Using technology to hurt people’s ears
Us optimists are so used to looking at technology through utopian-tinted glasses that we ignore the disheartening (or evil) purposes it’s often put to. Dana Boyd over at zephoria pointed out this piece in the NYTimes.
First off, doesn’t this guy, Howard Stapleton–the founder of this company–look like a villain straight out of a silent film?
His company makes this product called “the Mosquito” that makes a high-pitched shreak that only people under 20 years old can hear..or so he claims. The idea is to drive away all those mallrats who hang out in the parking lots of respectable store owners. He developed it by “using his own children as guinea pigs”! It’s being tested at one location already and it apparently works. Teenagers are running away from this initial store with fingers in ears.
Scrooge has a new name in 2005…it’s Stapleton!