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

... and we're hiring

[yppiz]

If you are in the SF area and very well versed in Java, C, or AJAX-like techniques, and looking to work on really interesting problems, let me know. Bonus points if you're a hacker (in the traditional sense).

--Pat

Re:Active noise cancellation anyone??

[Znork]

Actually, there are _very_ effective noise cancellation solutions.

They're called 'walls', and come in a variety of efficiency levels.

However, they're probably not 'hip' enough for todays corporate interior designers, and they may not be patentable, which makes this solution a more desireable one for the interested parties.