Developments in Microphone Technology
What’s interesting is that this matchstick-sized microphone can be attached to drones.
Conventional microphones work when sound waves make a diaphragm move, creating an electrical signal. Microflown’s sensor has no moving parts. It consists of two parallel platinum strips, each just 200 nanometres deep, that are heated to 200° C. Air molecules flowing across the strips cause temperature differences between the pair. Microflown’s software counts the air molecules that pass through the gap between the strips to gauge sound intensity: the more air molecules in a sound wave, the louder the sound. At the same time, it analyses the temperature change in the strips to work out the movement of the air and calculate the coordinates of whatever generated the sound.
EDITED TO ADD (10/6): This seems not to be a microphone, but an acoustic sensor. It can locate sound, but cannot differentiate speech.
Tom • October 4, 2013 7:20 AM
You (meaning any organization with the ressources and the will to fight this surveillance) need to get a few of these, put them in parks and busy streets, record people’s conversations or phone calls and stream it to the very people who’s conversations you recorded. Do this 24/7 on places like Times Square for a few months and you got the media attention we all need.