EarVu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 6

Continuing with Part 6 of Ear Vu....

Image by Marvin Hayes

Day 81

81
A rather large collection of audio tapes has grown around the lab. Each researcher has their own preference for the type of music or subject they use as research media. The most popular tape has actually been one of bird calls recorded out in the wild. We have worked out a LASER hologram record/projection unit and the scene it produced is tranquil and extremely beautiful. One could almost smell the scents of the fall season in the mountain meadow. We have discovered some tapes of a less “pristine” nature that are also popular and probably wouldn't get so much attention if we had a more mixed gender type of team.

Today we discovered that one has to remember not to, let’s say, have sex, when recording a tape; else others at a later playback will have the ability to run it through the Ear Vu processors and see everything that happened while the audio was recording. How many tapes of this type are out there in the world? What will this do to considerations of privacy?

The thought of the things we will see in reviewing old audio tapes is both disquieting and a little mind boggling. I’ve begun auditing my own personal audio recordings at home and have put several into my personal safe. There are two that I’m considering destroying.

Anyone having any thoughts that the desire of privacy will lead to actual privacy, already rapidly becoming a thing of the past, with Ear Vu technology there will now no longer be any grounds of expecting it whatsoever. Our research shows that sometime in the future it may be possible to view everything within a wide range of the recording device, whether or not the microphones were even accessible.

So far this technology does not work very well with old vinyl recordings. So for now, it is in magnetic media where the wealth of data is being collected and analyzed. We received the enhancement chip prototype today around noon and will have to install it when we have time.

EarVu technology will throw intelligence agencies the world over into chaos. Certain aspects of this frankly, terrify me.

#

I smiled. I remember that day. Not thinking, Johnson had scanned us a tape he’d made at home years ago. Suddenly, he and his wife were naked and having sex in a hologram in the lab. I chuckled and continued on to--

Day 98

I had some tapes sent over from the University Medical Center of a man having a heart attack, dying patients, and so forth. When I played it back I discovered there are shadows nearby that always seem to fade as a person gets closer to death. That is the opposite of the behavior I might expect to see by de-energizing? Are we seeing the sprit or soul dissipating? I must study this further.

#

That stopped me dead in my tracks. What the hell was going on? Why was Garrison holding back so much from us? What if intelligence agencies hear of this? What if they have? 

Tomorrow, Part 7

EarVu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 5

Continuing with Part 5 of Ear Vu....

Image by Marvin Hayes

Day 66

Digital compression codecs such as those used on CDs and DVDs haven’t worked too well due to the digitalization which “clips” ranges; even “lossless” formats aren’t working well and when they do, they’re slow and their storage requirements are massive. But these efforts do have that possibility just around the corner; perhaps as the next medium of choice; though there is some concern about losing data. Multi-chromatic DVDs do show some promising behaviors but still, continuous analog medium is the easiest to manipulate at this time.

There is a certain, “choppiness” to the digital mediums at higher speeds, even with massive built in buffers. A simpler format, using a more complicated method of assembly, seems to be the answer and could be available by the coming spring.

We should receive a completed model of the new enhancement chips any day now. We are now connected to the University’s super computer. We can use it now in the non-peak hours for our more simple processing tasks.

Day 72

Quantum Pixel theory gives the best realizations and eventually will also supply us with the ability to see through things; able to view heartbeats of people in an audience near the recorder; and so much more. Ear Vu related M2-brane theory projections will disorientate the scientific community as it did us, at first.

Application of these theories have now allowed us to use any analog recording to study in detail  exactly what was going on in the audio range of the mics that were recording. For instance, the technicians in a sound studio cannot be seen as they are in a sound proofed room; but a recent breakthrough by Michaelson has shown us shadows of images believed to be those very same technicians! We are still unsure how we are seeing what could not have been recorded.

Perhaps something to do with heat, sound and light waves all being so similar but of varying degrees of the same scale. Although these are rather intense variations in scope, computers can fairly easily bring these numbers down into manageable form through a type of dimensional fractal replacement theory that we are currently working on. The significance of this is Nobel Prize level. There is simply no telling how much these discoveries will advance technology in general.

#

“Awesome,” I said aloud. He’s certainly not much of one for letting us in on these things. But a Nobel would be nice. I thought about that for a moment, then realized that it was actually all pretty obvious. I just hadn’t considered it. I scanned the lab through the glass wall, almost hoping no one would show up yet. This was getting interesting. I flipped forward much more earnestly. I had to smile when I read the opening of the next section, as I remembered well, that day.

Later today, Part 6

EarVu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 4

Continuing with part 4 of Ear Vu....

Image by Marvin Hayes

Day 41

The reproduced scenes, our “Ear Vu scenes”, are still vague at distances but are now beginning to look much more like a filmed dream sequence. New compression algorithms of my formulas by Johnson are beginning to refine that. So, it’s only a matter of time.

Breakthroughs are happening faster than we have the time and manpower to run down those many possible directions in which we can go. Of the two scientists here working with me, we are also searching our own personal directions beyond the scope of our daily, scheduled research. In this way we will be able to more quickly map the many implications of practical applications that our discoveries are pointing out. Obvious alternate areas of research initially include: medical, nanotechnology, criminal sciences, and then so many others.

Really, the possible applications are limitless.

Day 57

The metal particles on magnetic tape have more recording capabilities than was ever before conceived. Just as it was recently found that pixels on photographic paper in an exposed photograph can be used to “look around corners” within the frame of any photographed scene, “moving pictures”-- no, that is not quite correct; “continuous motion pictures”, can now be made from analog audio recordings on mag tape.

This brings up some exciting possibilities for movies and such that are shot using continuous filmic devices (i.e., analog magnetic video cameras). From audio tape, we have now successfully reproduced a scene that was actually taking place in the room, next to the room, that the recording was made in.

Fascinating!

It is possible that any recording medium will suffice, not just magnetic tape, which is merely the medium of the moment. I have successfully used Ear Vu technology on an antique wire recorder with great success and viewed a scene from 1898 of its Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen using his "Telegraphone wire recorder device”.

The implications of this seem hard to comprehend. We will actually be able to watch holographic video of scenes from the turn of the last century! Adding to that, we can excise more audio than was previously believed to be stored in this or any other medium.

Today there was a strange amorphous mass that floated through the scene. I fear it’s a glitch or media damage, and will have to examine it more closely.

#

I sat there annoyed, wondering. Why didn’t he tell us about that? I paged forward.

Tomorrow, Part 5

EarVu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 3

Continuing with Part 3 of Ear Vu....

Image by Marvin Hayes

Day 23

Our new CPUs have now incorporated my EarVu formulas on an integrated farm of Centip3De chips, a near-threshold 7-layer 3D system that contains 128 ARM Cortex-M3 cores and 256MB of stacked DRAM. Most of this building outside our main lab is used up with this farm of CPUs and servers. These can visually (and of course, aurally) reproduce nearly an entire music hall; or most definitely, an entire (and discretely smaller) recording studio where the music would originally have been played at the time of recording.

Due to the piecemeal method of producing commercially recorded music by splicing together snippets of different tracks and “voices”, the most cohesive format for playback of Ear Vu technology is a single track, continuously recorded session.

Ear Vu visual imagery at this time appears more like what a partially blind person would see on LSD. Consider elements of a drum beat as the number one, as it enters the microphone then its echo as number “-1”; then those numbers keep trailing off in a diminishing form. The processors eliminate reverberations and shadow sounds and add contrast and brightness, etc. This will become more “fleshed out” as the coding becomes more refined. Between incorporating Mandelbrot set / fractal theory with translation software and the new super-cooled, next generation processors, we are seeing the quality getting rapidly better, almost by the hour.

#

“Blah, blah, blah,” I said and flipped forward--

Day 36

We have found that any analog recording machine can make good enough audio tape recordings to reproduce the visuals at the time of recording. However, the better the equipment, the better the quality of the visuals reproduced, and the deeper that one can travel into that moment. It quickly became obvious that the "mysterious duality" proposed by Cumrun Vafa, Amer Iqbal, and Andrew Neitzke in 2001, with its set of mathematical similarities between objects and laws describing M-theory on k-dimensional tori, play a big role in this technology and explains how the data can encompass magnetic particles on mag tape. The process is similar for old LASER tape technology from 1967, substituting photonic elements for magnetic.

#

“No, kidding,” I said aloud. Bored I tapped on the desk and looked around. Where the Hell did they go? I thought about getting something to eat, but I really wasn't that hungry, so I flipped forward some more.

Later today, Part 4

EarVu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 2

Part 2 of Ear Vu

Image by Marvin Hayes

Ear Vu Research Journal of Dr. Verne Garrison

Day 1

Today begins our “Ear Vu” technology studies of visually viewing from magnetic audio tape recordings. After having worked on this myself for several years, I successfully presented a proposal to the Sonni Corporation and have been given a private lab and a handpicked staff to pursue this new technology. They're an odd company, but they have deep pockets. Everyone knows their logo of the rogue elephant; they go their own way.

They've already drawn up a logo for Ear Vu, their famous rogue elephant looking out an ear with the words: "Remember like an elephant. Ear Vu recalls everything!"

Certainly, no one can say they don't get right on top of things. They are one of those conglomerates that seem to be everywhere and yet no one notices. A powerful organization. Maybe, too powerful.

Now, what exactly is Ear Vu?

The easiest way to understand this is to think of bats, whales or dolphins. Bats have the ability for echolocation using their biosonar, so that they can easily fly while avoiding things in their way. They draw within their minds a kind of sonarscape. One could imagine (incorrectly) that they "see" through sound. Ear Vu technology draws upon that theory and process, enhancing it to quite unbelievable degrees.

As magnetic audio tapes work through the recording of sound waves, forces of pressure rebound against the internals of a microphone, typically of either dynamic, condenser, ribbon or crystal types. Vibrations are transduced into electrical signals which are then stored on an analog medium such as magnetic tape; or digitally, but for this technology, only if there are enough discrete breakdowns and available storage. Typically, digital doesn't work for this in real time as nothing is yet fast enough to convert and record. It is best if done in bulk , using analog formats.

Thus, in turning physical movements into electrical impulses, playback can reproduce audio tones, and with a sophisticated enough system, recreate the dimensions of the original sound quality, depth of field, etc. That is, you can hear each instrument recorded in an orchestra, played back so that you can spatially “see” in your mind where each instrument would have been located, within that setting via the reproduced sound spectrum. It’s more amazing than it sounds.

What I only recently realized was that the recordings on magnetic analog tape, produced by magnetizing particles of either Iron or Chromium oxides, can record astonishing amounts of information. If then linked together with a good processor, it can reproduce far more than sound waves of limited range. We can enhance this in a variety of ways for example, by using analog video; or with LASER tapes, but not in the standard, digital way.

As noted, this is not yet workable using digital formats of storage as the speed of transfer and the amount of bytes required for storage are still quite limited. Whereas on analog recordings, magnetic storage medium is nearly unlimited in the amount of data it can store, “dimensionally”. This is something that was to a degree previously known, though access to retrieving the data was simply unavailable.

Ear Vu technology has drastically changed this retrieval limitation.

#

I lowered the journal and thought about that. Interesting to hear it put that way, but nothing I didn't really already know. I flipped forward a bit.

Tomorrow, Part 3

Ear Vu, a Sci Fi Horror story - Part 1 - Beginning

Last week I posted that today I would start a ten part series through this week of my latest short Horror/Science Fiction story, "Ear Vu" (7,185 words).

So, with this being an election year and more importantly, the Halloween season, I thought we could use some entertainment and a brief aside stretched over a week's time. Also, I'm planning on opening up my book, Death of Heaven, on Friday for free for one day in celebration of the release of this latest tale of my macabre tales. What the heck, I"ll also set up my novella, Andrew on Amazon for free on Friday and Saturday.

So, let's get going....

"Ear Vu"

Image by Marvin Hayes

I woke up late. But then I hadn't slept very well. So when I got to work I wasn't exactly on time. As it turned out, no one really noticed. The building was empty when I got there; except of course, for the Guards. Several hours later, still no one had shown up for work and I had to wonder. What happened to Garrison and Johnson? Johnson hadn't come in yesterday, either. No one seemed to be at home when I called later. No one called and no one answered their cell.

If there is no word by tomorrow, I’ll have to assume something significant is at play here. Could it be some kind of industrial espionage, kidnapping? If so, then why was I still here? Or, was I next? Certainly, this research is important enough. But for people to-- disappear?

If that’s the case then why one at a time?

About midday I spoke in the hallway with one of the Guards making security rounds. He told me that Johnson hadn’t signed out the night before last and it was the same for Garrison last night. So, where were they? I had left a little early yesterday for a dental appointment so I didn't know when Garrison might have left. Then the Guard said that still there were no signs of my coworkers today. I thanked him and he continued on with his rounds throughout the rest of the facility; our lab being only one of eight buildings in the complex that they canvassed on a semi-hourly basis.

Back in the lab, through the windows I could see the facility’s octagonal shaped center court with its eight encompassing buildings. Others were visible working in those buildings across from ours, quite oblivious to my concerns. There was nothing else to do but return to the day’s research. Actually, it was mostly paperwork today and most of that was number crunching.

Hours later, dusk began its quick decline. Those across the courtyard had mostly left for their homes and families. Though I was alone, I kept feeling a presence and I began to look over my shoulder from time to time. Tired, I had tried to take a nap at lunchtime, I just couldn't relax long enough to sleep. I stopped my review of the data on my monitor and looked around at the empty lab with its five walls and various offices and supply rooms.

`Where the hell are they?' The thought kept nagging at me. Who should I call?

I picked up a pack of Garrison's cigarettes that were sitting on one of the lab tables and absent mindedly removed one. I scouted around for a lighter. Finding none, I suddenly realized I had quit smoking years ago. My temper flared momentarily, inexplicably, until I remembered that it had after all, been my decision to quit. My nerves were on edge. I picked up my pen and tried once more to write the thoughts which these past few hours had continually eluded me; but I only found myself doodling, again. So I dropped the pen once more.

The lab seemed to grow quieter, emptier.

My thoughts drifted as I wondered what this new technology would bring. I found myself staring at the front lab door. Looking around I saw scattered bits of hardware, wires, fiber optics, microfluidics, and all the other junk we found easy to play inventor with. We had found a way to redirect residual heat into power which was redirected into cooling. The more it heated, the more it cooled and the faster the CPU cycles ran in an ever growing loop that increased in power until finally, it hit a plateau. But at that level of processing, the speeds were incredibly fast.

Applications of this technology alone would revolutionize computing power. But that wasn't what we had been working on. I looked around suddenly feeling very alone; yet, not feeling alone. Like someone was there in the room with me. It was eerie, bordering on fearful.

"Hello?" I said, feeling tired, finally giving in to the feeling. No one answered.

I went to the main door. Grabbing the knob, I turned it. Then I turned, looking back around the lab. Of the eight doors in our rather large lab, three of them went to offices for the bachelor scientists, us. This door led to the main hallway, several others to storerooms and one to a vault. There were “ALON” windows looking out on the center court of the complex. Each building was sealed off from the rest for security and safety.

‘Security, as well as beauty,’ I thought. It was a dramatic effect.

“Rats in a beautiful cage,” we called it among ourselves.

“Dynamic design,” the architects had called it.

I opened the door to the hall. Nothing, no one in the hallway. I closed the door, hesitated, then went to Johnson’s office. All the offices faced the main lab and had glass walls with curtains bordering them in the event there was any need for privacy, or darkness; but there seldom was. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked as it naturally would be. After all the lab was well secured so we had no need to lock our offices within the secured room. There was nothing interesting inside.

So, I went to Garrison’s door and entered the plush office with its electronic debris scattered everywhere, pretty typical of all our offices. I walked over to the desk and plopped down in the chair. Garrison’s diary was in the middle of all the confusion there on the desk. He loved writing with pens and used a digital pen so that whatever he wrote into his journal was automatically transcribed into his laptop and then onto the lab’s NAS drive.

He had gotten us all into using those pens. They were pretty cool, actually. I kept mine in my jacket pocket. They would store a certain amount of data buffered that would transfer wirelessly as needed and as it could be configured for. There were many of these types of devices around the lab: digital whiteboards, iPads, etc. We were fully stocked with the latest and greatest.

I looked Garrison’s journal over more closely. The last entry was for last night.

"Will make a mag tape of the things for all to see. Interaction is affirmative. Johnson had said he would try. So, where is he?"

There had been a tape beneath the top of the journal. I picked it up, but it was unremarkable. It just said, “test” on it in Garrison’s handwriting. Looking around the lab through the glass wall of his office, I decided I might as well read the journal. After all, no one was around to interrupt me and besides, maybe there is a clue as to where everyone went.

Later today, Part 2

Last note before Monday's Ear Vu story release

Happy Friday! Well, this week has been fun putting together all this background on my story.

This will be my last note before the actual release of my macabre new Horror / Sci Fi story, "Ear Vu".

In a week from Monday I'll publish my original draft of this story. Then you can see how it had changed between the original concept  notes that I wrote a couple of decades ago and my by then, released story.  I will also offer a gift at the end.

But first a bit about my "process".

I've always had a strange way of writing drafts. When I was a technical writer I would have to gather all my resources, talk to the SME's (Subject Matter Experts), then write a draft up; write another draft, show it to my manager, make corrections; then write another draft, show it to the manager at which it was usually about 90% done, make final corrections and usually then, turn it in. I've had more than one manager question if I was going to get the paper done on time or completed fully and correctly. But for some reason, the change from the second to the last draft to the final, was usually quite remarkable.

One new manager I worked with was very concerned but I said not to worry, it's just my process. When I turned in the final draft, she was surprised at how well it all came together and incorporated so many changes so quickly and had became so polished.

"Ear Vu" by Marvin Hayes

It was just my "process". In tech writing there were frequently massive amounts of information needing to be compiled from a variety of individuals that all needed to be drawn up and finalized in a very short amount of time. Sometimes, to get the information from people, some of whom wanted nothing to do with talking to you, you almost needed to be a therapist to draw out what you needed from them. At times you needed to sooth their own time concerns (or ego), in order to get what you need to write the piece.

Why do I bring all this up here, and now? Because all of this had a lot to do with my writing process now. However in this case I'm now the SME. I'm using my mind, my past experiences, my remembered research all leading up to putting "pen to paper" (fingers to keyboard just doesn't have the same ring, does it?), for the current story I was writing, along with some new research and the story developed.

My transitions now from draft to draft are somewhat smoother than when I was tech writing, but those past writing experiences have still all added up to how my stories come together now. I did a lot of research for this little short story leading to a foundation for what exactly the "Ear Vu" technology is.

One recent reader/reviewer remarked how, "this technology actually sounds, reasonable." Which is a big compliment to the work I put in trying to support the contention of the tech for this story.

"Ear Vus" by Marvin Hayes

So. All that being said, just what IS "Ear Vu" technology?

Well, you will only have to wait till next week to find out....