ABC Gallipolli: The First Day

http://www.abc.net.au/gallipoli

Gallipoli: The First Day is a new online 3D Flash interactive by the ABC exploring the events of the first 24 hours of the landing of the ANZACs at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. Explore events (from both Anzac and Ottoman perspectives) via a 3D terrain of the Gallipoli peninsula. Watch the story unfold via 3D diorama animations and animations showing troop movements across the terrain. There's also archive photos, videos and diary entries, and a summary and historical analysis of the overall campaign.

You'll need the Flash 10 plugin installed on your computer to view this, and a solid broadband connection. There's also a small Google Earth component for those with slower connections - this gives an overview of the key events of the day and features a selection of media included in the Flash site, but contextualised within the Google Earth globe. You'll need Google Earth 5.0 for this.

Girl arrested for texting in class...$298 bail

By Christopher Dawson ZDNet.com | February 18, 2009, 7:19pm PST

I can’t decide if I should be applauding a school in Wauwatosa, WI, for taking a tough stand on student discipline or appalled at a lack of reason in the case of a girl arrested for texting in class on February 11th. I think I’m appalled.

I’ve been in the classroom. Texting is a problem. Any teacher who denies that students text in class is either blind, old to the point of senility, or simply not that smart. However, when I caught students sending texts in class, I used our zero tolerance policy, confiscated the phone, and sent it to the office. The kid got Saturday school or a 3-day suspension for repeat offenses. If the kid refused to turn over the phone or denied it, I sent them to the office for an automatic suspension. Piece of cake. No muss, no fuss, just straight-forward discipline outlined in our student handbook.

This was obviously not the case in Wauwatosa. According to the police report published by The Smoking Gun, the 14-year old in question repeatedly denied using a cell phone to send text messages in class. In a brilliant bit of investigative police work, the school resource officer spoke to the girl’s friends and teachers and determined that she had, in fact, been using a phone in class, after he had been called to remove her from the room when she refused to stop texting. The police report borders on the absurd at points:

[Student's name obscurred] was advised that she was under arrest for disorderly conduct. She was told her disruption in class with the phone out, the refusal to obey the teacher, and her not telling us the truth is what got her arrested. [Student's name obscurred] was asked again about the phone and she was told that she would be searched incident to the arrest. She stated she did not have a phone and she was not going to stand up to be searched. These words alerted me with her zipper open and he [sic] refusal to stand up and be searched she was concealing the phone under her pants

He’s sharp isn’t he? A female officer later retrieved the phone from her “buttocks area” and confirmed that she had sent a text message to her father. Bail was set at $298. Give her a detention, suspend her, whatever, but arrest her? Really? Around here, we save our arrests for bomb threats, teacher assaults, and drug dealing. Maybe we’re just too liberal here in Massachusetts.

[via]

Kids turn "teen repellent" sound into teacher-proof ringtone

Posted by Cory Doctorow, May 24, 2006 9:48 PM

Kids in the UK have co-opted an annoying noise sold to retailers as teenager-repellent and turned it into a ringtone. Mosquito is a high-pitched sound "audible only to teenagers" sold by Britain's Compound Security. It is sold to shopkeepers to use as a teenager repellent -- the idea is to play it loudly in and around shops and "chase away those annoying teenagers!!!" The kids have reportedly converted the high-pitched noise and turned it into a ringtone, which, being inaudible to grownups, can then be used to receive texts and calls in class without alerting teachers.

This is either a magnificent hoax or just plain magnificent -- either way, I love this Little Brother Watches Back parable. Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology. Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on. A secondary school teacher in Cardiff said: 'All the kids were laughing about something, but I didn't know what. They know phones must be turned off during school. They could all hear somebody's phone ringing but I couldn't hear a thing.

Update: JS sez, "Considering that such high tones are virtually unattainable for the cell-phone loudspeakers I find the story highly suspect. Besides, the sound used as a ringtone would be compressed in some way (maybe not in the newer models, but would all kids have them?), further reducing the possibility that such high frequency content is preserved. I did little research and found this link where cell-phone audio capabilities are presented in detail. According to them the cell-phone's piezoelectric speaker caps its frequency response about at 10khz, while the Teen Buzz plays at 18khz to 20khz." I had similar doubts -- which suggests that these kids have done something even more subversive than creating an adult-proof ringtone: they've convinced adults that there's an inaudible sound that they can all hear.

Link to original article

Update 2: James sez, "I found this article about the mosquito system. It includes a link to an MP3 of the sound. I'm 18 and I can hear it, but neither my mom nor my step dad (both in their 50's) could distinguish the sound. It's worth noting that my step dad is a country music singer who has a very well trained ear. Since the sound carries over to MP3, and most new phones can play MP3s as ringtones, it would seem likely that students could use the mosquito sound as an adult proof ringer."

Update 3: Gregory sez, "Here's a data sheet for a piezoelectric speaker for cell phones, and shows frequency response measured out to 20kHz. The link that JS found did not say that frequencies above 10kHz were unattainable, but said "The frequency response of piezoelectric speakers is similar to small geometry moving coil speakers up to ~10 KHz bandwidth." As you can see by the data sheet at the URL listed above, small piezoelectric speakers are quite capable of being driven at frequencies above 20kHz. In fact, piezoelectric speakers are commonly used as tweeters in some sound systems; high frequencies are easy, it's the lows that give small speakers problems. A far more important question is the frequency response of the amplifiers that are driving the cell phone speakers. Amplifiers are typically band-limited to reduce noise and increase stability. What is the band limit for the phones in question?"

Update 3: Tony sez, "I've just had a look at 'Mosquito'. It's recorded at a low level, a sort of 'European siren', switching between two high tones at 2Hz. There are some giggles & rumble present (cells would probably not pass these audibly), but the high tones measure around 15,000 to 17,000 Hz. Interested geezers should pitch-shift the sound down an octave. That's exactly the same range as old TV flybacks used to emit ... which I *used* to be able to hear walking by someone's house."

Some great new technology articles

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/12/YE8_techbreaks

http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2008/12/YE8_web

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/magazine/17-02/ff_obama?currentPage=all

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/twitters-hackab.html

I'm still here

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, but I've been overseas in London and Paris, so I haven't posted much of late.

I have found heaps of great stuff to add to the blog soon, but I'm concentrating on finding a job before I use up my internets...