BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:Calculated warnings

Newport Beach resident Vahan Simidian is concerned that his peninsula home might one day be ravaged by a tsunami.

In January, Newport residents packed a city hall meeting that helped get the city certified as “tsunami ready” by the National Weather Service. The lack of a warning system worried Simidian and some of his neighbors.

But he was in a unique position to help. Simidian owns Costa Mesa-based HPV Technologies, which has developed a way to use what is called “magnetic planar technology” to throw a sound a half-mile in any direction without distortion. A softer sound can be heard at the same distance as a louder one and to Simidian the technology is much better than just having a siren, which he said could put people in a frenzy and make them “part of the problem” if they riot or get curious and travel closer to the danger zone.

With his patented Magnetic Audio Devices (MAD) emergency personnel could disseminate instructions along with a siren, rather than just leaving people to figure out what to do on their own, he said.

About five and a half years ago, Simidian paid for the research and development of the technology. With the help of Newport Beach resident Dragoslav Colich, who had been refining the technology for 34 years, and his attorney Phillip Hamilton, also of Newport, they initially used the technology for sound systems. Their Magnetic Audio Devices were used in the Panasonic speakers at the Olympic games in both Torino and Greece.

But when the trio conducted a presentation for the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department and realized that law enforcement agencies could be interested, he found a new niche for his product.

After the city was trying to get bids on a warning system for areas including the peninsula and the islands, he invited the Newport Beach Fire Department to check the technology out.

“It’s really advanced technology compared to the notification systems I’ve seen out there with just regular sirens — they don’t tell people what to do,” Emergency Services Coordinator Katie Freeman said. “This actually can target certain geographic areas of the city, certain neighborhoods and geographical locations, and do a voice-over and tell them what we should do…. It’s not just blasting a siren and creating a panic.”

The technology hasn’t yet been adopted by the city because Simidian hasn’t been able to provide an estimate yet. He said it’s difficult to provide an estimate, which he said will cost him $8,000 to $10,000 of his money, without knowing specifics of where he can install the technology. But for the city, they’ll know how expansive they can make the system when they know how much it’ll cost.

One thing’s for sure — Simidian has offered to pay for anything the city can’t afford for installation on the peninsula.

The technology is different than most sound systems people hear. As one walks closer to the modular speakers, the sound actually gets quieter. Music that sounded quite loud from across a room goes silent if someone puts their head directly up to it. The sound is just heard from adjacent units.

The sound is crisp and doesn’t distort as it gets louder, and even from the smallest system, the sound can be thrown large distances.

Simidian came out of retirement to start the company. He’s owned real estate, stores and manufacturing companies before he came across the technology he said he knew would change the world as soon as people learned about it.

For more information on the technology, log on to www.getmad.com.