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Cube Privacy Via Gibberish
fury88 writes "CNN is running a story on a new device created by Herman Miller to help with lack of privacy in the cube life. It's apparently a device that will spit out gibberish when you are talking on the phone. You record a few words as instructed by the device and when you are having conversations that may be private, it will spit out sounds that sound like a clone of yourself all talking at once. Frankly I have to think this would be annoying after awhile. As if dealing with your project manager sitting next to you wasn't enough, now you get to hear several versions of your Project Manager talking at once. Talk about insanity!"
The idea behind it isn't to stop people from listening in on private conversations, but rather to put people in a suitable mood. The latter tends to mean "willing to shop" in department stores, which I would guess is the main use of it.
Personally, I hate the idea behind this. Either it doesn't work, in which case it is annoying as hell, or it does work, in which case it's, if not unethical at least provocative (to me, YMMV).
But what I hate even more is that a lot of public places thought that playing "mood music" was a generally good idea without any other thought behind it. Stop polluting my ears now, please!
Also, Muzak has a website that is even more annoying than their sound pollution. Use at your own risk. (No, I won't provide a link. I hate them.)