Inventor Wins $500,000 Prize for his 'Soundless' Sound System

Elwood "Woody" Norris has won the annual Lemelson-MIT Prize for a revolutionary system that transmits sound in a focused beam above the range of human hearing. If a listener gets hit directly by the beam the sound is heard within his or her head.

The theoretical applications for the device are wide-ranging, including as a wireless stereo that only one person can hear, or a device for yelling at someone far away, assured that the target will be the only person to hear it.

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