The Mind of an Inventor

kipb writes to tell us that Newsweek has an interesting article about Danny Hillis and the company he co-founded called Applied Minds. One of the featured devices that Hillis talks about is a device designed to increase the amount of privacy one has working in the average corporate cubicle. "Babble" is about the size of a paperback book and plugs into the phone with two external speakers that you place on the top of your cube. While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice which makes your conversation practically unintelligible to people as close as 4 feet away.

Comments

What's wrong with a hand operated air raid siren?

[Steven Reddie]

It would also make calls unintelligible within 4 feet.

"I hear voices"

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile Johnson in the next cube has been interpreting the voices as instructions to bring an AK-47 to work and begin the Day of Reckoning.

Great

[SpectreBinary]

So the two morons I am forced to sit next to at work who never get off the phone can broadcast MORE OF THEIR VOICE TO ME.

I'd break down crying if I weren't already burnt out inside.

Re:Brilliant

[ozmanjusri]

While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice which makes your conversation practically unintelligible to people as close as 4 feet away.

Yes, I believe this device could be a change catalyst which would allow us to re-engineer our business case and leverage best-practice synergies to proactively actualise our bottom-line.