Sound separator among show gadgets

A futuristic vision of gadgets that can home in on birdsong in the inner city, cameras that capture parallel universes and even bags of coffee which change colour as they gather air miles has been unveiled as part of a new science and design show. Skip related content

The ideas were put forward amongst 16 projects mounted in the Impact! exhibition bringing together Royal College of Art (RCA) graduate designers working with scientists and other academic specialists throughout the UK.

The projects include research at the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London, where specialists are attempting to build a device that will be able to separate out and recognise complex sounds.

The research has raised the possibility of machines that can pick out a door slamming, leaves rustling and even birdsong through the fog of noise in heavily populated cities.

Those working on the study said it might in the future be developed to monitor and improve security in public places as well as a means of filtering out unwanted noise such as traffic in favour of the sounds of the natural world.

Professor Mark Plumbley, research leader at the centre, said: “Our research is into how you might build a device that will listen to the world around us and make sense of and separate out sounds that are part of a mixture of things that go on in everyday life.

“Our research is looking at how you pick out a small number of sounds from a large number of sounds that are going on around us.

“The exhibit is about taking things beyond that and thinking about how we might change the way we think about the world of sound and how it can affect society if we have these kinds of super listening devices.”

Other exhibits on show included the Fair Tracing project where researchers have examined the use of digital technology to track and trace products such as coffee and wine from the producer to the supermarket shelves.

Entrance to the exhibition is free and open to the public until March 21 from 11am to 5.30pm at the RCA, Kensington Gore, London.