Sonification of Data, Down Here and High Above

 We experimented with using a data sonification which represented sales results and breakthough types of cases.   Below is not the same thing, but I always fondly think of the use of  sound, properly designed, can give incentive and even insight.   Can you think of its use?

NASA Celebrates 5,000 Exoplanet Milestone with ‘Data Sonification’

Demonstration:  https://youtu.be/yv4DbU1CWAY 

By Ryan Whitwam on March 23, 2022 at 9:26 am

A few short decades ago, we could only speculate about the possibility of planets beyond our own solar system, but then we started finding them. Little by little, the universe has become a bustling place with more exoplanets being discovered every year. How many? NASA JPL says as of March 21st, there are just over 5,000 of them. To celebrate this milestone, the agency has produced a neat “data sonification” of the road to 5,000 exoplanets. Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to represent information. 

The first exoplanets were discovered in the early 90s, but they’re not the kind of planets you’re probably expecting. They’re more like charred husks tethered to a millisecond pulsar, a type of dead star that blasts out radiation like a rapidly spinning lighthouse. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, telescopes spotted a few hundred exoplanets, but it wasn’t until the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope that things got cooking. 

NASA’s sonication begins in 1991 prior to the first exoplanet confirmations. Each time a new planet enters the catalog, there’s a chime and the counters at the top advance. It shows not only the approximate location of the exoplanet in the sky (using the central band of the Milky Way as a guide) but the types of detection. Early on, the detections are mostly from radial velocity, a technique that scans for minute wobbles in a star caused by the mass of orbiting planets. After Kepler, transits take over in a big way.   .... '

Data Sonification

Using sound to detect patterns in data.  Never got this idea to work in practice, but others have. Under certain circumstances our ears can discern patterns better than our eyes.   How can this also be combined with analytics?  A Sandbox to test the idea.

Sonification Assist for the Blind

Assisting the blind with sonification, changing sensory information to sound.  " ... Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed an assistive technology system that works by sounds which contributes to the autonomy of persons with visual impairments.
The commercial systems that exist today in Spain for the mobility of persons with sight impairment are insufficient, according to theseUC3M researchers, because they are costly and too bulky. The assistive technology, conceived as a sound guide that gives information as to the user’s environment, precisely aims to make this ingenious complement to the classic cane or guide dog more economical. ... " 

Data Sonification

A space I looked at for our information innovation group.  A way to use other senses, including sound, as an interface to deliver data and its patterns.  AT&T had done some experimentation in this area.  In the simplest approach, alerts can be transmitted with sound, and the use of pagers in manufacturing spaces were tried.  Today's smartphone can link calls to specific rings. Taking this forward, to delivering more precision describing data with sound, is more difficult.  Can you get your data to scream out to you?   Today it is likely that this method would be used in conjunction with visualization techniques.  A link to more recent work at Drexel University.  See also, Drexel's Excite Center, which looks at innovative interfaces.