The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has embarked on a project to equip the armed forces with speakers designed to support them in combat situations.
Wired.com, an American daily technology website, reported that SOCOM would be updating existing
speakers that are used for ‘psychological warfare operations’ (PSYOPs) in locations such as
Iraq.
The US Army describes PSYOPs as "planned operations to convey selected information and
indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately, the
behaviour of foreign governments, organisations, groups and individuals."
The ‘Next Generation Loudspeaker System’
(NGLS) would consist of seven variants: "manpack; ground vehicle/watercraft; unmanned air vehicle; unmanned ground
vehicle; scatterable media long duration; scatterable media short duration; and sonic projection (focussed sound)".
The unmanned and scatterable versions were intended to be "interconnected using secure wireless
technology to form sets of loudspeakers that provide high-quality recorded audio, live dissemination, and acoustic-deception capability".