Worldchanging pal and all around smart guy Tad Hirsch (the inventor of TXTMob, iSee, and Speakeasy) has come up with yet another invention: the surveillance coconut.

Officially called Tripwire, it consists of custom built sound sensors fitted inside hollowed-out coconuts and hung from trees around Norman Y. Mineta International Airport in San Jose. (The use of coconuts is obviously a bit of site-specific Southern California camouflage. New York variants might use fake pigeons, rats, or old sneakers flung over the power lines.) When the sensors hear excessive aircraft noise, they automatically connect to the cellular network and leave a prerecorded complaint on the airport's complaint line, ostensibly on behalf of the city's residents and wildlife. The date and time of the noise trigger is also archived for later analysis.

Since it seems to be the de facto policy of the NYPD to not investigate noise complaints (on the assumption, perhaps, that even noisy miscreants must sleep sometime) I can see this being used in New York for any number of purposes: hip-hop loving neighbors, muffler-hating trucks (program the unit to dial the truck company's number), alcohol-deafened smokers outside the neighborhood bar. Unfortunately, there doesn't yet seem to be a solution for the all night car-alarm party.

[Worldchanging.com covered txtmob in 2004 and Speakeasy in 2005. - Ed.]