Sneaky teenagers

Santa Claus

From Sydney Morning Herald

Enterprising teenagers have hijacked a high-pitched electronic blip which adults cannot hear and turned it into a stealth ringtone.

It is suitable for use in situations where grown ups aren't meant know there's an incoming call or text message.

The ringtone - which can be downloaded from the internet - is proving especially popular amongst school students in the US and UK who use it in classrooms.

With it, students can receive text message alerts on their mobile phones without the teacher knowing.

As people age, many develop what's known as presbycusis or aging ear - a loss of the ability to hear higher-frequency sounds.

The ringtone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers - not help them.

Last year, a Welsh security company developed the 17-kilohertz buzz to help shopkeepers disperse youngsters loitering in front of their stores.

Mr Howard Stapleton, the inventor of the "Mosquito", claims the high-frequency pulsing sound can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30.

Realising the commercial possibilities in the unintended use of the blip, Mr Stapleton's company has quickly produced it's own official version of the ringtone which they are calling the "the authentic Mosquito ring tone".

RuggieBear

or just use vibrate:rolleyes:

monkeyfudge

There's already a thread on this... but I think your OP is better actually..

I can hear the tone at 28 and I have it on my phone at moment. I do find it amusing that I have a ring tone that most of the people I work with can't hear. It's handy if I forget to turn my phone off while at a meeting.

The Free Man

RuggieBear wrote:

or just use vibrate:rolleyes:

thats what i was thinking. interesting enough tho.

aidan_walsh

RuggieBear wrote:

or just use vibrate:rolleyes:

There was always one silly twit who thought it was clever to put the phone on vibrate, and then sit it on the desk...

RuggieBear

aidan_walsh wrote:

There was always one silly twit who thought it was clever to put the phone on vibrate, and then sit it on the desk...

true

Santa Claus

monkeyfudge wrote:

I can hear the tone at 28 and I have it on my phone at moment. I do find it amusing that I have a ring tone that most of the people I work with can't hear. It's handy if I forget to turn my phone off while at a meeting.

I can hear it at 31...Obviously me ears are younger than the rest of me !

rymus

Thank God I can still hear it.. I thought the ol' body was decaying faster than it actually is.

Black Swan

Oh, for once, useful information on boards.ie! Vibrate is an option, but increases your cell's potential maintanence problems.

tuxy

here it is just rename the file extention to .mp3
the sound is very anoying. would be interested in hearing how many people can not hear it at all.

zuma

Thats one annoying sound!

Its only at 17KHz, but Engineers design for a range of 20Hz to 20KHz so its not an extraordinarly high frequency signal.

For those too lazy to click on the above page the audio is here as a 10 second WAV file:
http://www.smh.com.au/audio/teenringtone.wav

Im 24 and think it sounds like a muted CRT TV.

Silverfish

tuxy wrote:

here it is just rename the file extention to .mp3
the sound is very anoying. would be interested in hearing how many people can not hear it at all.

OH DEAR GOD why would anyone want this arrrgh arrrgh arrrrghhh.


(I'm 30 in October.)

X-SL

seems pointless

Hugh Hefner

You know what's weird? When you play the file, it starts with what sounds like a tuning fork being struck and then the sound continues on, uninterupted. But, if you play it from any point in the file, you still hear the tuning fork being struck. Freaky. :eek:

Mossy Monk

tuxy wrote:

here it is just rename the file extention to .mp3
the sound is very anoying. would be interested in hearing how many people can not hear it at all.

omg that is really annoying

i am 26 btw so 4 more years of being able to listen to that ****e. will have to see if older people can hear it

nesf

Sounds like the ringing I get in my ears now and then. That could get bloody annoying if it's used all the time.

mad m

nesf wrote:

Sounds like the ringing I get in my ears now and then. That could get bloody annoying if it's used all the time.

Same here,maybe we are in the start of ear decline.....:) 34 btw.

Hal1

Sends a shiver down the ole spine

nesf

mad m wrote:

Same here,maybe we are in the start of ear decline.....:) 34 btw.

24. But mine is medication related they think. Meh, it's alright, doesn't overly bother me tbh.

seamus

It's one of those sounds that you can hear, but you can never tell where it's coming from

So everyone gets that tone, and has to check their phones when one person's goes off.

monkeyfudge

Hugh Hefner wrote:

You know what's weird? When you play the file, it starts with what sounds like a tuning fork being struck and then the sound continues on, uninterupted. But, if you play it from any point in the file, you still hear the tuning fork being struck. Freaky. :eek:

I'd say that's just your speakers strugling to reproduce a tone at that high a frequency.

iguana

I can hear that, 27. God the next few years are going to p*ss me off, I can't wait 'til I'm deaf to that. It's not loud but it sure hurts. I can see the creator of that thing being sued for every penny at some point.

If I was in a shop and had that blasted at me I'd never go back again, so I don't think it's a very clever security device. And when I was in school most of my teachers were in their 20's so it wouldn't have been a very secretive for a ring tone. And any savvy teachers will be able to tell that someones phone went off when they see the other kids flinch.

nesf

seamus wrote:

It's one of those sounds that you can hear, but you can never tell where it's coming from

So everyone gets that tone, and has to check their phones when one person's goes off.

So in essence, it's popularity will kill it. Excellent.

Bamboozled

28 and it hurt! So did the tone

Giblet

That was loud!

I remember about 6 years ago using a freq generator. I had it up to slightly past 22khz and I could sitll hear it, and no-one else could so it does work. I guess you just have to be born with it! I have constant tinnitus though... hmmmmmm

Anyway, a phone would probably cut most of that off compared to the speakers on my pc. I don't imagine mobile phone speakers being that hi fidelity.

RobertFoster

Instant headache. Woo.

pontovic

Im 24 and I can't hear anything from that at all. I have a really ****ty computer here in work that has one of those small inbuilt speakers. Would it be because of that maybe ??

Hagar

I can hear nothing, absolutely nothing. If it wasn't for the little green progress bar in media player I would'nt even know if it was playing or not.
I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Our man in Havana

I am 32 and can hear that annoying tone! :mad:

tman

i have the polyphonic version of it

daveg

32 tomorrow and I can hear it. Thanks for the birthday present... a fúcking ringing ear all morning..

Wigertoods

no need for any more hearing tests.
If you can hear this tone you're still ok

Our man in Havana

tman wrote:

i have the polyphonic version of it

No thanks,

tman

i can just picture the jamster ads now though

"text mos1 for the realtone, mos2 for the poly tone and mos3 for the mono":p

pbsuxok1znja4r

Oddly enough my 50 year old mother was able to hear that perfectly. The signal's a cool idea for moving shop-loiterers though. Pity most of the employees where I work are teenagers though...

bman

That frequency generator is pretty cool. I could hear it well up til about 15.7KHz. At 16KHz I still knew there was something going on but it wasn't near as clear. Nothing after that. I'm 21.

Hobbes

35 here and while I can't hear anything as such (no sensation that my ears are picking anything) the frequency does give me a headache is very noticible.

To verify I got headphones and switched them off and turned the volume up / down and noticed the headache when it was on. Then to be sure got someone to do the on/off switching to see if it wasn't just playing tricks.

can you imagine all these teenagers standing outside a shop when they all think thier phone is ringing.

ok I'm 21 and i cant hear anything only a slight buzzing

r3nu4l

I'll be 31 in two weeks time and can hear it too.

Funny how when I saw the Mosquito tested on TV, they played the sound and I couldn't hear anything yet I can hear this.

Are we sure this is the correct frequency folks?

Or you could just put the damn thing on silent...
the world won't end if you're a few mins late replying to a text message...

monkeyfudge

But you have to conciously remember to put your phone on silent or vibrate. If you forget and it rings... then you're disturbinig a lot less people.