WarGames Sounds

Over the last few months, I've been completely hooked on the 1983 cult movie classic, WarGames. I'm ashamed to admit just how many times I've watched it. Let's just say that I have many of the lines memorized by now.

One of the things that I love from the movie are the sound effects. I think they did a great job of bringing computers to life with all of those cleverly engineered beeps. I particularly like the sound they used whenever someone would type on a keyboard. The sound was essentially the same for text that would appear on a screen. Naturally, I wanted these sounds on my computer. I searched Google high and low and couldn't find anyone that had bothered to grab those sounds. All that I could find were classic clips like "would you like to play a game?" So, I've extracted the sound clip myself along with a few others that I thought were interesting and possibly useful.

I created two versions of the keyboard sound (one is louder than the other) to suit personal preference and listening environment. You'll need a program that plays a wav file in response to typing on your keyboard. I've found a few programs that fit the bill. I'm currently playing with a program called Noisy Keyboard.

Below are links to individual wav files as well as a zip archive of all the sounds. There are a handful of sounds that are my favorites that I've grouped at the top. I thought the remaining sounds might be interesting to some people. I hope you enjoy them.

P.S. I did not bother to reproduce the sounds clips from the movie that can be readily found on other sites.

All sound files are standard 16bit, stereo, Windows WAV files sampled at 48kHz.

WarGames-KeyPress.wav
WarGames-KeyPress-MiddleVolume.wav
WarGames-KeyPress-LowerVolume.wav
WarGames-Startup.wav
WarGames-Login-WOPR.wav
WarGames-Shutdown.wav


WarGames-Alarm.wav
WarGames-Alarm-SkyBirdBreakBreak.wav
WarGames-Chimes.wav
WarGames-ConnectHello.wav
WarGames-DiskInsert.wav
WarGames-Login-BunkerDoor.wav
WarGames-Login-ProtovisionIHaveYouNow.wav
WarGames-Login-WOPR-FullWithFootsteps.wav
WarGames-Modem.wav
WarGames-ScreenRender.wav
WarGames-ScreenRender-Longer.wav
WarGames-ScreenRenderWithPrinter.wav
WarGames-Shutdown-BeginCountdown.wav
WarGames-Shutdown-WithJennifer.wav
WarGames-Shutdown-WithJenniferAndDavid.wav
WarGames-Startup-BunkerDoor.wav


All WAV files: WarGamesSoundPack.zip

Moov: LEGO For Kids' Vehicles

I think this design-your-own trike/bike/whatever toy called Moov is really cool. What young boy wouldn't love to tinker with this kit to design their own little vehicle? What a great way for kids to spend time with their dads. How about Moov competitions where kids get together to race their creations. Yet another reason to stay young. from gizmodo.com

Interactive Textiles Used To Improve Human Performance

CSIRO of Australia are embedding technology into wearable textiles in an effort to help people improve their performance. You train the apparatus to recognize the ideal movement for an activity so that it can detect variations in movement that are not ideal. The device plays a set of audible beats to help you improve your performance. Shooting hoops was the first activity discussed, but it could be used for any activity. I'm sure athletes will be the first segment interested in the technology, but I could see it helping just about everyone. Imagine your intelligent workout clothes guiding you into proper form for any exercise. Love it. from gizmodo.com

Navigate A Maze To Unlock Your Door

This one makes me laugh for some reason. When I saw this I immediately thought of pranking someone by installing it in the middle of the night so that I can have my first laugh of the day watching them stare at this thing on their way out to work in the morning. Thanks go to Art Lebedev Studios for creating the Defendius door chain. :) from gizmodo.com

Glow In The Dark Graffiti: Great. (sarcasm)

A company called Suck UK from our friendly global partner across the pond has created a spray paint that glows in the dark. I'll admit that I'm curious to see the resulting graffiti art, but it won't be long before we're all disturbed by this new menace. Yes, menace. The product is due to be available soon. from gizmodo.com

Technosexuality: Robot Love

I watched a movie a few months ago about a guy who ordered a robot and dated it after failing at relationships with his human counterparts. It turns out that there is person doing this in real life. I can only guess that the movie was based on this guy. It's a very interesting concept and a bit disturbing. I recommend reading an intriguing interview between gizmodo.com and Zoltan, the technosexual.

Hijack Fast Food Drive-Thru Intercoms!

Holy Cow. Apparently this is old news, but the how-to guide is new. A few years ago, some clever prankster took the time to figure out how to take over the frequencies used by drive-thru intercoms to prank unsuspecting customers of fast food restaurants. I think it's hilarious, but the how-to is dangerous. You can literally take a simple component (a crystal) from any modern toaster and use it to replace the crystal in a cheap CB radio to produce a device capable of causing much havoc. While public frequencies like these are shared, I'm sure there are laws against intentionally interfering and worse, impersonating the employees. Sounds like fun to me in moderation. Now that this video is out, I'm sure we'll begin to see some segments about the threat to our laziness on our local evening news sometime soon. Have fun and be careful. Check out the video after the jump. from gizmodo.com

Dallas considers shutting off red light cams, since they're working too well and harming revenue

This is interesting and sad. Red light cameras installed in Dallas have done such a good job at curtailing red light infractions that the loss in revenue from tickets has the government considering turning them off randomly so that people will break the law more often and return the revenue balance!

from engadget.com: "There's just one, fairly ironic, flaw to the otherwise totally lovable red light cameras that adorn Dallas: they work too well. Turns out the cams have curtailed red light infractions by 50 percent, which in turn has put a budget crunch on City Hall. The city is now considering stopping its planned rollout of more cameras, or shutting down the cameras on a rotating basis -- upkeep when off is next to nothing, but the city pays $3,799 per month per online camera to its service provider. That sounds like quite a spendy broadband bill, but we're not the experts here. Just remember kids, your government wants what's best for you, and what's best for you is a well-funded government, alright?"

A Reason for Everyone to Dance

I've just come across a posting about an environmentally sound dance club exhibit. Sound strange? I thought so too. The most interesting part of the project for me was the idea of a dance floor that captures some of the wasted energy produced from the pounding of your feet upon the floor. It's apparent that researchers and engineers are looking everywhere they can to harness energy in our ever more environmentally aware society. What's next? Electricity generation from the box spring of your bed? Every time you roll over in the middle of the night, your night light burns a little brighter? Imagine the water cooler conversations of someone bragging about their sex life, "you wouldn't believe how much energy we returned to grid last night!" Check out the video at treehugger.com.

Evernote Destined To Be A Hit

Here's one of the most promising web applications that I've seen in a while. Evernote is a tool capable of detecting text in captured images and associating the text with the images in a searchable index. The uses are countless. Example, take photos of people wearing name tags at a conference for later matching of faces to names. I'm particularly interested in using it during my travels. When I'm busy trying to see every famous landmark in a new city without enough time to do so, I always regret not being able to read all of the interesting factoids written on various walls and signs. I tend to take photos of the signs to read later. I can just imagine using Evernote to convert this information to searchable text automatically. Sounds great. The service is still in invite-only beta mode. Bookmark it: evernote.com

Close Chip Bags Without a Clip

I'm a big fan of lifehacker.com and their top 10 lists. I discovered a great tip on one of their food and drink lists. There never seems to be a clip around when your half eaten bag of chips is in dire need of protection from the elements. Sure, you can tightly roll the bag opening and wedge it against something, but you'll usually return to find that the bag has contorted it's way out of the predicament. Enter lifehacker's video on a folding technique that "locks" it shut. I LOVE it.

Generate Electricity With Each Flush

You know there's a green revolution going on when you hear that not just the person sitting on top, but the toilets themselves will be generating power. Personally, I'm excited to see so much innovation in this area. It seems that everyone's catching on that solving our energy problems requires diverse approaches.

from gizmodo.com: "Energy Generating Turbine Toilet: Poop Saves the Planet: If the Benkatine Turbine by Leviathan Energy finds its way into homes, your bowel movements will be able to help generate free electricity. Using the same technology found in other hydroelectric devices, the Benkatine turbine uses the water that passes through the pipes in your home to produce power. According to the company, that means you could make use of the water flowing from any number of sources—including your gutter drains. It is a simple idea, but simple ideas are often the most useful. Plus, you pass off your excessive drinking and overeating as your little way of helping the environment."

Yes! Autonomous Solar Powered Lawnmower

One more reason to never leave the house.

from gizmodo.com: "That neighbor of yours thinks he is so badass with his top-of-the-line riding mower. With the Husqvarna's new autonomous lawn mower, you can sip a beer on your porch and tell your neighbor to suck it while he toils away on his yard. And the best part is that the mower is a solar/electric hybrid—so it will mow your lawn whisper quiet with nearly zero emissions."

RFID EVERYTHING: Reality vs Virtual Reality lines getting blurrier

I've been telling my father and friends for years that location aware technology is going to explode. Honestly, I was thinking more along the lines of GPS, assisted GPS, cell tower triangulation, and near proximity tech. I hadn't considered a more elaborate use of radio frequency ID (RFID). Google has begun work on a rather ambitious plan to allow the tagging of anything for the purpose of locating.

Read more from gizmodo.com

Massive Air Vortex Cannon

This reminds me of competing against my friend, Kini, in Hawaii to create an air ring that lasted the longest from about 85 feet underwater. Kini and his wife, Ana, were scuba instructors and I'd tag along every once in a while. When Kini had some free time, we'd lay on our backs at the bottom of the sea floor near a wreck off of Waikiki. We would remove our regulators long enough to blow a ring of air, similar to smoke rings. The rings would sometimes rise close to the surface before breaking apart. That has to be one of my favorite activities of all time. The longer we'd goof off, the more light headed we'd get from all of the bottom time. Kini always won. He had more practice, goofing off. ;( Check out the video on this page of a large air vortex cannon. Amazing!

from gizmodo.com: "Massive Air Vortex Candle Cannon Built: It Blows, Bigstyle:
Baking a cake to celebrate 20 years in business wasn't enough fun for sub makers Erbert and Gerbert, oh no— they decided to build a man-sized air vortex cannon to blow out its candles. What's an air vortex canon, you ask? It's one of those big gun-like toys that fires puffs of air surprisingly far across the room."