Tag: sound

Cyber Warriors Sound Warning On Working From Home

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Cyber warriors on NATO’s eastern edge are warning that the growing number of people working from home globally due to the pandemic is increasing vulnerability to cyber attacks.

The Baltic state of Estonia hosts two cyber facilities for the Western military alliance — set up following a series of cyber attacks from neighbour Russia more than a decade ago.

“Large scale use of remote work has attracted spies, thieves and thugs,” Jaak Tarien, head of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), told AFP in an interview.

The increased amount of information travelling between institutional servers and home networks is creating new challenges for employers.

'Large scale use of remote work has attracted spies, thieves and thugs,' says Jaak Tarien, head of NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence ‘Large scale use of remote work has attracted spies, thieves and thugs,’ says Jaak Tarien, head of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence Photo: AFP / Raigo Pajula

“Tackling these new challenges is complicated and requires a lot of resources as well as

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Skoda develops new app that can diagnose car faults by sound alone

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a person driving a car: MailOnline logo

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MailOnline logo

Skoda has developed new technology it believes will make car mechanics’ lives easier – or possible make them redundant entirely.

The Czech brand – which sits under VW Group’s ownership – says it has completed successful trials of a smartphone app that can listen to any thuds, bangs or clatter produced by a vehicle and diagnose the problem from the sound alone.

Called the Skoda Sound Analyser, the manufacturer says it has a 90 per cent success rate of identifying issues with cars correctly.



a hand holding a small camera: Smart-phone app for car mechanics: Skoda has developed an application that listens to a car's engine noise to identify if it has an underlying issue that needs to be fixed by a technician

© Provided by This Is Money
Smart-phone app for car mechanics: Skoda has developed an application that listens to a car’s engine noise to identify if it has an underlying issue that needs to be fixed by a technician

Skoda has developed the system in house to be used by technicians in its franchised servicing departments to quickly

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Scientists find upper limit for the speed of sound — ScienceDaily

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A research collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, the University of Cambridge and the Institute for High Pressure Physics in Troitsk has discovered the fastest possible speed of sound.

The result- about 36 km per second — is around twice as fast as the speed of sound in diamond, the hardest known material in the world.

Waves, such as sound or light waves, are disturbances that move energy from one place to another. Sound waves can travel through different mediums, such as air or water, and move at different speeds depending on what they’re travelling through. For example, they move through solids much faster than they would through liquids or gases, which is why you’re able to hear an approaching train much faster if you listen to the sound propagating in the rail track rather than through the air.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity sets the absolute speed limit

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Physicists Calculate Upper Limit For Speed Of Sound In The Universe

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KEY POINTS

  • Physicists tested sound as it travels through different materials
  • Sound can almost reach its upper limit when traveling in solid atomic hydrogen
  • The finding is vital in different fields of studies like materials science and condensed matter physics

Sound waves can travel to up to 36 kilometers or more than 22 miles per second when traveling through solids or liquids, a new study by a team of physicists revealed. The physicists said that their calculation could be the first known variables representing the threshold of sound waves.    

Before this new finding, the speed of sound was measured based on Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity that identified sound waves threshold similar to that of the speed of light (300,000 kilometers or over 186,000 miles per second).

In a study, published in the journal Science Advances, the physicists said to calculate for the threshold of the speed of sound,

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Fundamental constants place a new speed limit on sound

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Sound has a speed limit. Under normal circumstances, its waves can travel no faster than about 36 kilometers per second, physicists propose October 9 in Science Advances.

Sound zips along at different rates in different materials — moving faster in water than in air for example. But under conditions found naturally on Earth, no material can host sound waves that outpace this ultimate limit, which is about 100 times the typical seed of sound traveling in air.

The team’s reasoning rests on well-known equations of physics and mathematical relationships.  “Given the simplicity of the argument, it suggests that [the researchers] are putting their finger on something very deep,” says condensed matter physicist Kamran Behnia of École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in Paris.

The equation for the speed limit rests on fundamental constants, special numbers that rule the cosmos. One such number, the speed of light, sets

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Sound United Inks The Deal On Acquisition Of Bowers & Wilkins

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Sound United LLC, the parent company to Denon, Polk Audio, Marantz, Definitive Technology, Classé, and Boston Acoustics, has today announced that it has finalized the acquisition of Bowers & Wilkins, the leading British-based designer and manufacturer of luxury home audio speakers, headphones, custom installation products, wireless speakers, and branded audio systems in the automotive and television markets. I originally reported on the possible acquisition back in June and news has just come through that the deal has been concluded. 

“Acquiring Bowers & Wilkins combines its industry-leading acoustic design, engineering and manufacturing expertise in the premium category with Sound United’s scale, technical acumen and consumer reach to ensure Bowers & Wilkins thrives moving forward,” said Kevin Duffy, CEO at Sound United. “Sound United has a strong track record of

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Android’s new sound notifications can let you know when your dog is barking

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Android phones can now notify you when they detect certain sounds, which could notify people who are deaf or hard of hearing about important sounds nearby.



a close up of a light

© Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge


If you turn on the feature, called Sound Notifications, you can have your Android phone inform you about some sounds via a push notification, a flash from your camera light, or by making your phone vibrate. Other devices support Sound Notifications as well, including Wear OS devices, which can send Sound Notifications via text notifications with vibrations. And they work entirely offline, according to Google.

Google says Sound Notifications can listen for ten different noises:

  • Smoke and fire alarms
  • Sirens
  • Shouting
  • Baby sounds
  • Doorbell ringing
  • Knocking
  • Dog barking
  • Appliance beeping
  • Water running
  • Landline phone ringing

Sound Notifications are already installed on Pixel phones and “select other Android phones” and can be turned on from the accessibility

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Google Introduces Sound Notifications For Android, New Live Transcribe Timeline View

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Google on Thursday announced a new Android accessibility feature called Sound Notifications. In a blog post co-written by artificial intelligence product manager Sagar Savla and accessibility product manager Sharlene Yuan, the company said Sound Notifications is designed to alert users with hearing loss when various sounds occur, such as when a kitchen appliance beeps or water runs. Google cited a World Health Organization statistic that some 466 million people worldwide, 34 million of which are children, have “disabling hearing loss.”

Sound Notifications are meant to “make important and critical household sounds more accessible with push notifications, a flash from your camera light, or vibrations” on Android and Wear OS devices, according to Google. They also note the feature has relevance beyond hearing loss; it can be beneficial to those who are temporarily disabled due to injury, or even simply wearing earplugs or headphones.

Google says Sound Notifications was

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A Sound Idea for Harnessing Emerging Market Dividends

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Developing economies remain a compelling avenue for income ideas and one of the more practical ideas for tapping that income stream is the ALPS Emerging Sector Dogs ETF (NYSEArca: EDOG).

EDOG, which debuted over six years ago, tracks the performance of the S-Network Emerging Sector Dividend Dogs Index. The index is comprised of the highest paying stocks, or “Dividend Dogs,” from the S-Network Emerging Markets Index, which holds large-cap, emerging market stocks. The Dividend Dogs include the five stocks in each of the ten Global Industry Classification Standard sectors that make up the S-Network Emerging Markets.

“Emerging markets aren’t among the first places investors typically think of when scanning for dividend stocks, but they can offer reliable and growing payers,” reports Lawrence Strauss for Barron’s. “It’s important to tread carefully, however, given risks such as currency fluctuations and less rigorous corporate governance in certain cases.”

EDOG ETF

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Technology, spiritualism linked in Art Institute sound exhibit

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One tap, then another, then a rapid-fire sequence. Silence, interrupted by a sudden chorus of clicks and clacks. The sounds emerge from a row of mysterious metal objects, with no evident human volition. Yet there’s a sense of urgency in this indecipherable conversation, a message trying to get through.

This is Matthew Ostrowski’s “Summerland,” on view at the Albany Museum of History and Art through Jan. 3. A sound installation designed for 24 antique telegraph sounders, the piece is inspired by the overlap of science and spiritualism during the mid-19th century.

The tapping of a telegraph machine might seem to exist at the opposite end of the believability spectrum from the rapping sounds purportedly made by spirits during séances. But at the time, both had an aura of the supernatural about them.

“The telegraph was the first piece of technology using electricity that made it into any kind of circulation

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