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Handhelds It's funny. Laugh. Wireless Networking Hardware

Adding Background Noise To Your Phone Call 280

Posted by CowboyNeal from the science-finally-pays-off dept.
lww writes "By way of a Gizmodo article, you can now add your own background noise to a cell phone call. A company called Simeda is offering a product called SounderCover that allows you to play selected background noises such as traffic, construction, and even the dentist during your phone call. The possibilities are endless! 'Hi honey, I'm going to be late -- I'm stuck in the middle of a circus parade...Bye! Hey Joe, another round for me and the boys...what? Oh, whoops *click*'"
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Adding Background Noise To Your Phone Call More

Adding Background Noise To Your Phone Call

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  • Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)

    by smr2x ( 266420 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @06:57PM (#8469735) Homepage
    Now I can talk on the phone while having sex... I'll just play some nice traffic jam noises... No one will be any wiser!

  • And, you can make them yourself, and play them in the background. This would be exceptionally useful on the car cellphone, where you typically have stereo surround sound.

  • I'll buy the one (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shut the fuck up! ( 572058 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @06:58PM (#8469743)
    that makes my phone sound like it's losing the connection so I can get out of boring conversations easily.

    • Re:I'll buy the one (Score:5, Funny)

      by clmensch ( 92222 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:00PM (#8469778) Homepage Journal
      Just use T-mobile in the NYC/tri-state area. You're bound to get garbled sound and dropped calls at some point during the conversation!
    • I'll buy the one that makes my phone sound like it's losing the connection so I can get out of boring conversations easily.

      Just hit the "end" button in the middle of a sentence.

      Then turn the phone off for a couple minutes, call 611 and listen to the nice voicemail system, or just hit the "shut up" button if it rings, so they go directly to voicemail if they call back

      • Re:I'll buy the one (Score:3, Informative)

        by caluml ( 551744 )
        Me and a friend discovered that if I forwarded my calls to him, and he forwarded them to me, that we got the "network error" sound when anyone tried to call either of us. Pretty handy for making yourself unavailable :)
    • The easiest way to do this is to just scrunch up some paper by the phone. It makes the noise perfectly.
    • Sometimes on my landline I'll get out of an unwanted call by calling my pager with my cellphone.

      Other guy: blah blah blah

      BEEP BEEP BEEP

      Me: "Who's paging me? Shoot. Hey listen it's my job calling. I've gotta go, it's probably a production support call."

      Other guy: "Oh OK. Call me back."

      Me: "Sure thing" ;)

      wbs.

      Or I'll call my pager from my cellphone
    • > I'll buy the one (Score:5, Funny) ...
      that makes my phone sound like it's losing the connection so I can get out of boring conversations easily.

      Here you go! [cingularwireless.com] This is the one you're looking for!

  • Kinda useless but still cool... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by clmensch ( 92222 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @06:58PM (#8469747) Homepage Journal
    Next step...hold music! I would PAY for that on my P900. Doubt it's possible though.

  • sad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by U.I.D 754625 ( 754625 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @06:59PM (#8469768) Homepage Journal
    This is perfect for you guys on a leash out there, however, if my SO wouldn't let me go to the bar after work, she wouldn't be around much longer. What is wrong with simple communication and understanding in relationships today??

    • I hear ya! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:15PM (#8469960)
      My wife doesn't understand my desire to have sex with other women either, no matter how often I communicate it to her!

    • Re:sad (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What is wrong with simple communication and understanding in relationships today??

      Nothing! This is a tool to help you communicate a lie, in case she understands too much of the truth.

    • Interesting how every reply to this is from an AC. You're all whipped! Or very, very, sadly, single.

      If you're on Slashdot, it could be both, with your mom doing the whipping, I guess.

    • Re:sad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Planesdragon ( 210349 ) <slashdot&castlesteelstone,us> on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:19AM (#8472685) Homepage Journal
      however, if my SO wouldn't let me go to the bar after work, she wouldn't be around much longer. What is wrong with simple communication and understanding in relationships today??

      Psst, you're supposed to either bring the alcohol HOME, or take the S.O. OUT. Going off and having fun without them is very rarely conducive to a good relationship; at the very least, you have to invite them, even if you think that they'll say no.

  • I'm Curious (Score:5, Funny)

    by psycht ( 233176 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:00PM (#8469772) Homepage Journal
    Does it have a silent backgoud noise so that the other person can actually hear me?

  • I knew... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MonkeyGone2Heaven ( 720397 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:00PM (#8469775)

    I'd find another use for that Godzilla .wav file I used for the StartUp sound on my old Windows machine!

  • Is there a.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:01PM (#8469800)
    Sex sound dial?

    Whoops! Telemarketer called. With the OHGODYES!!WoW!AAAAAAAaaaaa... in the background, theyre going to hang up preeeeety quick ;-)

    Course, if your wife calls wit hthis setting on. Uh-oh.

    • Re:Is there a.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:17PM (#8469970)
      I am sure all of slashdot would have that ringer, and it would lose its effectiveness rather quickly.

      - "oh Jeff, I can't make it to D and D tonight, I am with a lady tonight, maybe next week."

      "shut up Randy, I have the same ringer, don't try to pull a fast one on me!"

      - "okay... I will be over in 15."

  • Seems to require a Nokia... (Score:5, Informative)

    by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:02PM (#8469806) Homepage Journal
    Although I do have to confess that I love this one from their website:
    Is one of your mates a chronic talker that just doesn't know when to stop? Use the Phone Ring 15s background and your friend will hear a phone ring 6 times, 15 seconds into the call. Tell him that your other phone is ringing and that you have to go.
    Especially since you can start the background noise at any point during the conversation. Oh, so tempting...

  • Just the Thing! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:02PM (#8469810) Homepage Journal
    Just the thing for the Lonely Guy!

    "Hi! Hey, I'm at a really swinging party right now, but sure I think I can pull myself away for a bit!"

  • Boss... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jjsjeff ( 210138 ) <jjs8108@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:02PM (#8469814) Homepage
    Play keyboard clicking sounds when he calls me on the phone so it sounds like I'm working.... :)

  • Same solution for Video phones (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lewko ( 195646 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:03PM (#8469826) Homepage
    Background noise only works on voice calls. If you are using a 3G Video phone, you're busted!

    Until this [mb.com.ph] came along.

    A special setting will allow owners of 3G phones to select the video background of their choice before answering a call.

    "Hi honey... I'm just in church. Be home soon."

  • even better excuses (Score:5, Funny)

    by SoupGuru ( 723634 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:03PM (#8469827)
    "Honey, who was that moaning in the background when I called you earlier?"

    "No one, baby. It's just one of those silly background noises you can download."

  • Perfect addition (Score:3, Informative)

    by rm007 ( 616365 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:04PM (#8469841) Journal
    This would seem to be the perfect additional functionality to the proposed video cell phone [news.com.au]technology proposed by a Hong Kong company that would enable users to set a background picture of there choice. Having the righ background noise would make much more effective. Here's the missing ??? before profit!

  • Really (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:05PM (#8469845) Homepage
    Ok, so who exactly is the targeted audience for this?
    Construction workers that cheat on their wives that tell them they're working on a Saturday?

    I really don't get it.

  • Circus Parade (Score:5, Funny)

    by Embedded Geek ( 532893 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:07PM (#8469864) Homepage
    The Circus Parade MP3 was a very savvy marketing move. Considering that most people in technology (the obvious target demographic) work at freakshows, it should come in quite handy.

  • Reminds me of the great SNL Skit (Score:5, Funny)

    by aengblom ( 123492 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:07PM (#8469867) Homepage
    Einstein Express: "For when it absolutely, positively has to be there the day before yesterday".

    and then they proceed to show workers back-dating it and then beating the crap out of the package, while stamping with the postmark of four third-world countries or something.

  • Stuck in the middle... (Score:3, Funny)

    by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:08PM (#8469874) Homepage Journal
    Hey, Honey, I know the FBI is listening in right now, but I'm stuck in the middle of a steganographic stampede! There are stegonographers everywhere!
    • I was thinking along the same lines.

      Background noise by itself is of questionable usefullness.

      If you encode steganographic text messaging into the noise, then you have something potentially very handy.

      Ok, very handy if you are either a terrorist, a drug dealer, or just generally paranoid.

  • Anyone stupid enough to use their "traffic jam"... (Score:5, Informative)

    by catbutt ( 469582 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:09PM (#8469885)
    ...sound here [simeda.com] will get busted. Too many horns. I'd know it was fake and I'd think most people would.

  • How About Bathroom Noises (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:09PM (#8469890)
    I've learned this trick works well with both annoying ex-girlfriends and customers...

    At the end of a long conversation walk into your bathroom and flush the toilet. Keep the phone about five feet away from the toilet so that it's audible but not blatant. Do that everytime you end your conversation with the person.

    Eventually they stop calling.

  • MiaHM by RAH (Score:3, Informative)

    by MykeBNY ( 303290 ) * on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:16PM (#8469963)
    I've been waiting for this to come about ever since reading The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein. In it, a computer (as in the kind you build a room around, not the kind you carry into a room, it's an old book) renders its own videophone calls to simulate a person's office, including all the proper background noise, even taking into account the general location of where the office should be, and computing noise based on traffic reports. (And even those little white lies, such as his "secretary" picking up, "He's in a meeting right now," *flushing sound in background* "Oh, looks like he's just finishing up, would you like to hold?")

  • Nice and portable, unlike the original... (Score:5, Informative)

    by linuxtelephony ( 141049 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:17PM (#8469972) Homepage
    I couldn't find it with a quick Google, but this is almost just like something I read about several years ago.

    It was a special "phone booth" that was targetted for bars and other places. Had special sounds like "Office chatter", "traffic", etc. I don't remember if it was a full booth (and soundproof) or not. I think it had like 4 or 6 sounds you could choose from. Of course, you had to pay for it, I think a $1 or $2 for the call. Never did get to see one in person.

    I think I read about this about 10 years ago. Anyone else remember hearing (or better yet, see in person) one of these phone booths?

    Just like this software it was meant to fool the people your talking to into thinking your somewhere else.

  • Not very imaginative (Score:5, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:17PM (#8469974)
    Do that have one that keeps saying in a sultry voice, "Honey, please come back to bed, we weren't finished yet!"? I'd want to use that when my ex calls...

  • That's no circus parade... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:20PM (#8469991)
    ...that's just a fan taping of a Phish concert!

    Union Federal rules!

  • A Local Gentleman's Club Has This (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sirshannon ( 616247 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:25PM (#8470050) Homepage Journal
    They have 4 soundproof booths (about 4 times the size of a typical american phone booth) with payphones in them at a local gentleman's club (aka a high-dollar strip club with boutique, 4-star restaurant, salon). Each booth has an "alibi machine" in it with a knob for baseball game, traffic, and a few other alibis while you call your wife (or boss) and explain that you'll be late. I have used the sounds a few times, but only in jest, of course.

  • Script (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jozer99 ( 693146 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:29PM (#8470068)
    Ring!!! [Takes phone out] Ring!!! [Clicks little green phone] Hello, please hold for one second [Silence] [Traffic noises abruptly begin] Hi, sorry, I can't talk long, I'm stuck in traffic right now. [Traffic noises abruptly stop] Click

  • The cheap bastard's version (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobdotorg ( 598873 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:29PM (#8470071)
    My brother used to do this all the time while he was an outside salesman with a three state route:

    1. roll out of motel bed way late with raging hangover
    2. turn on television and tune to a frequency with static
    3. turn volume way up and phone work assuring then that you're already on the road to your first appointment

    The static sounds just like wind / road noise while driving.

  • Bad for circuses (Score:5, Funny)

    by circusnews ( 618726 ) <(moc.sotnasnevets) (ta) (nevets)> on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:43PM (#8470198) Homepage
    The following was posted to a few minutes ago: [circusnews.com]

    I really must protest. This new product [simeda.com] from Simedia aims to give circuses everywhere a black eye. This product (if you can call it that) works with the popular Nokia 7650 and 3650 series of phones to provide callers with fake background noise. Now, this alone does not bother me. If people what to lie about where they are, thats up to them. What bothers me is the company is encouraging people to pretend that they are caught at a circus parade [simeda.com]. Don't circuses get blaimed for enough [circusnews.com] traffic [circusnews.com] messes [circusnews.com]?

    Oh, wait. I could use this. Every one would think I was at the show when I called. Maybe it's not such a bad idea...

    SounderCover is available for immediate purchase for the price of 14.95 and a demo version is available for download.

  • One slight problem... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:45PM (#8470215)
    "'Hi honey, I'm going to be late -- I'm stuck in the middle of a circus parade...Bye! "

    "Not according to the GPS receiver in your phone you're not."

  • So not worth 15 euro (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Thursday March 04, 2004 @07:50PM (#8470283) Homepage Journal
    I downloaded the demo version and installed it yesterday. It does exactly what it advertises, but I have a hard time believing that there's 15 euro worth of value in there. 4 euro would probably be pushing it. Postcardware is probably more approriate.
  • What about porn movie? That'd be pretty funny.
  • As part of 2G services and onward, in an effort to conserve maximum bandwidth, cell phones don't transmit during the time you're not talking. (Which is why you can get weird choppy-sounding conversations).

    Background noise is synthesized at the receiving end based on random samples taken every few seconds at the transmitting end.

    Easier to burden the receiver with the task of generating fake noise that burden the network with the transmissal of said noise.

    I'm interested if this broadcasts the synthesized
    • That and the fact that they use vocoders to compress the signal. They are optimized to transmit VOICES (hence the name). Anything else gets chopped up as the codec desperately tries to reproduce it.

      Now today's vocoders are a lot better than they used to be, but I have a friend who calls from his car a lot with music on the radio. The music gets completely destroyed by the codec.

  • Ever heard a cell phone call with real background noise? It does not survive the vocoding process well, and if it's loud enough it will hash up the encoding of the caller's voice to the point of being unintelligible.

  • too many people think it's easy... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by plnrtrvlr ( 557800 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @08:18PM (#8470567)
    ...to either just "tell the truth" or play the "what they don't know can't hurt them" games. And the best part is that a company like this has found another way to profit off other people's pain -not that profiting from people's pain is anything new- in a novel way.... I've been down the roads of deception and truth with a wife who was kinda going over the deep end... Telling the truth would earn me days if not weeks of her stomping around the house pissed at me for something as simple as a buddy stopping by to show off a new toy. It only took a couple years of this (as I slowly stopped doing more and more of the things I enjoyed) before I started trying the deception approach. This too has it's curses, namely, living with your own lies, keeping them straight, not getting caught, and giving the other person an actual reason not to trust you. And to those of you who have said "she'd be out of my life," well. that is what finally came to pass. This too is not an easy road, two years in court, fighting for custody of my kids, having to pay her significant child support even though I had 50% custody in the end, the fun life, ya know? The good news is, somewhere along the way she came to her senses... not sure what happened, but we tried again just before the divorce was final, and these days, I do what I want without complaints. And now that I'm totally off topic: I'd probably have purchassed this product 5 years ago, but today I'm just laughing at them.

  • The "Excuse Booth" (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mister Transistor ( 259842 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @08:28PM (#8470664) Journal
    Was the exact same idea.

    In the heyday of the Video Arcade, "The Excuse Booth" was one of the coin-op manufacturer's attempts to bring this to the public.

    It was a sealed closet-like booth (similar to the 4-for a dollar foto booths), soundproofed with carpeting on the inside, a seat board, and a payphone. There was also a control panel and coin acceptor for the background sound.

    The backgrounds were provided by a bank of 8-Track type cartridges (actually they were the professional recording/radio studio type ones), and were fed through a reasonably high fidelity audio system to speakers in the booth. There were 12 or 16 or so backgrounds, Office, Jail, Streetcorner, Bar, Party, etc. A dollar would get you 5 minutes or so of background sound.

    I used to work for one of the major Video Arcade manufacturers in a former life, and we got one in to evaluate. I can't remember who made it exactly, but we analyzed all the competition's stuff anyway. After that, it sat around the warehouse for a long time and just got used by various engineers for smoking joints in ;)

  • Perhaps this'll make me into a better liar.
    I thrive to improve such a talent :)
  • Too bad a traffic jam that readlly sounded like that would eventually lead to gun fire. No one constantly hits the horn in real traffic...
  • "Sorry mom, can't come home now. The NSEA Protector's under attack!" *PShwww CRACK!!*

  • Actually, this reminds me of something I did once (Score:4, Funny)

    by barfarf ( 544609 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @08:54PM (#8470915)
    At a previous job, before I was laid off (our parent company was shutting down all of our branch offices), I was partially responsible for a couple of our sites and our data center. I had absolutely no accountability (my boss was on the other side of the country) during the last two or three weeks before my layoff date, so one day I decided to take a day off and stay home without letting anyone know just to see if I could get away with it.

    Surprise, someone called me up on my cell phone from one of the branch sites with an issue. Not intentionally, because I was sitting right next to my computer (in which the case fans were very loud), he just assumed I was working away in the datacenter and I just ended up playing along with it!

  • Wouldn't Help 9/11 Divorce Guy (Score:4, Informative)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @09:19PM (#8471074) Homepage Journal
    Hoax background noises wouldn't have saved this guy ...:

    "The first divorce directly related to the September 11th terrorist attacks has been filed in New York. It appears a guy with an office on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center spent the morning at his girlfriend's apartment wit his phone turned off. He wasn't watching TV either. When he turned his phone back on at about 11am, it rang immediately. It was his hysterical wife, "Are you OK? Where are you?" He said, "What do you mean? I'm in my office of course!"

    Source [itfais.org]

    -kgj
  • I don't use mobile phones. But I get calls from people who do. Not a one of them sounds good, and most sound poor. But by golly, now they've got technology to make them sound all the worse! I'm so pleased. It's another Sign of the End Times, folks. The marketoids are selling us things designed specifically to make life worse.

    So, how about something that will degrade the picture on my TV too? That pesky clear picture is such a bother. Oh, hey, and traffic on the highway isn't bad enough! How about some robo
  • I don't know where the Simeda people got their inspiration, but in his 1997 book book The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century, Scott Adams of Dilbert [dilbert.com] fame described this invention precisely. Page 28:

    Excuse 9000 (tm)
    The patented Excuse 9000 device will add selected background noise to any phone conversation, giving you the perfect alibi for not being at work. Need a flat tire alibi? No problem. Just set the Excuse 9000 for "Highway Noise" and leave your boss a voicemail message fro

  • The Japanese have been there, done that. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wohali ( 57372 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @10:45PM (#8471665) Homepage
    Yusen, a subscription music service, had so many free channels that a while ago they had two channels for this purpose: one that played sounds of a busy Tokyo train station, and another that played the sounds of an office. Turn on Yusen loud enough at your mistress' home, call your wife, and your have your proverbial cover.

    Then again, Yusen also had a channel of someone counting sheep. (I'm not making this up.) I think they got up to about 18,000 before the recording looped.
  • Cell phone compression won't carry the voice well in the presence of background noise. Cell phone data rates are very low.

  • Saw this in MAD Magazine once... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) * on Thursday March 04, 2004 @11:48PM (#8472138) Homepage Journal
    ...or at least in one of the old compilation paperback books of MAD gags. It was a piece on telephones of the future, and there was this phone with all these pushbuttons to add various sound effects like "coughing" "office" "dentist" and so on.

    Once again, life imitates art.

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