Tired of non-stop chatter? Here's a device that could help you.
SpeechJammer, a Japanese invention, could come handy as it is capable of
stopping bores who go about inflicting their loud, non-stop chatter on other
people who prefer silence.
The prototype, devised by Kazutaka Kurihara, of the National Institute of
Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada, professor of
technology at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, hushes loud talkers by playing
back their own words after a fraction of a second.
The hand-held device includes a microphone pointed at the talkative person
and records that person's voice. It then replays the sounds through a speaker in
the direction of the person after a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone
and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a
distance, like a gun.
"The system can disturb remote people's speech without any physical comfort,"
the scientists report in the journal MIT Technology Review.
Their tests also uncovered some unexpected findings, such as that the gun is
more effective when the delay varies in time. It also works better when the
speaker is reading aloud rather than giving a spontaneous monologue.
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