This is not a joke. You can do it today, according to this article from Fortune, "Metal Heads." It states that a small company based in Iowa has developed products made with a "smart" metal that can turn your walls or your head into speakers.
Last August, Etrema -- an innovative technology firm nestled in the cornfields of Ames, Iowa -- started selling those chrome discs for $1,500 a pair. Called Whispering Windows, they can turn any wall, window, or drab conference table into a speaker.
Here is a photograph of an installation at the headquarters of a computer maker (Credit: ETREMA Products, Inc. ).
Cora Daniels, our brave reporter, tells us about her experience with these disks.
Michael Conley, the company's president, tells me to stick my fingers in my ears. "Relax," he says as he places the cold disc on my forehead. "We're just turning your head into a speaker." A few seconds later, even though my ears are plugged, power chords blast through my skull. It feels like the loud crunch that fills my head when I bite into a tortilla chip, except the crunch is music. The stereo sound is inescapable. I can't say it's a pleasant experience -- afterward I will down a bottle of Tylenol -- but it's not every day that your head serves as a piece of stereo equipment.
Etrema has many other projects in the pipeline.
Whispering Windows is just the first of dozens of products that Etrema is hoping to launch in the near future, including a wireless version and an advanced sonar system for the U.S. Navy. The common ingredient in all of Etrema's offerings is something called Terfenol-D, a metal that changes its shape -- as quickly as 20,000 times a second—when exposed to a magnetic field. A tiny amount of the metal—about a splinter's worth -- causes invisible vibrations that are rapid and powerful enough to move the surface of an entire tabletop, allowing it to transmit sound. Terfenol is currently thought to be the "smartest" -- i.e., the most reactive to its environment -- metal in the world.
Terfenol, which is a combination of terbium and dysprosium, has other potential applications. Here are two examples.
One wealthy businessman handed Etrema $1.5 million to stop the slight vibrations on his yacht when he hit top speeds. Terfenol did the trick, allowing him to dine at sea without having his meal shimmy off the plate. [And] a local church hired the firm to build a special pew so that a deaf person could hear the service.
Now, the story turns into a spy novel.
In August the U.S. military -- which must approve any Terfenol products sold abroad -- divulged that Etrema's fortress had been infiltrated. Two years ago the firm's computer system was hacked into, most likely by spies for the People's Republic of China, which, according to the Pentagon, is actively trying to steal the formula for Terfenol. Terbium and dysprosium are most commonly found in the Boutou region of northern China. Right now the U.S. government pays China for those materials. But if scientists from China discover how to manufacture Terfenol -- Etrema's Snodgrass says that three Chinese companies have already started making pirated versions -- the metal's still-fragile reputation could be harmed by the cheaper, imported version.
For more information, here are links to Etrema's core technology, magnetostriction and to Whispering Windows.
Source: Cora Daniels, Fortune Small Business, October 28, 2003
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