Sixteen years ago, I stood in a parking lot near a freeway in San Diego and experienced one of the more amazing technology demos of my professional life. About 100 yards away, the sandy-haired, eclectic inventor Woody Norris pointed a metal plate about the size and shape of a cereal box at my head. He hit play on a portable CD player attached to the gadget. Amid the din of cars and trucks whizzing by, I heard the gentle sound of tinkling ice cubes, as clearly as if a bartender were swirling a bourbon on the rocks by my ears.
Image: Photograph by Mehau Kulyk/Science Photo Library
