, humans, live in a visual world. 90 % of our information concerning the environment comes through our eyes. But if we refer to cetaceans (dolphins and whales), their world is mainly auditive. These animals practically "see" with their ears, employing the ultrasound ecolocation, as vision in the water is greatly im...

24 July 2007
05:38 GMT

Being a Napoleon is Genetic!

You could be a little Napoleon that can listen to a phone message while at the same time talking with a friend and understand what both are saying and perhaps writing something at your desk. In this case, you have a good genetic package, as signaled by a team at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicat...

18 July 2007
06:19 GMT

Listening for Microbes in Beer Can Make It Tastier

A new technology helps scientists know what's happening inside fermentation processes, like those that produce beer, but also pharmaceuticals, without sticking their fingers inside the product. This new acoustic method can improve the quality of the finished product.Beer is produced in large tanks, where large...

5 July 2007
09:48 GMT

Existence of New Type of Electron Wave Finally Proved

A new research has just proven the existence of a completely new type of electron wave on metal surfaces. Called the "acoustic surface plasmon," it will have profound implications in the fundamental understanding of chemical reactions on various surfaces.Bogdan Diaconescu and Karsten Pohl of the University of New H...

5 July 2007
06:37 GMT

How Does the Most Powerful Sonic Weapon Work?

Recent escalations of urban conflict and an increasing need for powerful, yet non-lethal weapons led to development of a sonic weapon that doesn't kill, but can make you pass out and even permanently deaf.Sonic weapons have been made popular by science fiction productions, but they are also used in reality, not...

27 June 2007
10:18 GMT

Amazing Echo in Nature

An echo is a reflection of sound, arriving to the listener sometime after the direct sound. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or in a room, by the walls. A true echo is a single reflection of the sound source. The time delay is the extra distance divided by the speed of so...

13 June 2007
15:41 GMT

Heat + Sound = Electrifying Love

That's exactly what a team of scientists observed in an experiment and then transformed into a practical device. The gadget can turn heat into sound and then into electricity and is very promising as an effective method of transforming waste heat into electricity, harnessing solar energy and cooling computers a...

4 June 2007
03:38 GMT

Do Fish Speak?

"Fish don't think/'Cause fish know everything." If we make scuba diving, the sea seems a world of silence. But it's a deceptive view. Fish are not that smart and …they do speak. In fact, water transmits sounds better than the air and while light penetrates just to 300 m (1,000 ft), below this depth the...

2 June 2007
06:58 GMT

Dinosaurs Heard Infrasounds

They had feathers and a complex behavior.Now scientists are decoding their sensory abilities. A team at the University of Maryland led by professor Robert Dooling claims that dinosaurs probably heard many low frequency sounds, like the heavy footsteps of another dinosaurs, but they were unable to detect the high pit...

2 June 2007
03:41 GMT

Elephants Tell by Seismic Waves if You Are A Friend or Not

Elephants are not only the largest land mammals, but also the possessors of some amazing abilities, like that of infrasound communication over large areas. We cannot hear them, but elephants located tens of kilometers away can. In 2004, the behavioral ecologist Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell of Stanford University in...

1 June 2007
06:12 GMT




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