A few weeks ago I blogged a link to an article about kids using a “high pitched ringtone for school situations”:http://geekfun.com/2006/05/25/too-good-to-be-true/. The kids had appearantly repurposed a horrible sound used in a teenager repelling device called the Mosquito that took advantage of the fact that most adults are deaf to high frequencies.

It seemed just too perfect a story that the kids had coopted the teenager-repeller into a method of getting away with receiving text messages in class.

I’m still skeptical about the origins, but the story has been picked up by the New York Times, and other media outlets, and I’ve been getting a bunch of hits on this blog from people looking for more info.

So, I did a little digging and found an “MP3 of the horrid mosquito ring tone”:http://geekfun.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/HorridRINGTONE.mp3. I’ll warn you, if you can hear it (I can), it sounds head-splittingly awful, so take of your headphones and turn down the volume.