[zharknado]

Brainstorming applications of knowing your angle relative to a point source:

- adaptive sports for visually impaired players like beep baseball?

- robot swarm members knowing their relative 2d position with a single microphone? (frequency for angle, amplitude for distance)

- a cheap, durable way for human workers to track the rotation cadence of slowly rotating machinery?

[wahern]

Reminds me of Ben Underwood, the blind kid who used echo location around the house, playing basketball, riding his bike around the neighborhood, etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnH7AIwhpik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation#Ben_Underwo...

[literalAardvark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

Bloody hell, I can't do all that...

I wonder how they discovered that "clicking" works, seems so counterintuitive to discover. Though it's fair that I don't spend anywhere near that much time listening carefully and noticing how sharp sounds reflect.

[viraptor]

> I wonder how they discovered that "clicking" works

I won't think it's they unexpected - have a walk a forest with loud insects. You'll hear a lot of interesting noises shaped a lot by what you stand near to. Large trees especially change how you hear things quite a lot.

[xattt]

Before practical applications, my first thought was a grade-school science fair entry. It’s novel enough for judges not to have seen it for a couple of years.