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[Carrie McLaren <stay.free AT verizon.net>]

Cellphone ringtones will soon go ape
July 8, 2003
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=269&fArticleId=184031

London: Noises from the world's largest archive of animal sounds are 
being made available for use as ringtones for cellphone users, the 
British Library said here yesterday.

Among the sounds available are the thuds of the male gorilla beating 
its chest to impress females and scare off competitors, the grunting 
of various species of pig and raucous bird calls from the Amazon 
jungle.

The library claims to have the world's largest animal sound archive 
and is now making its 100 000 recordings available to two companies 
that will in turn put some of them on the internet by the end of the 
week.

Users can allocate different calls to different callers - perhaps the 
gentle cooing of a dove for calls from a girl- or boyfriend, the 
grunting of a pig from the bank manager and an outraged squawk from 
the wife or husband.

The global market in downloading ringtones is put at $4 billion a year.

Richard Ranft, the curator of the wildlife section at the British 
Library Sound Archive, is pushing British birdsong.

"Many bird sounds are proven to be relaxing - we provide a lot of 
doctors' surgeries with bird calls for their waiting rooms for 
exactly that reason," he said.

"They can also be very evocative: the fiery-necked nightjar song is 
tremendously beautiful and serene."