The song Rhythm Nation by singer Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson’s sister, may damage certain computer models when played. This was shared by Raymond Chen, a software engineer at Microsoft, on his blog on August 16th.

Chen tells the story of a friend who worked in Microsoft’s support area and who kept track of the discovery. The problem went further. “(…) playing the video clip on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video,” wrote Chen on his blog.

The bug occurs because of acoustic resonance, a phenomenon that produces a sound with a frequency that is equal to the natural vibration of a receiver (in this case, the computer). The process could be compared to opera singers breaking a glass goblet with their voice. Current computer models, however, include an audio feature that can filter out higher frequencies.

Questions

1) In which ​​Microsoft department does Raymond Chen’s colleague work?

a) On the company’s blog

b) In a support area

c) In audio filter production

d) In the company’s software engineering

2) Would you like to work with computer and software development? Why?

Sources: Emerald Downs and UPI Sources: Microsoft, Sky News and Rolling Stone

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