KFC South Africa Lets Customers Listen To Music Using Bone Conduction

An anonymous reader writes: The end of annoying restaurant muzak may be nigh: A KFC branch in South Africa has put together a playlist of local artists for diners to enjoy — so long as they do so in silence. The in-shop broadcasts can only be heard using bone conduction as a speaker — diners put their elbows on the table and cup their ears if they want to hear the tunes.

Re:

[GigaplexNZ]

Hands generally get pretty greasy when eating KFC. Encouraging people to cup their greasy hands over their ears can only end well.

What happens if I put an empty cup on the spots?

[Harlequin80]

Surely any kind of diaphragm or sounding board placed on the spots would become speakers, or am I missing something?

Re:What happens if I put an empty cup on the spots

[wimconradie]

Yes you are. There are no sound at all (or sound waves to be technical). It is basically just small vibrations that travels through your bones in your body, which your ears actually think is sound and then... magically you can hear! I guess you have to experience it to fully appreciate it. (I once was introduced to a phone for old people that used the same technology and it really works.) ps. Real sound actually also convert to small vibrations in your head before your brain interprets it, so this is just skipping the conversion step. Hope this helps :)

Re:What happens if I put an empty cup on the spots

[Harlequin80]

I appreciate that there aren't any sound waves at the table. But would the vibrations not use the cup as a sounding board? ie Vibrations --> cup --> cup base vibrates --> soundwaves? A speaker after all is just a driver vibrating a sound board of some description.

I would assume that the frequency of the vibrations wouldn't be able to change across medium, otherwise the sound would change. The magnitude however may be too small to convert to airborne sound waves loud enough to hear.

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[wimconradie]

Ah I see what you mean :) Yes that makes sense and I guess it will work, but as you said the magnitude might be too small to be audible.

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[Rockoon]

It is basically just small vibrations that travels through your bones in your body

Anything that is vibrating while within the atmosphere is making sound by definition.

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[Dutchmaan]

...which is basically creating a Streisand effect, and since she's jewish it'll lead to jokes about jews... which is basically anti-semitism... which leads to NAZI jokes... which leads to Mel Brooks... who is jewish, but also makes black people jokes, which leads back to KFC, which leads back to South Africa... which leads to .. Kevin Bacon... Why Kevin Bacon you ask...? ...because all roads lead to Kevin Bacon eventually. Thank you.

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[amalcolm]

Muzak in fast food restaurants is there to persuade you to get the fuck out as quickly as possible to make room for the next 'customer'

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[ruir]

Well, I do not attend fast food restaurants, but whenever I just hear music in coffee shops or restaurants I simply do not enter. It works actually as a repellent for many people I guess, except maybe for the kind of crowd I do not want to mix with. So I am comfortable with it actually, it saves me time.

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[Joce640k]

Don't worry, they don't want people like you you in there anyway.

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[ruir]

Well, slashdot is coming to a new lows I guess. Fuck you to you too and have a nice day.

Corporations are out of control!

[__aaclcg7560]

Had no clue that KFC owned South Africa. Takes a lot of crispy chicken to buy an entire country.

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[Foobar of Borg]

The africans already have a bone thru their nose.

Might as well make use of it.

I didn't know Rush Limbaugh posted on slashdot. Where does he find the time?

I've heard

[Anonymous Coward]

listening to vuvuzela this way may cause minor fractures.

smartphones weren't bad enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to come up with an even more ridiculous, stupid looking way to get people to sit right next to each other, yet ignore each other completely.

Apparently the Bone Fone Patent Has Expired

[konohitowa]

http://blog.modernmechanix.com... [modernmechanix.com]

Tried one. Honestly, it didn't work that well.

Note for pedants: Yes. I know the ad is from 1980 and that the referenced patent expired long before now. You can silently thank me for saving you from a ranting response. And by "silently", I mean without responding. Even though posting the text could be considered silent. Unless someone has a reader. Or... Never mind. Rant away.

I wonder if it will work well for me...

[antdude]

... since I wear a bone conduction hearing aid since I was born mostly deaf (no ear holes and canals).

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[konohitowa]

It very well might. There's this one on eBay at the moment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintag... [ebay.com] So, is there no surgical fix for your ears or is it just too risky/expensive/insert-other-reason?

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[antdude]

I was born with too many defects. No more please. It's nice to have no hearing for peace and quiet. Also, be able to control the volume like in loud places like theaters, concerts, churches, etc. ;)

Re:This haiku's better than any music!

[konohitowa]

TheHaikuLover
writes about that which he loves.
Turns out Freud was right.

Etiquette?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the first rules of dining etiquette is to keep your elbows off the table.

Re:

[iTrawl]

Isn't that etiquette based on the fact that, in the past, the tables were so unstable that they'd topple over if you put your elbows (and thus some of your upper body weight) on them?

Apparently there are other sources for this etiquette [culinarylore.com], plus a few others.