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For understandable reasons, most technology coverage tends to focus more on the physical or visual elements of new devices than their audio signature. Its much easier to show and tell audiences how great a new screen is or how thin a new phone is than to explain the experience theyll get from its sound effects. But that doesnt mean audio cant be just as memorable, or as important to the companies that design it. Here are 10 of the most impactful, unforgettable sounds and effects from the past few decades in tech. Mac startup chime Frustrated by the previous tri-tone sound that accompanied the frequent Mac crashes of the ’90s, Apple sound designer Jim Reekes took it upon himself to create an iconic chime that remains an indelible part of the Mac experiencealthough we dont need to reboot our computers so often these days. The current chime, introduced in 1998 on the iMac G3, was inspired by The Beatles A Day in the Life and makes for a much more calming, optimistic way to start your work. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} It says a lot that of all the issues introduced alongside the controversial 2016 MacBook Pro lineupincluding the unpopular USB-C-only port setup and the fragile butterfly keyboardthe lack of a startup chime managed to cause a similar level of uproar online among Mac diehards. The chime was restored in 2020 and has remained on Mac computers ever since. Windows 95 startup sound While the Mac startup chime came from a single employees personal inspiration, Microsofts equally iconic counterpart came about through sheer corporate willpower. To create a sound that would define the Windows 95 experience, the companys marketing agency decided to leverage the talents of legendary record producer and ambient music pioneer Brian Eno. The thing from the agency said, We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional, this whole list of adjectives, Eno told SFGate in 1996. And then at the bottom it said and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long. Eno may have failed the brief, because the resulting sound is actually more like six seconds. But it does a lot with its running time; a lush, rising arpeggio gives way to fading crystalline notes, managing to sound at once warm and futuristic. It was the perfect match for Windows 95, which drove an explosion in the accessibility of personal computers. Dial-up modem handshake The other inescapable sound associated with PCs of that era could not have been more different to Enos delicate precision. The screeching handshake as a dial-up modem connected to an internet service provider was not exactly a single sound effect, but the raw, analog result of machines talking to each other. Although it sounded like random static, it reflected a precise negotiation on the part of the modem. Each bleep and hiss served a purpose, from the tones that disabled voice-line processing to the test chirps that probed for speed and stability. No one would ever have described the eventual noise as pleasant, and it was frustrating to have to sit through it every time. But there is a certain beauty in how such a chaotic signature came to symbolize getting online in the early days of the web. Logging onto the internet each evening felt like tapping into a fragile new frontier held together with string. Of course, that wasnt too far from the truth. DROOOID This was the mechanical sound that first signaled to American consumers that Apple might have some serious competition. While Android had been around for a couple of years, it was still a Wild West of janky hardware and convoluted software from a variety of providers, with no one quite managing to break through. But by pairing the aggressive, sci-fi Droid brandinglicensed from Star Wars owner Lucasfilmwith some impressive keyboard-equipped hardware from Motorola, Verizon managed to define an identity for Android that stood in direct opposition to Apple. The Droooid audio tag not only appeared at the end of TV commercials, it was the notification sound on Verizon phones at a time when people didnt live on Do not Disturb (DND). Sat next to a Verizon customer on the subway who justgot an alert? Droooid. Looking back at Droooid today, it comes off as deeply silly. The techy, self-consciously masculine branding swiftly descended into parody, with some truly ridiculous products like the Droid Xyboard tablet. But its impact on the mobile ecosystem cant be underestimated. It was so successful as a branding exercise, in fact, that for years many people would refer to any Android phone as a Droid regardless of whether it came from Verizon or Motorola. Nintendo Game Boy startup The simple, two-note Game Boy bling was an exercise in delayed gratification. Flip the switch with a game cartridge inserted and youd see the monochrome Nintendo logo slowly descend from the top of the screen; if everything was in order, youd hear the satisfying da-ding. What made it so effective was that often enough, everything would not be in order. Often because of dirty cartridge contacts, one way or another most original Game Boy owners would eventually run into what happened when the console couldnt communicate properly with the game: A garbled, pixelated Nintendo logo would be shown instead, and the sound would either be incomplete or not play at all. The solution? You guessed ittake the cartridge out and blow on it. Nintendo has never officially endorsed this technique, but the proof of its effectiveness was right there in the restoration of the chime. The anticipation of hearing it play as the correctly displayed Nintendo logo moved down the screen made the struggle worth it. Sony PlayStation startup The original PlayStation went for something functionally similar to the Game Boy, but with a much more maximalist approach. The booming, cinematic drone that accompanied the gold Sony Computer Entertainment logo on a white background would, if a readable game CD was inserted, give way to a black screen that featured the iconic four-color PS logo accompanied by a cascade of shimmering chimes. The startup sequence was created by Sony sound designer Takafumi Fujisawa. My aim is to lead the sense of security when the console is turned on to the excitement after, he said in a 2019 interview. I kept thinking from the start that I wanted the sound image to be something exciting, like that feeling when you walk into a cinema. I really wanted to communicate and reinforce that something fun is going to happen. Sony brought back the PS1 boot animation and sound as part of a nostalgic 30th-anniversary theme update for the PS5, but unfortunately it was a limited-time addition. While subsequent PlayStation startup sounds have been similarly classyin particular the PS3s orchestra tune-upits hard to beat the original. THX Deep Note Audio company THX is known for its quality assurance rather than any particular products of its own. But if you ever watched a movie in a THX-certified theater, you wont have forgotten the Deep Note, a swelling synthesized crescendo that serves two purposes: demonstrating the sound systems capabilities, and convincing you that youre about to be blown away by some serious audio. Starting from a low rumble in narrow frequencies and expanding to pitches that span three octaves, the THX Deep Note is an ode to the concept of dynamic range. THX has bounced around various owners since being spun off from Lucasfilm, and the Deep Note is not as ubiquitous a fixture of the cinema experience. But there might never have been a more powerful sound in technology. Cherry MX Blue switch If youre not into mechanical keyboards but you think you know what mechanical keyboards sound like, youre probably thinking of the Cherry MX Blue switch. Cherrys pioneering range of switch designs includes several with quieter feedback, but the Blue is best known for its ultra-tactile, intentionally clicky response. The sound is not necessarily the point of the design, which most appeals to writers for its deep travel and satisfyingly physical click. But the experience of typing on a keyboard with Blue switches is multisensory and, for many, addictive to the point of no return. Between the way you feel the key travel past the bump of the actuation point and the sound you get when the switch is activated in response, you really know when youve successfully typed each and every letter. Is this a problem that non-converts ever think about? Not really. But in the same way that watch enthusiasts obsess over legibility or font experts demand readability, the sound of a Cherry MX Blue switch is a testament to crunchy, inimitable typeability. Xbox 360 ‘blades’ Microsoft has never been abe to make its mind up about Xbox software design, and no iteration was more beloved than the Blades interface that launched with the Xbox 360 in 2005. Though simple by todays standards, and a little visually gauche even at the time, the key feature was the ability to swipe between pagesgames, hardware, media and so onwith the bumper buttons on the controller. The interface was fast and responsive, but it was the audio that elevated it into such a satisfying experience. Switching between each Blade was accompanied by a crisp, directional swooshing noise, giving you a sense of place in the UI and encouraging you to explore more. The Xbox 360s Blades were designed in an age of physical media, where access to Netflix involved pressing the eject button on the console itself. Its no wonder that Microsoft eventually decided that the UI would require a total overhaul. But that doesnt mean Xbox fans to this day dont miss the precise, razor-sharp swoosh that came when they swiped over to play a video from a USB stick. iPod Click Wheel clicks Apple knew it had a hit on its hand with the iPod, and a big part of it was the wheel-driven interface that made scrolling through long lists of music effortless. But when the company moved to touch-sensitive capacitive scrolling wheels, it needed something to replace the sense of tactile feedback that came from the older mechanical wheels physical detents. With the Click Wheel, introduced with the iPod mini, Apple hit on an ingenious solution: sound. Whether played through headphones or a tiny onboard piezoelectric speaker, the subtle ticks you could hear created the illusion of a physical bump behind every item in the list-based interface. Between the synthetic ticks and the way the Click Wheel incorporated physical buttons for controls like skipping and play/pause, Apple designed a more convincingly tactile experience while actually reducing the moving parts. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/multicore_logo.jpg","headline":"Multicore","description":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It's written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more visit multicore.blog","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’ latest season of her reality show, With Love, Meghan, drops today on Netflix. In line with the streamers strategy for its flagship programs, all eight episodes are available to binge immediately. Its a strategy that serves journalists well, offering plenty of controversial moments to highlight from a celebrity whose ties to the U.K. royal family continue to generate headlines. But it also underscores how approaches to consuming content have changed. Historically, TV shows aired new episodes week after week, creating appointment viewing. With the streaming era, that model shiftedthough Netflix remains unique in its commitment to releasing entire seasons at once, according to recent analysis by Ampere Analysis, a research company. Some 84% of Netflixs original TV releases are full-season drops, compared with 60% on Disney+, 57% on Peacock, and only 34% on Apple TV+. HBO Max is the least likely to release entire seasons, with just 28% of its programming arriving all at once. Netflix rose to prominence with this facilitating binge viewing model, and its what a lot of Netflix audience has come to expect with their new favorite shows coming out, says Rahul Patel, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis. Beyond audience expectations, practical considerations also drive the approach. Netflix has always done the binge strategy, says Kasey Moore, founder of Whats on Netflix, which tracks the platforms new releases. Thats largely due to the sheer volume of its output. Its because the amount of shows and movies that theyre putting out, he says. The scale of Netflixs operations prevents it from devoting marketing efforts to weekly episode drops. Instead, releasing entire seasons at once allows for large-scale promotion of specific titles. Apple TV+ is a really good example where they just don’t have that volume of output, Moore adds. He once tried to map out in a spreadsheet how Netflix could release everything weekly but found dozens and dozens of shows overlapping, making it impractical. Only 2% of Netflix programming is released weekly, compared with 33% on HBO Max, according to Ampere Analysis. Scale, Patel agrees, is central to Netflixs strategy. Netflix is releasing content at such a high frequency that when it comes to considering churn mitigation, its essentially the subsequent big release thats coming out in two, three, or four weeks time thats keeping subscribers engaged with the service, he says. Expecting viewers to wait six to eight weeks for a full season is unrealistic for Netflix. By contrast, Disney+, with far fewer releases, experiments with alternative models. Roughly one in four of its shows drop multiple episodes per week, though not full seasons. Amazon’s Prime Video employs a similar approach, balancing stacked premieres with weekly episodes. According to Patel, Netflixs incumbency enables its all-at-once model in a way rivals cannot match. Subscribers often factor a Netflix subscription into their monthly expenses, while newer streamers must actively keep users engaged across billing cycles. If a subscriber is joining for a particular show, they might need to stay subscribed for the following nine weeks, for the rest of the run, Patel explains. In an alternative world, if that show was released all in one go, thats an instance where they could binge watch across a weekend or a couple of weeks, and then perhaps churn from the service. Whether Netflixs big drop approach actually works remains debated. It depends who you’re looking at, says Moore. Netflix is always Netflix first, rather than basing itself on any individual show, but I’m not sure you could say that about some of its rivals anymore. For competitors, the brand image is more closely tied to individual programs. With a lot of these services, the brand image is obviously very important, and a lot of that does come from the content and the type of content they have, Patel says.
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China is taking a page from abandoned NASA research in an effort to leave the United States far behind in a new weapon category that the Pentagon believes will be crucial for military supremacy in the near future. Beijings engineers have reportedly designed a hypersonic aircraft carrieressentially a large, super fast drone mothership that can deploy several more drones. It uses an variable oblique wing, a historic, experimental design that has one single wing that rotates depending on the aircrafts speed rather than fixed classical symmetrical wings in traditional planes. To laymen used to regular aircraft it may look bananas, but the Chinese engineers believe that the designoriginally created by Nazi engineers and continued by the U.S. in the second half of the 20th centurysolves some of the key problems of hypersonic flight. This will not be the first flying aircraft carrier. China has already built the Jiu Tian, a subsonic mothership capable of deploying a hundred combat drones. But it’s poised to be much faster than anything we’ve seen. According to defense experts, hypersonic flight is the key for the war of the future. While many intercontinental ballistic missiles fly at more than five times the speed of soundthe definition of hypersonic flightthey follow a predictable ballistic curve trajectory that make them easy to intercept for anti-air weapons like the Patriot batteries. But vehicles like this hypersonic craft will fly in unpredictable manners, like a regular airplane. That combination of speed and flying pattern makes them virtually impossible to intercept. Effectively, this will enable this new Chinese aircraft to cross U.S. defenses carrying combat drones in its belly. Once this happens, it will be free to launch swarms of these drones to destroy key enemy infrastructure in the first minutes of a war. Firing on all cylinders It’s not the first time that China has snatched American weaponry designs. Decades ago, China systematically copied both U.S. and Russia’s devices to try to match their military prowess. In the last few years, however, Beijing has poured billions into university research labs, private companies, and its defense industry in a coordinated effort to turn the People’s Liberation Army into the most powerful and advanced force in the world by 2049. China has have already leapfrogged the U.S. military in many regards, from advanced sixth-generation combat jets to hypersonic weapons that have no match in the American arsenal. One is their orbital hypersonic bombardment vehicle, a hypersonic glider capable of launching hypersonic missiles from low orbit. When its test was first detected by American agencies, then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Hyten said that it defies the laws of physics. The test was classified by General Mark Milley, then-chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, as close to a Sputnik moment, drawing a parallel to the nation-shocking Soviet Unions achievement of placing the first satellite in space in 1957. More recently, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that Chinese hypersonic missiles are capable of sinking all of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear aircraft carriers “in five minutes,” claiming that the U.S. loses all the Pentagon’s combat simulations against the Chinese army. A future built upon the past But even as China develops its own new wonder weapons, the Chinese havent stopped drawing inspiration from classic American breakthroughs to move forward, revisiting projects that the United States once deemed impossible for technical or economic reasons. Their aim: to discover new machines that will give them the upper hand against Washington in the event of a conflict. We’ve already seen several prime examples of this trend, like China’s railgunsfuturistic electromagnetic cannons capable of firing solid metal projectiles at hypersonic speeds up to 105 miles away using rails powered by massive electromagnets (a line of research abandoned by the U.S. Navy). Another example is China’s oblique detonation engine, once an American invention from 1958 that promised aircraft capable of flying at sixteen times the speed of soundabout 12,000 mphbut was shelved when engineers failed to resolve its technical challenges. China has also deburred a design for a new hypersonic commercial and military aircraft that NASA left unfinished in the 1990s. Now, China’s latest borrowed design is the oblique wing aircraft, a concept abandoned by the NASA in 1982. It’s getting a second life thanks to Beijings seemingly unlimited funding, and new computer tools that will make it possible according to this new work led by a team from Northwestern Polytechnical University that was published by Professor Ma Yiyuan in Advances in Aeronautical Science and Engineering in July. The AD-1 aircraft in flight with its wing swept at 60 degrees, the maximum sweep angle. [Photo: NASA] Hypersonic carriers for combat drone deployment The team has reimagined the oblique rotating wing to create a hypersonic unmanned mother shipa near-space platform capable of Mach 5 flight that can dispatch drone swarms behind enemy lines. The proposed carrier operates at the edge of space (about 19 miles above Earth), carries up to 4,400 pounds of payload, and is designed to launch from 16 to 18 autonomous drones for rapid attacks on key enemy infrastructure, such as communication hubs, radars, and command centers, before air defenses can respond. After the strike, the aircraft would return and land under fully autonomous control. The role of the oblique wing in this design is to solve one of aviation’s thorniest problems: How to achieve stable, efficient flight from takeoff at hypersonic speeds? Unlike conventional aircraftwith their symmetrical swing-wing designsthe Chinese proposal centers a single wing that rotates up to 90 degrees. At low speeds, the wing is perpendicular for max lift. As speed ramps up, the wing pivots to 45 degrees, redistributing airflow and suppressing shock wave formation. At Mach 5, the wing aligns with the fuselage and merges into the top of the aircraft, transforming the entire vehicle into a “waverider”basically a missile that breathes air and minimizes drag at hypersonic cruise speeds. At this point, the fuselage itself produces 67% of the lift, with the canards and the tail surfaces providing the rest via shock-induced pressure differences. The scientists claim this design achieves unprecedented aerodynamic efficiency in hypersonic travel. Ma and his colleagues write in the research paper: Compared to mainstream morphing configurations such as variable-sweep wings, the oblique wing aircraft features a relatively simpler structural design. The wing remains a single integrated component, and the wing box located at the centre of the configuration stays intact, providing significantly better load-bearing performance than conventional variable-geometry designs. They also say that this architecture holds an advantage in structural strength. But while simpler in structure, the design confronts severe engineering demands. The critical transonic transitionMach 0.8 to 1.2creates shifting shock waves along the wing, moving the aerodynamic center forward and potentially causing dangerous nose-down pitches that could make the craft uncontrollable. Here, the research highlights the need for a sophisticated array of control surfaces: nose-mounted canards and a high-mounted tailplane, which regulate downwash, front lift, and nose-up moments, all while vertical stabilizers actively manage roll and yaw as shock waves evolve. This design was discovered thanks to computerized fluid dynamic analysis and AI tools that NASAand obviously the Nazisdidnt have at the time. Which is why the oblique wing was ahead of its time but it wont be forever, as an unnamed spacecraft designer tells the Taiwanese newspaper South China Morning Post. Things like real-time strain monitoring, microsecond diagnostics, and fail-safe locking mechanisms for the wings central shaft will be key to handle the severe torque loads (the force that strains the fuselage and wing), thermal gradients (the temperature differences from the air particles friction at increased speed), and the general structural fatigue that arise in hypersonic flight. Nazi Germany and NASA paved the way As forementioned, the oblique wing isnt a new dream. German engineers first sketched the concept during World War II. Richard Vogt, working at Blohm & Voss, designed the P.202a jet fighter whose wing rotated obliquely, one side forward and the other back, balancing aerodynamic forces and aiming for a sweet spot between high-speed efficiency and low-speed lift. Though never built or flown, the design set the template for future asymmetric wing studies. After the war, Dr. Vogt and the oblique wing theory crossed the Atlantic. American aeronautical engineer Robert T. Jones picked up the concept in the 1950s, conducting a series of analytical and wind tunnel studies at NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor for NASA) Ames Research Center in California. These investigations revealed that a transport-size oblique-wing aircraft, flying at speeds up to Mach 1.4, would exhibit significantly improved aerodynamic efficiency compared to conventional aircraft designs. By the 1970s, Jones and his colleagues moved from theory to hands-on experimentation. NASA built the Oblique Wing Research Aircraft, an uncrewed propeller-driven testbed, and later a small remote-controlled demonstrator aircraft with a 20-foot wingspan that flew once, demonstrating stable flight with wing sweeps from 35 to 50 degrees. These testbeds showed promise in drag reduction and fuel efficiency, but at high sweep angles, they exhibited unpleasant flight characteristics and pronounced roll-coupling modes, foreshadowing the challenges that would later surface. The AD-1 oblique wing research aircraft was photographed during a wing sweep test flight. The aircraft was flown 79 times during the research program conducted at NASA Dryden between 1979 and 1982. [Photo: NASA] The effort culminated in the only crewed aircraft to use the concept: the NASA AD-1 (Ames-Dryden-1), delivered to Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center in 1979. The AD-1 was built with a low-speed, low-cost philosophythe design specified by NASA and detailed by Rutan Aircraft Factory. Constructed of plastic reinforced with fiberglass and a foam core, the squat aircraft had a fixed tricycle landing gear and was powered by two small Microturbo turbojets. It was limited to speeds of about 170 mph for safety reasons. Over ts three-year flight program (1979-1982), the AD-1 made 79 flights, its unique wing pivoting incrementally from zero to a full 60 degrees. The pilot would control the sweep using an electrically-driven gear mechanism inside the fuselage. Data collected throughout the envelope expansion revealed that, although the oblique wing was mechanically viable, significant challenges emergedespecially at sweep angles above 45 degrees. The aircraft developed problems that led to poor handling qualities and sometimes precarious flight behavior. The fiberglass structures limited stiffness exacerbated these tendencies, making improved control systems and stiffer materials a necessity for any future higher-speed designs. NASA retired the AD-1 after fulfilling its research objectives. The aircraft never went beyond subsonic trials or into larger commercial or military applications, remaining an exhibition piece at the Hiller Aviation Museum in California. Subsequent plans for larger, transonic and supersonic oblique-wing aircraftincluding airliners and DARPAs Switchblade demonstrator created with Northrop Grummanwere canceled before reaching full realization, as engineers assessed that the control and structural challenges remained unsolved with then-existing technology. Why China believes it will succeed Despite these historical setbacks, Chinas engineers argue that todays advancescomputational fluid dynamics, artificial intelligence, and smart materialscan finally make the oblique wing workable for high-speed strategic aircraft. The engineering challenges at the core of the design are immense. The wing pivot shafta single hinge connecting the rotating wing to the fuselagemust endure tremendous bending moments during high-speed flight, often beyond the endurance of conventional aerospace materials. Torque demands increase with the square of velocity, and the motors that drive the wing must overcome significant aerodynamic resistance, particularly as speed climbs. At Mach 5, leading-edge temperatures exceed 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the shaft remains inside the cooler fuselage, resulting in severe thermal gradients and stressing lubrication systems. Fatigue from repeated stress cycles poses another threat, risking microscopic cracks or catastrophic failure if the shaft breaches the pressurized cabin. To address these risks, the Chinese team emphasizes redundancy: multiple backup systems, real-time strain monitoring, microsecond-level diagnostics, and fail-safe locking mechanisms designed to freeze the wing in a safe position should any fault emerge. Combined with self-regulating smart structures and rapid-response flight control electronics, these measures form the technological bedrock for Chinas efforts to finally realize the oblique wings potential as a next-generation strategic weapon. If they succeed, China wouldnt be just resurrecting abandoned American experiments or Nazi-era ambitions for the sake of academic ego. It can really give them a huge edge against the U.S. By transforming the oblique wing into a hypersonic drone carrier, Beijing aims to deliver a new kind of strategic weaponone designed to outpace and outmaneuver anything the Pentagon can field in the race for future military supremacy. Even if China fails to make it happen, the research highlights how America is getting more and more behind Beijing. Chinese aerospace engineers have recaptured the daring spirit of the supersonic 50s and the Apollo program, coming up with new ideas and remaking old ones into new designs that the American industryfocused on quarterly reports, shareholder value, and convoluted Pentagon contractsare simply not considering anymore.
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