This isn’t immediately applicable to the products or goings on around here at TigerDirect.com, but it’s so cool that I had to mention it.
The Japanese now have roads that play music when you drive over them. A (brilliant) team from Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute have built several segments of road that utilize grooves cut in the surface to evoke a tune.
The idea is the brainchild of Shizuo Shinoda, who discovered that grooves scraped into the road make different sounds when a vehicle drives over them. By altering the depth and distance between the grooves, savvy designers can make “music†play when a car drive over them at the correct speed.
This doesn’t work if the car is going to fast or too slow. It also requires that the windows of the car be up, so that the acoustics are perfect. Colored musical notes painted on the road inform drivers of what is about to happen. Most of these “songs†last only 30 seconds.
Other impressive innovations unveiled by the Sapporo-based institute include infrared lights that detect dangerous road surfaces.
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Fascinating….I found some samples online with a simple search. It sounds interesting the first time, but I think it would get annoying if that was the road you took every day to work.
I think I would like to see it for about 30 seconds but as far as driving on a road that played music…. not my thing. I mean I thing it would effect the type of music I have playing in my car already and well make me go crazy. I listen to some heavy music and I dont think they will be useing anything like that on the road…. and concidering where it is comming from I dont think I want to listen to back street boys or some dorky boy band..lol ah well maybe if they had a road that they could change the tune to like every hour that would be different. then again they cant even keep up on maintaing roads now my god where will this go… worse then a skipping cd… damn pot holes in the middle of my song… good luck to them
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