Sound

The directors of the delightful 2001 short film "Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers," which showcases the noncutesy melodic possibilities of squeak toys, toothbrushes and vacuum cleaners, successfully build upon the premise in "Sound of Noise. " Spoofing police procedurals while bowing deeply to John Cage, the cheeky Swedish feature pits a music-loathing yet sympathetic detective against a group of anarchist percussionists. In lesser hands the mash-up might be nothing more than an act of cinematic contortion.

Sound mixing "The Hurt Locker" Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett In what was the second award of the night for sound editor Paul N.J. Ottosson and the first for mixer Ray Beckett, "The Hurt Locker" swept the sound categories, perhaps proof, at the least, of the common Oscar wisdom that the loudest war film always wins. The mixing took its cues from the characters in Kathryn Bigelow's testosterone-drenched film, as well as a rich sense of place. Speaking backstage, Ottosson called Staff Sgt. William James, played by Jeremy Renner, "a very confident man. So we were trying to duplicate that as well in sound throughout the movie."

When it comes to your tech tools and toys, can you name that sound? Play along. Bloo-bloop. That's TiVo. The grand and broad-sounding G flat/F sharp major chord, Baaaaah . That's the Mac startup sound. Dong-dong-dong-dong. That tells you Intel is inside. Then there's the signature cutting swoosh of an Xbox booting up. And you know that distinctive synthesized crescendo of disparate elements that resolve into a singular auditory thread you feel in your core -- Deep Note --that means you're listening to THX . Now you can add the synthesized xylophonic tink-tink -- the sound of launching Siri.

The stated goal of the new combination book and compact disc "Pictures of Sound: One Thousand Years of Educed Audio: 980-1980" is impressively brash: "It's a collection that seeks to challenge existing assumptions about what historical audio itself is," writes author and scholar Patrick Feaster. Specifically, Feaster gathers from throughout history depictions of sound waves and alternative sound recording methods, some from before Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877, others simply different means of capturing sounds, and presents them along with illustrations and the stories of their creation.

The advent of "smart" television sets helped introduce the masses to the idea of tuning in content from a home network and the Internet, not just traditional sources of TV programming (e.g., local broadcasters and cable networks). Now, Santa Barbara-based Sonos -- a leading manufacturer of connected home audio devices -- is adding a similar kind of intelligence to a TV sound bar. On Tuesday the company announced the Playbar , a 4-inch deep, 3-foot-long rectangle stuffed with nine independently driven speakers.

Coral larvae, tiny hair-covered sacs of cells, can "hear" reefs and actually swim toward them, researchers report. The finding suggests that sound is far more important in underwater ecosystem development than previously thought. Further, marine biologists say, human noise pollution has the potential to block the larvae's ability to seek out nearby reefs and settle there, ultimately harming other marine life. Coral are tiny sea creatures that build the rocky, often colorful structures associated with them; these structures ring islands and can span thousands of miles.

This Saturday, while the Sunset Strip Music Festival rolls out various forms of pop music, a completely different idea of radical sound will be heard all over Los Angeles, stretching and blurring the boundaries of music and noise and art. The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) is celebrating 10 years of experimental sounds and artist collaborations by staging an all-day (and completely free) concert series, leading its participants through various L.A. neighborhoods and concert venues.

Composer Mychael Danna was in the middle of scoring the first pivotal scene of Ang Lee's "Life of Pi. " The 11-or-so minutes being put to music that early September day were creating quite the challenge for Danna and Lee, who were watching the film, sans digital effects, in a control room adjacent to an 80-plus-member orchestra. Shown again and again on the monitors surrounding Lee and Danna was the moment in which havoc was wreaked upon young Pi Patel as he was set loose on the ocean with a Bengal tiger, the latter of which would be added later via computer effects.