Adults Can't Hear Ringtone

NEW YORK - Students are using a new ring tone to receive messages in class – and many teachers can’t even hear the ring.

Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too high-pitched to be heard by most adults. With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones without the teacher knowing.

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

The ring tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers – not help them. A Welsh security company developed the tone to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected. The company called their product the “Mosquito.”

Donna Lewis, a teacher in Manhattan, says her colleague played the ring for a classroom of first-graders – and all of them could hear it, while the adults couldn’t hear anything.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/nyc_youth_ring_tone

Get the ringtone here: A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears - The New York Times

Can you hear it? I can :slight_smile:

I havent followed the link so I dont know if this is one huge big joke, but couldnt you achieve the same thing by having the phone on ‘vibrate’ only. Unless teachers now have their hands in their students pants.

Actually, there was a thread about that the other day want there.

[quote]El_Animal wrote:
NEW YORK - Students are using a new ring tone to receive messages in class – and many teachers can’t even hear the ring.

Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too high-pitched to be heard by most adults. With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones without the teacher knowing.

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

The ring tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers – not help them. A Welsh security company developed the tone to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected. The company called their product the “Mosquito.”

Donna Lewis, a teacher in Manhattan, says her colleague played the ring for a classroom of first-graders – and all of them could hear it, while the adults couldn’t hear anything.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/nyc_youth_ring_tone

Get the ringtone here: A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears - The New York Times

Can you hear it? I can :)[/quote]

I can hear it.

at first i couldnt hear anything… then i noticed my speakers were turned down.

where can you download that to your phone?

I can hear that and I’m pretty sure frequency response of hearing doesn’t fall that dramatically as one gets older. Plus it’s not even that high up there.

I think teachers just didn’t know to LOOK for it, and it’s easily dismissable as background noise because it’s relatively quiet.

haha I can hear it!
I am just a kid at heart… :wink:

I can hear it too, and I was concurrently listening to music from the same speakers.

In fact, that’s exactly the sort of tone that creates a pressure in my head. So it’s even more noticable than other noises. I can feel when electronics are turned on as well, such as televisions. Sometimes there’s the high-pitched squeal, othertimes, just the pressure sensation as if in my inner ear.

If I was their teacher, I’d smack my hands over these kids’ ears to pop them. “How do you like it? How do you like it!?” Little bastards.

I wish they’d take on a whole type of music in a high pitch that I can’t hear. That’d be great.

I’m 30. I am most likely at least partially deaf (years of playing loud live music). I can hear it. And it SUCKS.

Raising the BS flag on this one (not on the messenger, but those peddling it).

[quote]LowfatMatt wrote:
I’m 30. I am most likely at least partially deaf (years of playing loud live music). I can hear it. And it SUCKS.

Raising the BS flag on this one (not on the messenger, but those peddling it).[/quote]

I dunno, I’m 43, and I could hear it in the CNN article (w/ the volume pretty high up), but not at all in the NYTimes clip.

I could hear it after repeated listening.

It came across as a whine. I would guess most teachers have learned to tune out whining.

As far as being on vibrate, you can often times hear it.

[quote]LowfatMatt wrote:
I’m 30. I am most likely at least partially deaf (years of playing loud live music). I can hear it. And it SUCKS.

Raising the BS flag on this one (not on the messenger, but those peddling it).[/quote]

Agreed. First, since when do all adults have the same degradation in hearing?

Yeah, this is like saying all dogs respond to dog whistles. I bought one of those stupid dog whistles to use while training my dog and when I blow the whistle my dog will just continue doing whatever he’s doing and doesn’t appear to hear the stupid thing at all.

Sounds like my old monitor at work. Thats so stupid.

They did some trials in the UK with passers by and the teens said it was really irritating whereas the majority of adults couldnt hear it.

So it does seem to work for the majority.

It’s not that Adults can’t here it. They can when they’re near it, they can’t hear it from a distance. It comes from a device called the mosquito http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/ that was inveted by an English chap to stop youths hanging around outside Pizza shops etc. (They’ve got nowhere else to go so they stand outside and it intimidates others) It’s a medical fact that hearing capacity reduces gradually as we get older. Anyway, they’ve got them here in the UK now and they work!

I don’t know where the kids have gone though!!

It is interesting. I am the only one in my office over 30 (I asked about 10 people) who can hear it. There must be something to what they are saying…

[quote]craigspud101 wrote:
It’s not that Adults can’t here it. They can when they’re near it, they can’t hear it from a distance. It comes from a device called the mosquito http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/ that was inveted by an English chap to stop youths hanging around outside Pizza shops etc. (They’ve got nowhere else to go so they stand outside and it intimidates others) It’s a medical fact that hearing capacity reduces gradually as we get older. Anyway, they’ve got them here in the UK now and they work!

I don’t know where the kids have gone though!![/quote]

Funny how instead on this business owner investing or gathering up other business owners to invest in a community or youth center to give these kids activities and a place to be, he spends time and money developing some device to run them off.

How’s that for investing in the future of our youth?

[quote]craigspud101 wrote:
It’s not that Adults can’t here it. They can when they’re near it, they can’t hear it from a distance. It comes from a device called the mosquito http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/ that was inveted by an English chap to stop youths hanging around outside Pizza shops etc. (They’ve got nowhere else to go so they stand outside and it intimidates others) It’s a medical fact that hearing capacity reduces gradually as we get older. Anyway, they’ve got them here in the UK now and they work!

I don’t know where the kids have gone though!![/quote]

If it could make them permanently deaf I’d be happy.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
LowfatMatt wrote:
I’m 30. I am most likely at least partially deaf (years of playing loud live music). I can hear it. And it SUCKS.

Raising the BS flag on this one (not on the messenger, but those peddling it).

Agreed. First, since when do all adults have the same degradation in hearing?[/quote]

Your right. Although the technology works on the principle of presbycusis, a lot of adults will still be able to hear it. Although the typical range for human hearing is rated at between 20Hz and 20kHz, the typical rating of a 20 year old is closer to 20Hz to 16Khz and that is the principle that this technology works on.

BTW using mp3s to try and replicate ultrasonic sound is laughable. The majority of mp3 encoders discard any information above 16kHz.