The periodical Nature reports on research by a social psychologist which shows that judgements about the quality of a musical performance are influenced more by what is see than by what is heard. The remit of the somewhat superficial research was the impact of body language, which means it did not consider a little-known but far more important link between the eyes and sound. It has long been a puzzle as to why high-order harmonics extending beyond the upper limit of human hearing produced by fine instruments such as Stradivarius violins make the music sound better. Similarly there has been no explanation as to why extending the frequency response of an audio system beyond the upper limit of human hearing improves the sound quality. But recent medical research has shown that our eyes are sound as well as vision transducers, and that the eyes play an important role in passing ultrasound to the brain. While the upper limit of human hearing ranges from 15 to 18 khz depending on age, the frequency response of the eye extends beyond 50 kHz - see graph above. In these ultrasonic regions the eye is not producing conventional sounds but is feeding sensory information to the brain which becomes a key part of the cognitive process.

The role of the eye as a sound transducer is medically proven, here is a link to research published in The International Tinnitus Journal. These findings open up many paths which this post can only hint at. Although top end audio systems have frequency responses that extends beyond 20 kHz, they come nowhere near matching the almost flat response to 50 kHz reported in the referenced article. Which may explain why even the best audio systems never quite seem to replicate the experience of live music. But when it comes to the ubiquitous compressed audio file formats such as MP3, the frequency response is further curtailed. Which may explain why classical music fails to connect with the MP3 generation. And that is before we factor in that headphones have become the default way of listening to music, and headphones remove the eyes completely from the listening process. While returning to live music, ultrasound is highly directional; which may explain why watching a performer closely seems to enhance the music.

Another fascinating possibility hinted at by this research is that John Cage's 4' 33'' is in fact an 'ultrasound symphony', with the absence of conventional musical sounds allowing the brain to focus on ambient ultrasound. And the concept of the eye as a multi-media transducer cross-references to a recent post on how cats can switch from one channel (hearing) to another processing track (sight). This action is scientifically described as synaesthesia and is the amalgamation of different sensory channels which usually function quite separately. Paths converge here as in the most common form of human synaesthesia sounds are perceived as images. So does the discovery that the eye is as an audio transducer explain why synaesthesia is common among musicians?

But most importantly - and I do think this is important - the Nyquist theorem, which is used to determine the sampling rate for digital audio formats, states that the maximum frequency that can be represented at any given sampling rate is half the sampling rate. Which is why CDs use a 44.1 kHz sampling rate, because that gives a frequency response extending beyond the limits of conventional hearing to 22.05 kHz. But research now shows that the brain responds to ultrasound beyond up to 50 kHz; so the data cut-off at 22.05 kHz may explain the perceived shortcomings of digital audio. And the absence of a 22.05 kHz cut-off in analogue LPs may explain why vinyl is making a comeback.

This extract from the conclusions to Martin Lenhardt's paper for The International Tinnitus Journal opens up a wealth of possibilities:

In regard to music recording and reproduction, more than doubling the sampling rate (95 kHz/24 bits) will extend the audible frequency range that can be coded in the eighth nerve and will result in a gain in linearity and reduction in quantizing errors, factors that will improve music quality.

Personal headphones could be supplemented or replaced with bone conduction transducers, with frequency responses extending to at least 50 kHz. Such transducers are already in use for medical treatment of tinnitus and can be readily modified for personal musical use (see Fig. 4).

Musical harmonic information is coded by place on the basilar membrane and temporally in neural firing. Ultrasound might contribute to the musical harmonic structure and provide more high-frequency treble emphasis in instruments, such as the cymbals, triangles, trumpets, violins, and oboes.

I came Martin Lenhardt's research paper while exploring the link between audio file format and sound quality. Inevitably my summary is simplistic, but further research on the role of ultrasound in music listening may help us understand why classical music is all too often lost in transmission.

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Jay Rosen wrote a insightful post forking the practice of journalism into “politics: none” (that is, traditional American journalism: objective, it thinks) and “politics: some” (that is, the kind just practiced by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian). Jay catalogs the presumptions and advantages of each. As both he and The New York Times’ Margaret Sullivan observe, Edward Snowden took his leaks to Greenwald and the Guardian because they exemplify “politics: some.”

I want to take this farther and argue first that what Greenwald and the Guardian were practicing was less politics than advocacy, and second that all journalism is advocacy (or is it journalism?).

To the first point: Greenwald and the Guardian were not bolstering their own politics in the NSA story. To the contrary, Greenwald and the Guardian both identify politically as liberal — the Guardian’s mission is to be nothing less than “the world’s leading liberal voice” — yet they attacked programs run and justified by a liberal American administration and no doubt caused that administration discomfort or worse. In so doing, Greenwald and the Guardian exhibited the highest value of journalism: intellectual honesty. That does not mean they were unbiased. It means they were willing to do damage to their political side in the name of truth. Greenwald and the Guardian were practicing advocacy not for politics — not for their team — but for principles: protection of privacy, government transparency and accountability, the balance of powers, and the public’s right to know.

Now to my second point: Seen this way, isn’t all journalism properly advocacy? And isn’t advocacy on behalf of principles and the public the true test of journalism? The choices we make about what to cover and how we cover it and what the public needs to know are acts of advocacy on the public’s behalf. Don’t we believe that we act in their interest? As James Carey said: “The god term of journalism — the be-all and end-all, the term without which the enterprise fails to make sense, is the public.”

When the Washington Post — whose former editor famously refused to vote to uphold his vision of Jay’s “politics: none” ethic — chooses to report on government secrecy or on abuse of veterans at a government hospital or, of course, on presidential malfeasance and coverups, it is, of course, advocating. When an editor assigns reporters to expose a consumer scam or Wall Street fraud or misappropriation of government funds, that’s advocacy. When a newspaper takes on the cause of the poor, the disadvantaged, the abused, the forgotten, or just the little guy against The Man, that’s advocacy. When health reporters tell you how to avoid cancer or even lose weight, that’s advocacy on your behalf. I might even argue that a critic reviewing a movie to save you from wasting your money on a turkey could be advocacy (though we don’t necessarily need critics for that anymore).

But what about a TV station sending a crew or a helicopter to give us video of the fire du jour, a tragic accident with no lesson to be learned? Is that advocacy? No. When a TV network — not to pick on TV — devotes hours and hours to the salacious details of, say, the Jodi Arias crime, which affects none of our lives, is that advocacy? No. When an online site collects pictures of cute cats, is that advocacy? Hardly. When a newspaper devotes resources to covering football games, is that advocacy? No. Is any of that journalism? Under the test I put forth here, no.

So what is it then, the stuff we call journalism that doesn’t advocate for people or principles, that doesn’t serve the public need? At worst, it’s exploitation — audience- or sales- or click- or ratings-bait — at best it’s entertainment. The first is pejorative, the second need not be, as entertainment — whether a journalistic narrative or a book or a show or movie — can still inform and enlighten. But if it doesn’t carry information that people can use to better organize their lives or their society, I’d say it fails the journalism test.

Journalism-as-advocacy has been bundled with journalism-as-entertainment for economic reasons: Entertainment can draw people to a media entity and help subsidize the cost of its journalism. But it was a mistake to then put an umbrella over it all: If a newspaper creates journalism then everything its journalists create in that newspaper is journalism, right? No. The corollary: People who are not journalists can do journalism. It’s a function of the value delivered, not the job title. (I’ll write another post later looking a pricing paradox embedded in this split.)

Why does what seems like definitional hair-splitting matter? Because when a whistleblower knocks on your door, you must decide not whose side you’re on but whom and what principles you serve. This is a way to recast the specific argument journalists are having now about whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor. Wrong question. As a journalistic organization, the Guardian had to ask whether the public had a right to the information Snowden carried, no matter which side it benefitted (so long as the public’s interests — in terms of security — were not harmed).

The next issue for the Guardian was whether and how it adds journalistic value. That is, of course, another journalistic test. Edward Snowden, like Wikileaks, delivered a bunch of raw and secret documents. In both cases, news organization added value by (1) using judgment to redact what could be harmful, (2) bringing audience to the revelation, and most important, (3) adding reporting to this raw information to verify and explain.

Based on his Q&A with the Guardian audience, I’d say that Snowden is proving to be big on rhetoric and perhaps guts but less so on specifics. I still am not clear how much direct operational knowledge he has or whether he — like Bradley Manning — simply had access to documents. So more reporting was and still is necessary. This Associated Press story is a good example of taking time to add reporting, context, and explanation to Snowden’s still-unclear and still-debated documents.

Both these organizations made their decisions about what to reveal and what to report based on their belief that we have a right and need to know. That’s journalism. That’s advocacy.

I don't know why Google Play Services is an app in Google Play, but some of the reviews are great. It's hard to review a system component that adds support for new APIs, so some of the reviewers got creative.


Here are my favorite reviews:

1. "I was given a Nexus 7 by an old shaman in a yellow poncho. He told me to install this package and sacrifice a living watermelon to Utanapishti, singing the Bollywood rendition of 'Love Train' as an offering of my adulation. Upon completion, all the disease and sickness in my village was cured, and we knew no more sadness. Also, Mark Wahlberg came to visit and gave us all Nexus 7s before he returned to the 8th dimension of Kajiik Masunraht."

2. "After i installed this my screen went from 4.6 inches to 5! I say it was well worth it. But the best part was using my phones NFC as a key for my mustang. I bet it would work on a mercedes, just put it up to the steering wheel and tap it to turn the car on. Don't forget to activate your free netflix subscription!!"

3. "I got a pony, and a car, and unicorn, and a pony, and a leprechaun, and a pot of gold, and a reindeer, and a computer, and a slave, and a Santa, and a genie, and a unlimited wishes voucher, and a pony."

4. "This app has taken over my life. I'm addicted so bad that my wife took the kids and left me! Ooh well, its well worth it woooooooooo"

5. "This game is amazing, if you collect all the frogs, beat the mini game and unlock Knights of the Round once you beat Level 10, (God Mode) there is a bonus level. I beat the bonus boss and my phone suddenly started vibrating and transformed into only what I can imagine is a Samsung Galaxy S 6!"

6. "This app give me an extra Maps to Mordor! And i can take pictures of Nàzgul while in 3D Panoramic Mode. And I can control Curiosity on Mars too! Thank you Google!"

7. "Cannot recommend this enough. Seamless integration with my Atari 2600 and immersive soundtrack. Inspired!"

8. "This is without a doubt the best game on the entire play store. the graphics are beyond console quality and the storyline is better than mo's movies these days. Level 8 is quite impossible though... Anyway, props to Google for a job well done!"

9. "This service of play is the best there is. Beats Apple 5 services which don't play well with anything. Google plays well...very well. So well, they even have this nifty service. All my friends with Android devices use it too. How my life has gotten better with Google Play services ?? Well, for one thing, I don't have to think any more. Google Services reads my mind, and does stuff for me...WELL in advance of when I would have probably done it.... Sends emails, sets reminders, ANSWERS emails before they even arrive! It is so awesome... Actually, this is Google service writing this so my owner didn't have to...... I'm awesome."

10. "Reunited me with my dad 26 years after he said he was going to the store to buy milk and cigarettes."

Another app with many funny reviews is Samsung Push Service. Here's an example: "After 2 months of staring at the divorce papers, I picked up the pen preparing to flush 10 years down the drain. At that moment, the app download it. Screeching tires in my driveway and my wife came running in the house and ripped up the papers. Thank you Samsung, you saved my life."

Any other Google Play apps with funny reviews?

The folks over at Teehan+Lax teehan+lax have just released a new tool (you’ll need Google Chrome and a pretty kickin’ internet connection) that lets you scrape public data from Google Street View to create sweeping hyperlapse videos. What’s a hyperlapse? Via

Teehan+Lax:Hyper-lapse photography—a teehax+lan:Hyper-lapse photography – a

technique combining time-lapse and sweeping camera movements typically focused on a point-of-interest—has point-of-interest – has been a growing trend on video sites. It’s not hard to find stunning examples on Vimeo. Creating them requires precision and many hours stitching together photos taken from carefully mapped locations. We aimed at making the process simpler by using Google Street View as an aid, but quickly discovered that it could be used as the source material. It worked so well, we decided to design a very usable UI around our engine and release Google Street View Hyperlapse.

The team turned their new UI over to one of their motion designers, Jonas, who made the stunning clip above. Incredible. Some other great examples of art made with Google Street View: Address is Approximate and this clip from Giacomo Miceli. (via it’s nice that)