Up until now, parametric speakers were pretty difficult to come by, and generally very expensive. The Soundlazer aims to change that, offering individuals the opportunity to play with their own complete parametric speakers for as little as $175(USD). The Soundlazer uses an array of 39 piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers, which work together to generate an incredibly directional audio beam. Stand in front of the speaker, and you hear perfectly clear sound. Stand to the side, and you hear nothing. You can connect the Soundlazer directly to the 3.5mm audio port on your computer or media player, or can also experiment with custom filters, compressors and sound algorithms via its built in USB port, and Analog Devices DSP programming tool, Sigma Studio.

Soundlazer creator Richard Haberkern is currently raising funds for production of the device over on Kickstarter, and has already raised over $44,000 of his $48,000 goal with 45 days to go. So it’s almost a certainty that the Soundlazer will go into production this Summer. Prices range from $50 for a pair of bare-bones circuit boards to $175 for a functional version without a case, to $275-$300 for the version with the red anodized aluminum case shown here.

Robot Tiles were created by Hiroo Iwata, a professor working in the VR lab at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Each robotic vehicle is covered with a layer of Kuralon EC, a touch-sensitive conductive fabric that detects where pressure has been applied by the walker’s feet, predicting where they will take their next step. A set of ultrasonic sensors relay the position and orientation of each tile back to a central computer that tells them where to go next. Here’s a video clip showing off the Robot Tiles in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

See – it’s sort of like an infinite walking surface. While you have to walk really slowly for the tiles to have enough time to get into position, I didn’t ever see the pedestrian wipe out and fall on the floor, so they are doing what they’re supposed to do.

While I can’t think of too many real-world uses for this technology, Iwata points out that they could be perfect for providing a realistic walking surface within virtual reality applications, which could be kind of cool. But until they can speed these up, I’m keeping my feet on the ground.