Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/24/lasers-used-to-beam-audible-me.html
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In this case, the researchers used water vapor in the air to absorb light and create sound…
so… there isn’t any water vapor in the air between the source and the target’s ear which would make the intervening laser path produce (some) sound for all in the room to hear? (“aye laddie, this laser be fine tuned to ear water and not that other sort”)
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Lasers you say?
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So we are one step closer to Orbital Mind Control Lasers - sweet!
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I’d like to see the human guinea pigs that they tested on.
What?
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The fuck they say! Start aiming lasers at my eyes and ears and I’m going to take up a hobby making things that kill lasers.
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Sounds too complicated. The old hiding a transmitter in your fillings trick is superior.
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Lasers used to beam audible messages directly to people’s ears
Actually, they still beam audible messages directly, but they used to, too.
(Apologies to Mitch Hedberg)
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Probably uses harmonics, so that the signal becomes strong enough to excite the water vapor only at a specific distance (which, technically, would be every N meters, not just the first N meter node where the recipient is located).
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If you read the article, it’s almost like you can set a specific focal length, so it makes the sound wave in a very specific location. Specifically, it sounds like you sweep the air to create a wavelength of appropriate size relative to where you want the sound to be. At other locations the wavelength wouldn’t be the right size.
Unless you’re targeting sounds at someone who doesn’t expect them. There would be an awful lot of power in making it look like someone hears voices in their head…
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So basically tightbeam communication for humans. Interesting.
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Now let’s see what happens when we turn the volume up to 11…
Can you picture tracking a single person, and blasting Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up into their head at full volume?
We keep edging closer and closer to hell on earth.
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It’s like all my childhood dreams are coming true! (@Pensketch info on the game behind the link on the pic)
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I’m familiar with Steve Jackson’s Illuminati. I played it back in the 80s, before they turned it into a CCG.
But then I checked the link, just to be certain… and you are a bastard 
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Can? You think they merely can? Oh, my dear man, they are… at this very moment!
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So… can you reverse this effect and listen to anyone you have a direct line of sight to?
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That technology has been around for a while now, though it’s expensive and finicky.
Basically you bounce the laser off something vibrating from sound waves and the difference in the outgoing and returning beam can be processed back into sound.
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