"Being a guinea pig for a sonic ray was truly a whole lot worse than being a guinea pig for the pain ray. I would happily volunteer again to be hit by the Pentagon's pain ray. It was fun, like being Bugs Bunny dancing around when Elmer Fudd tries to shoot him. I never, ever again want to be hit by the Inferno" says Sharon, but while the sensation was unbearable, she actually didn't experiment the extreme reactions that this sound will cause if you are exposed to it for a longer time: vertigo, nausea, and pain in the chest.

The device is designed to work with security systems, making people leave a protected area immediately. Their site shows many different models, which can be installed inside or outside shops and cargo vans. Dr. Goldman told us that they "don't do home applications because of the potential headaches that this may bring from law enforcement agencies and customers." Apparently, "only homes that have special requirements, like a strong room" can be elegible to install one of these alarms. Too bad, because he pointed out that the cost of a typical system is only $1,800, which is affordable enough for me to want one.

If you are wondering if this is really a good deterrent against thieves, have no doubts about it. Apparently, Inferno is so effective that Swedish manufacturer Indusec just landed a contract with the Russian government to install the sound bars in nuclear weapon depots using the Inferno Mini (above) which is the same you can install in your own shop. Meanwhile, big companies like UK-based chemist super-chain Boots, are also installing the devices all through all their shops.

The good thing about Inferno is that, although it will stop anyone from entering an area, they won't injure them (or you.) According to a study on the Inferno by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, only if you experiment repeated exposures to this kind of noise or if the sound pressure is more than 130dB, your ears could be damaged. Inferno, the paper concludes, doesn't have any risk of hearing loss since it's just 125dB.

Just in case, I won't try it. [Danger Room and Inferno]

The building is north of Osaka proper, near the Umeda station on the Osaka subway system, which connects three different subway lines as well as the JR commuter rail (although the bullet train connects to the Shin-Osaka station, two stops north). It's a huge, confusing place (at least if you don't speak Japanese) that had me wandering around looking for my train line back for a good half an hour. There's an underground tunnel near the central exit to the station that'll scoot you under the nearby railyards and right over to the base of the Umeda Sky Building.

Once inside, you pay 700 yen (a little under $6) for a ticket to take the glass elevator up to nearly the top. Once up there, there's a small restaurant, gimmicky gift shop and a scale model of the building. Then you take the famous escalator to the top, which is surprisingly underwhelming. It's not all that scary as your view is really blocked quite a bit going up, so you don't really get a great sense of being suspended 550 feet in the air on a moving staircase.

At the top, it's your standard observation deck, with binoculars that let you zoom in on places of interest. The Osaka skyline isn't exactly legendary, but it was cool to get a bird's-eye view of where I'd been wandering around. Overall, I'd say that if you're in Osaka, the Umeda Sky Building might not be worth the trek unless you're really into strange architecture or observation decks. These photos should give you a good enough idea of what it's all about.

West Country Fires Vertigo [via Sci Fi Tech]