ChatterBlocker — Block Distracting Speech at Work

An anonymous reader writes "ChatterBlocker is a PC program that uses digital audio technology to neutralize the sound of speech and other distractions so you can stay focused at work or elsewhere." Personally I just crank the tunes. Anyone know if this actually works or if it's a scam? Or is it just a white noise generator?

Comments

Free Speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. Sounds like it would have a chilling effect on free speech to me.

Re:Free Speech?

[CdXiminez]

No, it supports the freedom to choose what to listen to.
One does not have an obligation to listen to everybody's use of free speech.

Re:Free Speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear that "whooshing" sound? That's the joke/subtle jab going right over your head.

Re:Free Speech?

[stunt_penguin]

Oh, phew! I thought it was the sound of my latest deadline whizzing by!

Re:Free Speech?

[CdXiminez]

Trust me, I caught it.
Just had to vent my little frustration over people producing intellectual noise and saying they're exercising their right to free speech.

Re:Free Speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment..."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment..."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment..."

Re:Free Speech?

[cryptoguy]

I have used this:

http://www.nch.com.au/ams/index.html

It works and is free. When I need to do some reading or concentrate without distraction, some white / pink noise does wonders to block out the chatter in nearby cubes.

Re:Free Speech?

[Mr. Slippery]

If you have sox (a standard sound app often found on GNU/Linux systems), make a pink noise generator with:

sox -t sl - -t ossdsp /dev/dsp synth 7:00:00 pinknoise < /dev/zero

Replace "7:00:00" with how long you want it to run in hh:mm:ss format. I run this to help me sleep at night, then use "at" to turn on the music player as an alarm clock ("xmms -p").

obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to hear here, move along.

Re:obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear!

Earplugs

[owlman17]

This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earplugs ought to work just as well, if not better.

Cheaper too I'd suppose.

Re:Earplugs

[CRCulver]

In his first novel World of Ptaavs (now part of the Three Books of Known Space omnibus) Larry Niven suggested that over the next couple of centuries people would evolve to be able to more powerfully focus on relevant conversation and filter out noise. The growing population, he suggested, would result in all public spaces being much more full of chatter than now. People would be driven mad if they didn't adapt.

It seems a better solution than earplugs, which would block out everything, even useful sound. But the idea is fanciful, for instead of biological or psychological progress, it seems that these sort of technological advances as described in the article will serve to keep the world around us quiet.

Re:Earplugs

[ahertz]

Actually, as someone who works with a bunch of chatty people, I've found that earplugs do a pretty lousy job at blocking out conversations. The problem is that the best earplugs you can buy at your local drug store only attenuate noise by ~32 decibels. But a typical conversation, at close range, is ~60 decibels. You wind up just blocking out all the low-level background noise (computer fans, air conditioning, ...), leaving the voices even more distinct.

I've found the best solution for me is a pair of headphones that seal pretty well, combined with music. The sealed headphones drop everything, so the music can be much quieter and still drown them out.

I'm actually thinking of picking up a pair of Shure E2C earbuds for just this purpose. Has anyone got any experience with them? Will they do what I want?

Re:Earplugs

[TubeSteak]

Using different densities & materials, earplugs can (to a degree) be tailored to block certain frequencies.

Also earplugs are generally better at blocking high frequency sounds, while earmuffs are better for the low freq noises (or vice versa, but I think I have it right). And you should wear both if things are going to be really loud.

Re:Earplugs

[parc]

I have the prior generation of these earplug/headphones. A couple things I've learned:

1) You have to stick them WAY inside your ears to get the full effect. It feals like you're poking your brain stem.
2) They work incredibly well.
3) You'll suddenly discover how crappy your home and car speakers are, and how REALLY crappy normal headphones are.

If you're really serious, get a good set of musician ear-moldings. They'll fit the E2C earphones, IIRC, and they're much more comfortable from what I'm told.

Re:Earplugs

[Desult]

I've got the E3c earphones, and I've had them for about a year and a half. I bought them for plane trips, and they're quite good at reducing the overall noise. It's not total silence when you put them in but it is definitely a significant reduction, especially in background noise/talking. As an example, I have to take them out to hear the flight attendant, or someone sitting beside me, but I can typically hear loud noises (e.g. the "ding" for the PA). With music or movies playing you can miss even louder sounds.

As a general recommendation, I've found them to be OK sound quality and good build quality - the cable and connections are still in quite good condition even with regular use over the past 18 months. The E3c model came with a bunch of different "plugs". I find the gray soft rubber ones the most comfortable and best sound reduction, but the harder clear ones the easier to use (i.e. stay in your ears and keep clean). I don't know if the E2cs come with different plugs, I seem to recall that was one of the selling points for the E3cs. The E4cs were recommended to me as a better bass response, which at the time I didn't think was that big of a deal. I still think it might be better for my hearing to skip the louder bass, but that is one area where the E3cs are slightly lacking. The bass response is OK but never stands out (does not compare to even a low end set of good headphones imo).

Just as an aside, I've found that they are somewhat inappropriate for office use. With music playing they will basically silence anyone who might be talking to you directly, potentially even your phone ringing if it's not loud enough. I have a cheap set of normal over-the-ear headphones that do NOT cut out direct noise that I use when I'm in an office environment, that's always been good enough for me.

Re:Earplugs

[turtledawn]

I also have the E2Cs, and I didn't have the problem of feeling like i was sticking things too far into my ear- of course, I've been shooting rifles since I was six which means that I've been using ear plugs since i was six, and am quite accustomed to them. In my work environment, there's a fair bit of background noise (about twelve computers, a large refrigerator, a fossilized air conditioner compressor, three centrifuges going on and off) and at the time i bought the phones, two coworkers whose constant, shrill, incredibly loud laughter reminded me of hyenas. The Shures saved my bloody sanity until i got the promotion and PHB said I had to "be available to answer employee questions at all times." Fortunately one hyena-woman had left by then... They worked really well for my needs, a mix of constant background hum and sharp high-frequency outbursts, though the high pitch stuff still came through enough to detect.

My problem with the E2C actually was that in combination with my Rio Carbon I could not turn the music volume down _low_ enough to be 100% comfortable all the time. I couldn't listen to rock music with them, for example, because I found it painfully loud. This is not a problem for most people, I'm told :)

Re:Earplugs

[mochan_s]

In his first novel World of Ptaavs (now part of the Three Books of Known Space omnibus) Larry Niven suggested that over the next couple of centuries people would evolve to be able to more powerfully focus on relevant conversation and filter out noise. The growing population, he suggested, would result in all public spaces being much more full of chatter than now. People would be driven mad if they didn't adapt.

Maybe I'm totally wrong but this has very little basis in terms of theory of evolution.

You need selection pressure - be able to filter out noise or die (or fail to reproduce).

Unless 90+% of the population aren't reproducing, I don't think the human race is going anywhere evolutionarily.

Re:Earplugs

[mrderm]

Ive been using shure E3Cs for nearly a year now, on a train, and to block out a noisy office. Wearing the headphones I will usually not hear any train noise - not even the 'ding' for the PA - unless I lean my head back onto the train seat headrest and enough sound will conduct through the back of my skull.

In the office environment there is really no doubt that they block *everything*. (Even telephones..... why do they put alarm bells on those things?). They score highly for comfort too, which is important if you are wearing them for a full working day. I can turn down the volume to the level I want for the music, rather than the level I need to block out the chatter. One disadvantage is that you need to remove them to have any conversation, or even to get up and walk around in safety. And then you need somewhere hygienic to store them when they are not inserted.

The E3Cs come with a range of different ear inserts, in different sizes. I recommend you take your time in trialling the different options. I was nearly ready to give up on them before finally trying the *small* soft inserts. I think that is the first time I have needed the 'small' in anything.

Re:Earplugs

[ubergamer1337]

I have a pair of E2C's and love them. They cancel sound better then a pair of bose noise cancelling headphones, and cost less. The only problem with them is that they are a pain to get in and out, and can be a little disconcerting. It's worth getting used to them through, they are excellent.

Re:Earplugs

[rishistar]

A shotgun works pretty well too!

Re:Earplugs

[lessthan]

The chance of madness isn't a selection pressure?

Re:Earplugs

[FLEB]

I wouldn't see it being out of the question. A more information-based society and growing population densities might mean that people with this ability are able to be more successful in performing everyday tasks. Of course, the degree to which that affects reproduction quantity may mitigate the advantage to some extent.

Re:Earplugs

[1u3hr]

In his first novel World of Ptaavs (now part of the Three Books of Known Space omnibus) Larry Niven suggested that over the next couple of centuries people would evolve to be able to more powerfully focus on relevant conversation and filter out noise.
Maybe I'm totally wrong but this has very little basis in terms of theory of evolution Well, Larry really screwed with evolution in that novel anyway, in the idea that we're descended from (alien) Pak. But in this case I'd cut some slack and assume the word "evolve" being used in a more general sense, of a behaviour or skill evolving, rather than a strictly Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest sense.

Re:Earplugs

[ed1park]

I bought the Shure's, but they become uncomfortable after sometime and they are pretty expensive so I don't use them any longer. I've been using the Sony Fontopia's for $30 which work awesome. Comfortable as hell. Nice soft rubber ear buds that go into your canal. Blocks out everything. Almost too well. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-EX51LP-WHI-Fontopia -Headphones/dp/B000095SB6/sr=1-2/qid=1161579540/re f=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-8822307-2042561?ie=UTF8&s=electr onics

Re:Earplugs

[1u3hr]

Woops; I mixed up the story from Protector (Pak) with Ptaavs (Thrint). But the main comment still applies.

Re:Earplugs

[Cederic]

I find wearing ear moldings for more than a few hours a day irritates the insides of my ears.

Which is frustrating, because I do notice the benefits from my hearing aids. And I can take the batteries out if I want to stop listening to people ;)

Re:Earplugs

[jools33]

I used to think headphone use was the best solution - now I have Tinnitus - and so I would recommend caution... Its better to just try to ignore the sound - if you get tinnitus - you basically have to learn to do this in any case - and it doesn't go away when you go home from work either...

Re:Earplugs

[springbox]

Yeah, funny and everything, but those were my best option at work since I have a problem blocking out background noises. They make my ears hurt after you wear them for long enough.. But at least they won't damage your hearing like wearing noise canceling headphones and listening to music for most of the day.

Er,,,

[jb.hl.com]

You mean like noise cancelling headphones?

Re:Er,,,

[koafc]

Except, noise cancellin headphones work best for loud background noise like fans, airplane engine noise, etc rather than staccato office voices like my nearby co-worker. (I have the Bose Quietcomfort pair.) From personal experience with the Bose headphones and this chatty co-worker, the headphones cut a bit of her voice but in some ways you can hear her even clearly since all the office white noise is removed. To completely get rid of her voice, I need to combine the noise canceling with music in the background. Then she disappears!

Re:Er,,,

[ReallyEvilCanine]

You're an idiot and so is the mod who called you "Insightful". Read your own link:

They work well for sounds that are continuous, such as the hum of a refrigerator, but are rather ineffective against speech or other rapidly changing audio signals.

Noise cancellation requires hardware. Headphones use microphones to pick up the sounds which are then cancelled by phase-inversion. It gets vastly more complex when dealing with open spaces. This is nothing that software alone has a solution for.

useless

[gEvil (beta)]

I downloaded the demo, turned on all the options, set the reverb to high, and now I can't concentrate on anything at all. This thing is totally useless.

Worst. Article. Ever.

[Snover]

From the FAQ:

How does ChatterBlocker work?

        ChatterBlocker masks unwanted office chatter using a soothing blend of nature sounds, music and anti-chatter voices.

WOW. MINDBLOWING.

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what?

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[SilverJets]

I would find that more annoying than office chatter. Nature sounds in an office would be waaaaaaaay more distracting.

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[Fred_A]

So basically they charge 35 dollars for a bunch of wave files and some marketing on drool proof paper.

You have to admit it's quite ingenious.

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[Drachemorder]

Apparently P. T. Barnum was right.

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[DreddUK]

Actually it's a bunch of ogg files ;) Check c:\program files\ChatterBlocker\ChatterBlocker_Content Ho Ho Ho...

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[Rogerborg]

It's a pretty decent piece of shilling though. Don't we all just love to rush to show how much smarter than the article submitter we are?

Re:Worst. Article. Ever.

[Snover]

You mean the anonymous article submitter (who is almost certainly an employee for this company)?

Noise cacellation?

[bcmm]

The way this is done in noise cancelling headphones is by recording background sound and right away outputting a signal such that the output destructively interferes with the background noise.

IMHO if this is just software, it's a scam. You need hardware for this, because you want the microphones to be close to the ears (i.e. on the outside of the headphones).

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's NOT noise cancellation. From the FAQ:

Does ChatterBlocker use noise cancellation?

No. Noise cancellation would not be effective over speakers, and noise cancelling headphones have limited effectiveness in silencing voice.

Good quality noise cancelling headphones are great for reducing low-frequency sounds, such as airplane engine rumble, but they are not as effective in the 2 to 8 kHz consonant range that conveys much of the speech intelligibility.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Yartrebo]

Even with headphones, you need a real-time operating system because the response must be generated within a few dozen microseconds. Off the shelf Linux or, -gasps-, MS Windows, cannot deliver this, no matter how fancy the software. In practice, you use a small computer or microcontroller built into the headphones.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[cnettel]

Hey, that's simple enough. If the boss is screaming from the other end of the corridor, you just put the microphone there. If the corridor is long enough, that gives you a plenty of time for the OS to get the sound at the signal propagation speed, while it reaches your ears from air. Then, you'll just need to tune the system to model the time-frequency response distortions through mic, corridor sound reflections and the pecularities of your amplifiers and speakers.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[baadger]

That does sound simple I would like to subscribe to your newsletter...

Re:Noise cacellation?

[bcmm]

Well, I think the normal solution is to have dedicated (probably analog) electronics in the headset itself. These spring to mind. It's stupid to use a general-purpose digital computer for simple realtime audio processing.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[omeomi]

Even with headphones, you need a real-time operating system because the response must be generated within a few dozen microseconds. Off the shelf Linux or, -gasps-, MS Windows, cannot deliver this, no matter how fancy the software.

I work in pro audio. My audio interface is set to a latency of 10ms, and can be set even lower. Extremely low latency is necessary for professional work with audio. Given the relatively simple phase-inversion necessary to create a noise-cancellation effect, there's absolutely no reason Windows, OSX, or Linux couldn't do the job just as well as an $80 set of headphones. However, with Windows, the standard-issue Soundblaster or onboard sound chip would probably have to be replaced with something that supports ASIO drivers. You would also need to place the microphone right up next to your head, which could be awkward.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[richg74]

Good quality noise cancelling headphones are great for reducing low-frequency sounds, such as airplane engine rumble, but they are not as effective in the 2 to 8 kHz consonant range that conveys much of the speech intelligibility.

In a previous life, I had to travel a lot, and used a set of noise-cancelling headphones. They do work pretty well, as the FAQ says. When they don't work too well, the issue isn't really frequency per se; in principle, they could perfectly cancel a constant-amplitude 10 kHz sine wave, for example. The problem with speech is that the consonants (which, as they say, make speech intelligible) are high-amplitude, effectively high frequency transients. For similar reasons, noise cancellation wouldn't do much to mask the sound of a gunshot.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Spo22a]

It does not use noise cancellation.

From the FAQ.

Does ChatterBlocker use noise cancellation?

        No. Noise cancellation would not be effective over speakers, and noise cancelling headphones have limited effectiveness in silencing voice.

        Good quality noise cancelling headphones are great for reducing low-frequency sounds, such as airplane engine rumble, but they are not as effective in the 2 to 8 kHz consonant range that conveys much of the speech intelligibility.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "ms" in "10ms" stands for milliseconds, as in one thousandth of a second. The person you're replying to claims that you need responses within a few microseconds, as in millionths of a second. In other words, if he's right, your latency is about one thousand times too high.

To put this in perspective, sound travels at roughly one foot per millisecond in normal air. So at 10ms of latency, the sound will travel ten feet before your computer is able to react. To have perfect cancellation, you would need a ring of microphones ten feet in radius around you, and no noise generators (e.g. talking people) could be allowed to get closer than that.

I imagine it may be possible to have extremely fancy software that analyzes the sound and cancels continuing sounds after the initial 10ms pulse, but you'll still get those pulses coming through, and I don't even know if this ability is within the current state of the art.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course this is all pure speculation, but I don't think it would be possible with any general purpose sundcard, as you propose. If you want to cancel out a 1khz sound, then you need to be able to precisely time the output down to under 1ms, under 0.2ms with a 5khz sound. I just don't think that's possible with any general purpose soundcards, you're going to lose more than those 0.2ms somewhere.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[TeknoHog]

I second this. Phase inversion is ridiculously simple if you know anything about op-amps. It's simple even in software, but then the main problem comes from hardware and OS latency, so there's not much point. Funny how so many Slashdotters have the 'software hammer' syndrome.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[drxenos]

Ignoring the fact that you are quoting a time scale much less intense than the OP, his point is that you have a hard dead-line, thus the need for a real-time OS. Windows, et. al., cannot guarantee that you will meet this dead-line each and everytime.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. what's more, noise cancelling earphones and headsets can only filter out homogenous/repetitive sounds like the hum of aircraft engines, traffic noise, etc. they don't work against speech effectively; this can be seen as a feature. and you can hardly do even that in software on a standard PC. the placement of the microphone isn't all that critical if the source of the noise is a few metres away, but the latency is just too high, especially on a desktop OS that doesn't meet strict real-time criteria.

so, don't buy this software, just get cheap in-ear earphones and listen to instrumental music. idm, ambient, or minimal anything work great if you want to concentrate on your work.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work in pro audio, then as the other posters have already shown, you aren't much of a pro. You would think if you were a pro, you'd know something really really really basic aspects of it. Like the speed of sound.

At sea level sound moves at 340.29 m / s. That's 1,116 feet.

In 10 ms, sound travels 11.16 feet.
In the 10 micro-seconds the grandparent correctly posted about, it would only move 0.1116 feet.

As others noted, unless you are wearing headphones so rediculouosly large they keep people 12 feet away from you, your 10ms response time won't work at all.

You're version of 'extremely low latency' is off by a few orders of magnitude from what this situation calls for. If you were a pro, you should know that.

As for "You would also need to place the microphone right up next to your head, which could be awkward.", Bose seems to have worked that out quite well already. But being a pro and all, I'm sure you arleady knew it wasn't awkward...

If you are really crappy in your field, shut up about it and don't try to brag.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

You two are idiots.

Two tones at the same time will require different delays to achieve 180 degree phase inversion.

Trying to do this with analog electronics is stupid.

I love analog electronics but you have to know its limits.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I realise that it doesn't use noise cancellation. We've established that.
However, while we are on the subject, you can do a reasonable job with more than 10us of latency.
Its down to the badnwidth of the signal and how fast your feedback loop needs to respond.
For example a 1KHz tone lasting 10ms (10 cycles) can be partially cancelled by a system with a latency of 1ms. It will of course introduce an extra 1ms at the end of the tone so:
10ms of tone will be reduced to 2ms (1ms at the start, 1ms at the end for the managers amongst you)
This is 1/5th of what you started with or ~-6dB.
This was an example with made up numbers. You probably only expect to achieve ~35dB anyway.
Real world: Everybody will use embedded DSP, either hardware or software based.
Its cheap, fast, small and low powered. It can also be expected to be bug and crash free.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[omeomi]

Ignoring the fact that you are quoting a time scale much less intense than the OP

Wow talk about everybody jumping down my throat...I'll respond to you since you're the one person who didn't post as an Anonymous Coward.

Anyway, my mistake...I misread microseconds as milliseconds. It was early on a Sunday, and I wasn't really paying all that much attention. So, yes, you are correct. And you're probably correct that 10ms isn't fast enough to work well for noise cancellation. I'm somewhat doubtful that those relatively inexpensive noise-cancellation headphones are getting latency times of 20 microseconds, since they're widely reported to not really work all that well either, but I haven't measured them, so I don't know that for sure.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[hankwang]

It seems that nobody in this thread understands the problems with noise cancellation. Of course it is trivial to build an analog circuit that substracts the signal from a small microphone from the signal that goes to the headphone speaker. Unfortunately, that won't work. The problem is that a headphone typically has a very complicated frequency response resulting from the resonances in de closed volume between the eardrum and the headphone loudspeaker, and the attempts of the headphone designer to compensate for these resonances. (see for example here). The net effect is that the impulse response of the headphone/ear system with respect to electrical signals going into the speaker is about 1.5 ms. That means that even if you have full knowledge of the interaction of the headphone with a particular ear, you need to know what sound wave to cancel 1.5 milliseconds in advance. In this time, the sound can travel about 50 cm, which is obviously more than the 1-2 cm between the headphone speaker and the microphone.

So to make an effective noise-cancellating headphone, you have to compromise on sound quality in order to give it a quicker impulse response. Then you will have to accept that you will never be able to effectively cancel out high frequencies (above 1 kHz or so). Finally, you will still need to build some kind of lowpass filter such that you won't substract the higher frequencies with the wrong phase and thus increase the noise rather than decrease it. With all these constraints, you can be happy if you achieve 10 dB reduction.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Do you need any form of delay to achieve 180 degree inversion? I thought wiring a speaker the wrong way round does it.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[LurkerXXX]

I think other folks in the thread understand the problem, just not omeomi.

It's not an easy task, but some folks have done the job pretty well. As someone else in the thread pointed out, the Bose headphones do a very good job. Have you ever tried them at a Bose store? They aren't perfect, but about 3 seconds after turning on the power switch, they knock ambiant noise way way down. It seemed like a heck of a lot more than 10db reduction to me.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[drxenos]

My comment was not mainly about the difference in units, and I am sorry if you think I "jumped down your throat." It was not my intent. The main point of my comment was you seemed to miss the OP's point that Windows and Linux are not real-time systems and cannot guarantee determinism when it comes to dead-lines, which has nothing to do with computational speed.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, if you fail on your real-time guarantee for audio, you hear an extremely annoying audio glitch. If the original poster is able to set his latency to 10ms without hearing such glitches, then that means that his system is able to meet this limit with a good amount of reliability. It may not be guaranteed the way a true real-time system would be, but if he can't hear any glitches then it would be perfectly fine for a noise cancellation system built around the same latency. The main problem isn't that a normal OS can't guarantee 10ms latency (obviously it can) but that 10ms is far too long.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[drxenos]

I don't know your definition of "obvious," but no, a "normal" OS cannot obviously guarantee meeting any dead-line, be it 10ms or 10 minutes. It many or many not meet it everytime that you have tested it, but that proves nothing. Such OS' are non-deterministic, and it is NOT possible guarantee any kind of dead-line. And latency is a different issue all together. Latency is not the same as a periodic rate. Latency is the measure of time between the occurrence of an event and when it is responded to (i.e., the elapsed time between the triggering of an interrupt and when the handler is executed). And again, my point had nothing to do with the time period. I am not an audio engineer and cannot speak to whether 10ms is a good enough sampling rate, nor do I care. I am a software engineer specializing in real-time embedded systems. My point was that the person I responded to missed the OP's point that Windows, Linux, et. al., though may be sufficient, cannot guarantee you will meet your dead-line each and everytime. You may *know* that meeting your dead-line will not be an issue, but you cannot *prove* it without an OS that CAN make deterministic guarantees about time.

Re:Noise cacellation?

[Anonymous Coward]

The proof is in the pudding.

The fact that these OSes can produce audio with 10ms latency without audible glitches means that they are meeting this latency requirement consistently. This is what I meant originally. It's not guaranteed (that was the wrong word), but it can be done extremely reliably.

Yes, conceivably they could fail. But in a situation where such failure is not catastrophic, this is not extremely important. You only need a hard realtime OS when failure to meet the deadline is completely unacceptable. In applications such as noise-cancelling audio, missing your deadline once a day is really not a big deal. Yes, it's not guaranteed, but it just doesn't matter.

However, as previously established, 10ms is way too long for this application anyway.

perfect

[gEvil (beta)]

After playing with it for a few minutes, I think I've found the perfect setting to keep people away from my desk--turn everything off except for Cypress Goats.

pure snakeoil

[Anonymous Coward]

snakeoil ...

Quote:
"ChatterBlocker includes bell sound loops that can be used as periodic reminders to breathe"

now, come on ... people buying this may be stupid. But reminding them to breathe ?

Re:pure snakeoil

[Anonymous Coward]

Bell sounds are used in buddism as a way to bring your mind back to the "real world", take a few breaths and focus on them.

Re:pure snakeoil

[kfg]

Good doggy. Have a Scooby snack.

KFG

Re:pure snakeoil

[suv4x4]

ChatterBlocker includes bell sound loops that can be used as periodic reminders to breathe

Pretty cool right? In version 2.0 upcoming:

- reminder to eat
- reminder to drink
- reminder to pee
- reminder to blink ...

the possibilies are endless

Re:pure snakeoil

[LordEd]

- reminder to pee

Don't forget the reminder to relocate yourself to the bathroom.

Re:pure snakeoil

[Anonymous Coward]

> Pretty cool right? In version 2.0 upcoming:
[snip]
> - reminder to blink ...

Sometimes when I'm in deep hack I forget to blink. To prevent my eyes from drying and shriveling up I added this to my xsession:

( while true ; do xmessage -timeout 3 -center " blink "; sleep 600; done ) &

The timeout means it distracts you, as well as removing itself. As a bonus, focus is restored to your app after 3 seconds.

When I see that message, I just blink for a bit, and think about getting my nipples pierced or similar eyewatering thoughts.

Yeah, it sounds stupid, but it works well for me.

Re:pure snakeoil

[noidentity]

I am SO GLAD I read your post just now. I was forgetting to breathe! Thank you, Slashdot.

Re:pure snakeoil

[Anonymous Coward]

They're referring to conscious, deep breathing. It's measurably relaxing and apparently good for you. Bells are a commonly used reminder for that.

Re:pure snakeoil

[PurifyYourMind]

Well, some people (like me) often have so much muscle tension that you end up taking shallow breaths. If you can remind yourself to breath deeply once in awhile, it helps. But, yeah, it is a silly product.

From the site:

[Man of E]

ChatterBlocker masks unwanted chatter using a soothing blend of nature sounds, music and "anti-chatter" voices. It also offers mindfulness meditation tracks intended to increase concentration, reduce distractibility and minimize the stress response to office noise.

Right, I want to block out chattering voices with anti-chatter-voices! Brilliant!

Re:From the site:

[raduf]

Except it works :) Won't buy it, I work from home, but it looks like it works well enough. I think it's because distraction in noise comes mostly from our brain trying to understand what's beeing said/what the sound is. Once the chatter covers all inteligible speech, the brain just registers that people are speaking and doesn't try to understant what.

Re:From the site:

[ectal]

Do you have any idea what kind of energy is released when chatter voices come into contact with anti-chatter voices?

Re:From the site:

[EZLeeAmused]

Being slightly attention deficit, I can tell you that this does work. If I have a background of unintelligible noise, or even something relatively constant like music, I can concentrate. But if there is no constant background and I can occasionally pick up a piece of conversation, I get distracted as my mind tries to focus on that conversation, even if it is none of my business and/or not of any interest to me.

Music has a few drawbacks like when a really good tune comes on. White noise or "environmental soundscape" are good for covering occasional minor sounds in a quiet area, but this is probably better because it specifically obfuscates the distracting conversations.

You are most likely correct in stating that for those people who perform better in mostly quiet conditions, this would only detract from the silence between conversations.

Re:From the site:

[davidsyes]

I want to block out my co-workers by using a soothing, rich, acoustmatic blend of Buddhist chants, tuvan throat singing, Aborigine chants, and the sound of Scotty's engines under heavy strain... (Stream in some Dorje Ling, Varuna Ghat, and "Three Variations on Plum Blossom"...)

Maybe that could be a new KDE start-up sound? Quick, KDE! Get it before it shows up in vista!

http://www.google.com/search?q=tuvan+throat+singin g&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=tuvan+throat+signing+origin&btnG=Search

Re:From the site:

[h00pla]

... the sound of Scotty's engines under heavy strain

A sound blocking technique that I use - in all seriousness - is some of the sound effects from Star Trek TOS. I ripped a few of them to ogg (I find the shuttle craft sound the most effective) and then run:

'mplayer -loop 0 Shuttle_Craft.ogg'

Actually, sometimes I distract myself adding the voices of Commodore Mendez and Captain Kirk debating Spock's fate

Re:From the site:

[Achromatic1978]

It's not perfect - far from it, but yes, it does have a significant impact. Pleasant enough, non intrusive.

Am I going to buy it? Hrm. Doubtful.

Re:From the site:

[davidsyes]

Egg-zeh-lent...

"And, now in a display of brute strength, the creature will throw himself against the transparency..."

(Come to think of it, the sound of Pike hitting the transparency might make a good b/g sound. Possibly Daystrom's M-5 in Engineering... But, when your co-workers and boss grapple over process or code or whatever, you should whip out the Kirk-vs-someone fighting match track:

duh-tuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duuuh --duuuh-duuuh-duuuh-duuuh
duh-tuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duuuh --deewh-deewh-doooh-doooh

An old co-worker of mine at Lockheed years ago whistled this when his colleagues and their boss argued in the shipping-receiving area. Only he and I knew what the whistling tune matched, so it was a great inside joke.

Re:From the site:

[j4yx0r]

If only someone could find a way to harness the energy produced by the chatter/anti-chatter reaction... there's the solution to the renewable energy problem!

Something else

[VincenzoRomano]

Personally I just crank the tunes. Anyone know if this actually works or if it's a scam? Or is it just a white noise generator?

Or maybe it's simply employer stupidity?
People use to talk each other as an expession of being human for social relationshinps and for knowledge transfers.
But those employers could be more interested in bodies rather than in minds.
In this latter case, the software is very useful.

Re:Something else

[Old Man Kensey]

People use to talk each other as an expession of being human for social relationshinps and for knowledge transfers. But those employers could be more interested in bodies rather than in minds.

Who said anything about employers? As an employee I'm interested in anything that cuts the noise level in my environment. Two days out of the week I'm in an office where the permanently-installed cube desk is right next to the server rack and the aircon unit, and since I'm IT support during class hours I'm supposed to keep the top half of my Dutch door open for people to stick their head in if they need help. Practically all the foot traffic in the hallway goes past my office since I'm between the two labs and near the elevators.

What I need is something that will block out all the external noise, and some sort of alert bell device people can press that will give me a visual alert (they make doorbells like this for deaf people, but I want something wireless if I can get it so I don't have to string wire around).

Since I'm the only IT employee based at this site, most knowledge transfer with my co-workers and management is conducted via e-mail, IM, the occasional phone call and the rare face-to-face meeting. Being able to selectively hear things would be an incredible boon for me.

That said, others have already noted the Slashvertised product in question looks pretty bogus.

Try the Demo!

[Simon (S2)]

Personally I just crank the tunes. Anyone know if this actually works or if it's a scam? Or is it just a white noise generator?

Why did'nt you try the demo? I did, and this stupid program does nothing more than generate sound. This way you have even more noise around you.

Really, worst article ever.

Re:Try the Demo!

[funkdancer]

How did this get modded insightful? I'm playing it on my Sennheiser PXC300s, I find the soundsets soothing to listen to as well as having the effect of completely masking out any sound in the office.

Now, once I've finished posting this I'll return to my work and will be able to concentrate fully on it until I decide to do another slashdot refresh. ;)

Speech Recognition

[Doc Ruby]

Finally, speech recognition comes of age. This artificial intelligence recognizes 99.9% of incoming speech, and generates appropriate responses.

Re:Speech Recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately this AI will quickly learn that screaming "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" out of the speakers works wonders.

But then how will I hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Milton's radio?

Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[MSTCrow5429]

Personally I just crank the tunes.

Good job, you boorish oaf. Now you've contributed to the problem, and your co-workers probably hate you. Or you're using headphones, and going deaf.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[smkndrkn]

My co-workers really hate me...I listen to either death metal or Chronix Radio. I've had people close my office door and/or turn my music down while I was away at the bathroom. But since I can't stand most of them...I really don't care.

It sure beats listening to the other members of my department talk about stupid shit while I'm trying to code or write documentation. Plus I think lighting those stinky candles and the smell of one of my co-workers who doesn't bathe is far more egregious than my music.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[wkitchen]

Simple and inexpensive solution:
Get a set of old-fashioned, fully enclosed, around-the-ear headphones. It blocks a lot of the outside noise, so you don't have to crank it as loud. And it keeps most of your own noise from escaping.

It used to be that anything short of the the hundred dollar + ones sounded awful. But there are now a few inexpensive ones that sound remarkably good.

You might be thinking, "Why not use a more modern and lighter weight noise cancelling headphone?". Two reasons: 1) more expensive, and 2) only blocks noise one way. Still a good solution, just 2nd best unless you need the lighter weight for portable use like riding your bike or the train to work. But for sitting at your desk, a well-chosen enclosed headphone is unbeatable.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[suv4x4]

Good job, you boorish oaf. Now you've contributed to the problem, and your co-workers probably hate you. Or you're using headphones, and going deaf.

If you can get away with cranking up tunes on anything by headphones at your job, the rest of us can't. So your assumption is incorrect.

And how is going deaf contributing to the problem? I'd say it solves the problem pretty well, not to mention he didn't say he puts it so high as to go deaf... but anyway

if you wanna rant you can always find what to rant for.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[n3k5]

Now you've contributed to the problem, and your co-workers probably hate you. Or you're using headphones, and going deaf.

Or maybe he uses earphones at a sensible volume setting, thus neither disturbing anyone, nor going deaf? You just assumed he's an idiot, then you scold him for being an idiot, then you get modded insightful. Congratulations, you can now collect your merit badge for sphisticated trolling.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you're using headphones, and going deaf.

Well going deaf is another solution to the problem.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy some headphones, dickweed.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[Tim C]

You just assumed he's an idiot

Well, it is CmdrTaco...

(I am so going to slashdot hell for that)

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[Echnin]

I sure hope people aren't wearing noise-cancelling headphones while riding their bikes to work! *That* sounds dangerous.

Re:Uber-Parent Is Part of the Problem

[n3k5]

Whoops, I had failed to realize that the quote was taken from the article, not another poster. Thanks for the correction :-)

Can you hear what my mouth is saying?

[rjamestaylor]

I just keep a bowl of crunchy cereal at my desk AT ALL TIMES.

Re:Can you hear what my mouth is saying?

[Toba82]

Good plan. It seems to be a recipe for success.

Another useful feature

[zero-one]

From the web site: "ChatterBlocker includes bell sound loops that can be used as periodic reminders to breathe"!

My Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously Speaking,

Noise cancelling headphones don't really seem to screen out voices... they seem to screen out low frequency noise like airplane engines (I have them).

So what I do, is put earplugs in my ears, put the noise cancelling headphones on, THEN crank up the tunes. This way I can turn the volume up high enough to drown out the office noise without damaging my hearing.

Re:My Solution

[fbjon]

You might want to try a pair of good in-ear plugs, like Etymotic.

Re:My Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with parent - I have the ER4s - I LOVE THEM - perfect for this type of thing

Hardware version

[ConversantShogun]

My computer came with a hardware version. It sits near the back and blows air out a vent to create speech-canceling noise.

Taco Taco Taco

[gEvil (beta)]

If anyone has ever wondered if Taco and the other editors even bother clicking on the links in the summaries, here's your answer: "Anyone know if this actually works or if it's a scam? Or is it just a white noise generator?"

Anyone who's taken even 15 seconds to look into this will instantly know the answer.

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[ReallyEvilCanine]

If people here don't ever RTFAs, why should the editors bother? Obviously it's a slow Sunday.

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's taken even 15 seconds to look into this will instantly know the answer.

So what it it?

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[darkjohnson]

It's a sound loop player. "lets you block distracting conversation and noise by simultaneously playing multiple voices, music, and sound effects files."

What it's missing is a "We're experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by" loop. It seems harmless and the demo is fun to goof with.

Another good loop would be John Lennon saying "Number 9"

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[gEvil (beta)]

Feel free to add whatever sounds you want. The thing is simply a basic ogg player/mixer. You can access/add more ogg files in the application directory.

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[Dunbal]

If people here don't ever RTFAs, why should the editors bother?

      Not reading the article is a public service here. Can you imagine how devastating the slashdot effect would be if EVERYONE read the articles???

Re:Taco Taco Taco

[Rogerborg]

Calm down, dear. I'm sure that Taco got a decent kickback from the shill that submitted this, as will whichever editor posts a dupe of it in about six hours.

Article?

[rbochan]

No.
hmmm... only item on 'news' page: "10/20/06 ChatterBlocker 1.0 was finally released!"
Slashvert?
Yes.

Fwap sound blocker?

[Anonymous Coward]

The basement walls are thin, I'm scared my mom can hear it.

But does it....

[WoLpH]

run on linux?

easier solution to keep people away from your cube

[Anonymous Coward]

stop bathing

Free advertizing?

[mh101]

I don't suppose this 'Anonymous Reader' who submitted this is an employee of the ChatterBlocker company looking or free ad space on Slashdot...?

Re:Free advertizing?

[heroofhyr]

I don't suppose this 'Anonymous Reader' who submitted this is an employee of the ChatterBlocker company looking or free ad space on Slashdot...?

Normally when one wants to promote their shite product by pretending to be someone interested in it, they don't end their fake query by asking readers whether or not it's a shite product. That tends to poison the marketing well. By the way, this program isn't as much of a scam as some have said. It's 100% effective at blocking out unwanted conversations around your workplace, but in order to make it work you have to turn the speakers up all the way until the soothing nature sounds are so deafening that the people around you get pissed and talk somewhere else.

Re:Free advertizing?

[mh101]

Actually, it was Cmdr Taco who posted the "Personally I just crank the tunes. Anyone know if this actually works or if it's a scam? Or is it just a white noise generator?" part. Usually only the block-quoted chunk is what the submitter entered.

Re:Free advertizing?

[heroofhyr]

It's kind of sad that I've been reading news stories here since 1999 and only just found this out :/

I call bullshit.Slashdot article -very- misleading

[Bananatree3]

The article describes this software in all respects to be a Noise-canceling program, which it is most definitely not. I downloaded Chatter Blocker demo, and was greeted with this window. This program may be for some people, but the article labels it as a completely different animal. And yes, it is a white noise (and other noise) generator

Just read the "background papers"...

[T.Louis]

... and honestly I would predict that it is just easier getting a good set of Koss headphones and some classical or random music that is instrumental.

Studies have show (I don't have a link atm) that classical music even raises your productivite, that means more World of Warcraft time for me!

screenshot for all those who don't download demo

[Bananatree3]

Screenshot of window here. You'll see it simply generates "soothing sounds" to wash over office chatter. Basically, the only way to get rid of chatter with this is by cranking up the speakers and letting rip the sound of waterfall.

Not a scam, but....

[3seas]

...when I'm irratated at work, even silence can be distracting.

And there are those who have just the right irratating, cutting thru anything (even head phones blasting) voice sound, change in volume, starts to say something five different ways before they stumble it out, etc..that you just have to know ain't nobody going to custom create sounds to drown these unique voices out.

But this is not a scam as I'm sure it is capable of smoothing over common chatter. I think what helps me to believe this is that I saw some short clip on TV about movie sound effects. Ever notice that background murmer of people talking in a scene where there are lots of people but you really only hear the actors in focus? This is only one example, but there is at least one company that does nothing but deal with teh talent that is hired for these background effects.

My reasoning is that if you can create such chatter that is not so distracting, you probably have a good idea as to what is distracting and that should make for a good start at address the problem,

Now if you check out the site, you'll see they are far from being new to the sound industry.

It may not work as well as you like against those uniquly distracting voices but for alot of offices it probably would help.

As to mind focusing sounds, this is also been researched. I myself sometimes listed to Yani to help life my mental state and I read something where during the playing of some mathmatically/logically correct classical piece (bach or batoveen sp?) it is difficult to lie.

I suppose the trick is to take the distracting noice and add such pleasing noise to the mmix that blends the distraction into the acceptable.

I've noticed some music works better than other at drowning out specific office noise.

Someone saw me with head phones on and ask: Rocking Out? I said: No! Drowning out....

Re:Not a scam, but....

[Orp]

...when I'm irratated at work, even silence can be distracting.

But it's never truly silent, is it? In my office right now it's three things: Outdoor construction noises, the ventilation system, and my AMD machine plus G5 mac. As far as what bothers me the most: I have sent back hard drives that put out a high pitched whine (10K RPM ones seem to be the worst) even though they were not defective. With those drives I can slowly feel my high frequency hearing melting away. I've gravitated towards the Seagate Barracudas, which are quiet, and quiet power supplies and CPU coolers. The G5 roars like a tornado when it needs to cool off but it's only occasionally, which does not bother me.

The worst for me is the ventilation system. A low level, low frequency rumble that never stops. I only really notice it when the rumble causes the false ceiling, cat5e cabling and whatever other random junk is up there to vibrate and give off high frequency tick-tick-tick type noises. I have been known to bring a chair out in the hallway and bash on the ceiling structure until the ticking noise goes away - it bothers me that much.

Music only works when I'm in the mood for it, and I usually can't concentrate on my work if there are vocals, so it's usually minimalist classical at low levels when I want music and work to happen at the same time.

what a joke!

[Dralithi]

"soothing nature sounds" I think not...

Re: EarPhones

[TaoPhoenix]

I second this approach. *Under the correct conditions*, I use an inexpensive pair of *very large* phones, and play the music.

The problem is, "the distracting noise" consists of your Boss telling you to do stuff completely different from the "high priority" he gave you an hour ago.

Crank the tunes: no good

[slim]

With music playing, I can't concentrate fully on anything else (I wish I'd realised this *before* graduating from university!)

What I'd need to improve my concentration in a chattery environment, I guess is a constant background noise which is ignorable yet chatter blends into.

But then, since I choose not to work from home because the chatter is condusive to productivity, I don't need it.

Re:Crank the tunes: no good

[Cederic]

I'm the other way (so are many programmers I know).

If I'm programming then music helps me get into the flow by giving my ears something to listen to that requires no conscious brain activity. By providing a dominant sound the other office noises dissolve into background.

Once in the flow it doesn't matter what I'm listening to. I can go through an entire album and realise I haven't heard half the songs in the middle - even though I may have been typing away in time to them.

Strangely the nature of the music doesn't seem to matter. Rock, indie, classical, even Cyndi Lauper (don't ask).

Noise Cancelling headphones

[gukin]

For whatever reason, either inside my office or right outside is a favorite spot for "heated discussion". Whenever I need to concentrate, I put on my pair of these:

http://www.epinions.com/content_178219683460

set my music low and I can get some work done. Yeah, these aren't the fancy Bose $300 headphones but Wal Mart (used?) sells them for less than $30 and the DO work. They're light, (the noise cancelling stuff is mid-cord, not in the phones themselves), well padded, comfortable to wear for hours and if you're stuck in the server room, essential.

I've tried the JVC version of the same thing, with all the cancelling stuff in the phones themselves but they lacked padding and didn't seal as well. For around $30, they're hard to beat; oh yeah and they're a lot more effective than "Computer Cooling Fan" sounds.

Re:Try the Demo! Well, not drown out profits

[davidsyes]

BUt, this thing could be a security risk. Since it records bacground sounds, who's to say the streams aren't separated before being blended? The streams, even if blended, could be a few packets at a time "sent back home" to a place unknown. And, who knows who could be behind this. Simple entrepreneurs? "Petty scammers"?, or...

Employers would be better off buying desk-top waterfalls and soothing Asian or Indian meditative devices and write them off as ergonomics and workplace stress-reduction devices.

Perfect for anybody taking tech support calls...

[Frobnicator]

This is wonderful, never hear those complaining people again. Make sure the entire technical call center has these.

In the old days...

[rannala]

... we simply used walls for that.

Re:screenshot for all those who don't download dem

[Anonymous Coward]

WARNING: ImageShack == Zango

RTFA

[LordEd]

Does ChatterBlocker use noise cancellation?

        No. Noise cancellation would not be effective over speakers, and noise cancelling headphones have limited effectiveness in silencing voice.

        Good quality noise cancelling headphones are great for reducing low-frequency sounds, such as airplane engine rumble, but they are not as effective in the 2 to 8 kHz consonant range that conveys much of the speech intelligibility.

        How does ChatterBlocker work?

                ChatterBlocker masks unwanted office chatter using a soothing blend of nature sounds, music and anti-chatter voices.

                It also offers mindfulness meditation tracks intended to increase concentration, reduce distractibility and minimize the stress response to office noise.

So i guess the way it works is by making sounds that blend with other background noises, but aren't as annoying (in theory).

Developer's reply

[evickers]

ChatterBlocker uses nature sounds, music and background "anti-chatter" voices (or "walla") to mask the intelligibility of unwanted conversations. It does not use noise cancellation (which, as has been pointed out, would not work using speakers and has limited effectiveness at voice frequencies).

It's obvious from your feedback that we did not make this clear enough. We discuss this in detail on our FAQ page, in the "More Info" page and in our white papers, but we have now added additional clarification to our home page. I thought I was doing a good thing by taking off my engineering hat and putting on my marketing hat, focusing on the benefits not the technology, but obviously this has derailed the discussion toward the topic of noise cancellation.

Our testers felt the program was useful for masking unwanted conversations, and less distracting than listening to pop music. If you're interested, give the demo a try. We welcome your feedback.

Earl Vickers
The Sound Guy, Inc.
http://chatterblocker.com

Re:Developer's reply

[saridder]

I tried the demo at home just now. I used my TV as the 'office chatter' I wanted to block and then ran Chatter Blocker. I then browsed the web to try and read an article. I played with different volumes and I felt that the sounds were just as distracting as the TV and didn't make a difference. I just substituted one noise with another.

Re:Developer's reply

[turtledawn]

No, I'm pretty sure we all got it- the grumbling is at the editors and the off-precise-topic discussion of noise cancelling is just what Slashdotters _do_. :)

Re:Developer's reply

[raduf]

This is Slashdot, so don't take the criticism too seriously. Like I said above, I liked it. I work from home and mostly at night, but remembering the days of office space I wish I had this around. Especially when trying to cover a coworker's heavy metal headphones with my own soft music headphones... didn't work :)

Ribbit...ribbit....chirp....chirp...

[bdwoolman]

Splat!

Now, Where's that Stones CD?

Re:w00t

[Anonymous Coward]

+1, Awesome

Re:Earplugs and leet skillz!

[cloricus]

I'm interested in these results Larry suggested. My friends and I for the last year have been working on a skill, one that we wondered if it was possible while bored in a lecture one day, where as usual you filter all noise that is irrelevant (the venues in our cases include lecture theaters and filled refectories) and touch type on an assignment or other wise engaging task with the added difficulty of holding a detailed conversation on another topic with some one else. In the beginning it was rather impossible though surprisingly enough it is rather doable as we have found with only a little practice and then a lot of usage to get the words per minute ratio up.

Laptops allow you to be anywhere and we know we can filter noise and information a lot better than is currently done (and with less effort than at least I expected) plus the human brain is perfect for multitasking. I wonder if this sort of thing is indeed the future of at least geekdom, maybe of office space in general?

beowulf cluster. . .

[Krimsen]

"Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these. . ."

I always travel with earplugs

[bdwoolman]

Since my days working in Asia where noise is a constant I have always had earplugs. I like the good ones that printers use in the pressroom. They are great on trains and planes. The only bad thing is that sometimes you don't have them when you need them. Recently I just bought a big assortment of earplugs from http://www.earplugstore.com/ I seeded them into my carry-on and my shaving kit. Even gave some to my wife for her handbag. A lot cheaper to buy them in bulk. And as for those expensive kind they sell in airports? Well they did not work well for me. The soft compressable foam plugs work great. The assortment I bought has a variety of shapes and sizes that have different DB ratings.

I have never tried it but I think plugs under noise cancelling headphones (good ones) would be blissfully silent. However the plugs alone are great. They really reduce the irritation of a flight or a sleeper on a train. Never used them in an office.

As for this software? Looks dicey to my eyes. Just a mask. And if somebody was playing New Age frog songs in a cubicle next to mine I would probably have to epoxy their CD/ROM drive closed...or worse.

Re:w00t

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is off topic but do you guys know any good ways to waste mod points?

Scaling?

[x2A]

How well does it scale though? What if there are 20 in an office? Will it distract others in the office if they don't have it on their own speakers?

Hmm...

Re:Earplugs and leet skillz!

[vidarh]

Whenever someone interrupt me when writing e-mails, I'll often continue to write the e-mail while turning to answer their questions. I don't think I could keep it up for a lot of time - I can type the e-mail out while talking about something else, but I'm not good at actually focusing on both the content of the e-mail and a conversation at the same time.

For me at least it partially just began with getting to the stage where I can type fully without watching the screen or the keyboard as a side effect of usually having the TV on while programming. Once I got to that stage, getting to the stage where I could hold a conversation at the same wasn't that difficult. I usually find it harder to focus on what someone else is saying and typing at the same time if I don't look away from the screen.

It's not something I've put much effort into, and so my limit before I have to look back at the screen to check that I'm still on the right track is probably on the order of a paragraph or two.

I wrote most of this message while watching/paying attention to a movie, for example, but I had to occasionally glance back at the screen.

It's not something I do often, though - but it's a fun way of annoying people... The implication if you continue typing while talking to someone is that you're not paying attention, but if you actually look them in the eyes, and carry on a coherent conversation with them, they can't "get you" for it, and that seems to annoy and confuse people a lot more than if you actually don't look away from the screen and just grunt at them.

Unwanted information

[Dan East]

You know, this might actually help (at least to some degree). My wife and I went and saw Notting Hill (guess which one of us got to pick the movie that day) at the theater. I don't know why (we were the only ones in the whole theater) but they had subtitles turned on (English movie with English subtitles - obviously for hearing-impaired). For the next 90 minutes it took all my willpower to keep my eyes from shooting to the bottom of the screen and reading those blasted subtitles. It was really strange. My wife mentioned it too - she couldn't keep herself from reading them.

Speech is very much the same thing. If we can hear conversations, even just partial bits here and there, our brains will immediately work at translating the speech into thought.

So on one hand, I can understand how simply covering those frequencies with sounds that don't sound like speech could alleviate some distraction (assuming the sound it admits isn't blatantly annoying). During that movie if the subtitled text was replaced by white noise / static, I at least wouldn't have been trying to make sense of the extraneous information.

Dan East

Re:Unwanted information

[Anonymous Coward]

Displaying subtitles for the same language as the audio directly on the screen is a really bad idea. I know the theatres around here having a LED display up near the projection booth that shows the captions, but horizontally reflected so the hearing impaired can use a mirror to view the captions. I've never personally seen anybody watching the captions, but I'd assume that the theatre has some sort of mirror + mounting system available for those who ask.

Re:Unwanted information

[raduf]

I read some cognitive psyhology and it makes perfect sense. One, lower level thought processes are automatic. Lower it is, less "intentional". Understanding human speech is obviously pretty low.
Then there is this thing called lateral inhibition. The closer two tasks are, the easier it is to get into conflict. Watching TV and listening the sound of the TV in the same time is ok, listening to the sound and reading the subtitles is a bit harder, listening/watching two TVs or reading two texts impossible.
So when listening (on purpose or not) to a conversation, all tasks related to this are more or less impaired. I'd guess listening, reading and writing are most affected, but anything that has to do with words qualifies.

There is a catch to all this, and that's atention. If what you do is interesting or important enough, the distraction isn't big. But if you're bored and do just routine stuff... it counts.

Re:Unwanted information

[Cee]

I think it depends on how used you are watching movies with subtitles. In Sweden obviously all foreign movies are subtitled in Swedish. Nowadays I don't read the subtitles anymore (well, provided the movie is in English or another language I know).

simple

[Bizzeh]

if it is, what i think it is, all it needs to do is record the speach with a microphone, flip the waveform, and play that back through the speakers, which would cancel out the wave created by the speach its self. this would rely on very low latency soundcards, so it can process the audio in time to playback the canceling wave, so the person hears nothing, rather than some horrible screaching sounds

Glorified audio player?

[NIVRAM]

So /. points me to a $40 piece of software that is a glorified audio player? It doesn't generate white noise (or pseudo white noise), it doesn't cancel sound... it just plays audio tracks.

I hope at least somebody at /. is getting a kickback for advertising this product.

my tried and tested solution

[blurby blurb blurb]

iTunes and headphones

Software can't do anything at all on its own

[bigtrike]

It should be obvious that you need a computer to run the software. And not unreasonable to assume that you need both audio input and output devices.

Take a close look

[Noonian Soong]

Take a close look at the website and then have a good guess whether or not this might be useful. In my opinion, background music will do a much better job at relaxing you if you chose the right music.
While I was looking around at the website, I found another "wonderful" product, that finally made it clear to me what kind of products this company tries to sell. Look at their intellectual property page at <URL:http://www.sfxmachine.com/misc/ip.html> and find out about the ingenious "Purr Detector Cat Collar".

Re:Earplugs and leet skillz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, there's some dude at work that does the same thing. What an asshole. Why is it that some people want to "annoy and confuse" other people? You might think it's funny, but believe me, the people you work with don't like you and don't like working with you. You might think you're being clever or smart, but in reality you're just an annoying prick.

My solution ...

[vlad_petric]

"White noise", by Carl Friedrich Gauss. Best music ever!

Free version at this link

[badzilla]

http://www.nch.com.au/ams/index.html

it'd be nice if it were offered in mp3 format

[C4st13v4n14]

Then I could download it off a p2p file-sharing programme, put it on my iPod, and listen to it during boring neurology seminars or at the library whilst trying to study. Just blasting Slayer has a deleterious effect on my concentration. Not because of the volume level, but because I'm forced to play air guitar.

Breathing

[Anonymous Coward]

now, come on ... people buying this may be stupid. But reminding them to breathe ?

You might be surprised.

I practice martial arts (intentionally ambiguous to avoid comparisons or flamewars). During some exercises, especially solo forms and being thrown, people do tend to stop breathing. When concentrating really hard on something, the natural reaction for most people is to tense up, and that includes holding their breath. Of course, when you finish the art, you're totally out of breath, which doesn't help your form, and possibly a headache. The senseis often remind students to breath. It's something you practice and get better at.

Another example: have you ever been riding in a car when somebody *almost* got in a wreck? As soon as they're in the clear, what do they do? Start breathing again! Think about the consequences of being in a vehicle that, at the crucial moment, is controlled by somebody who has decided to give up breathing temporarily.

Now, I don't know if people do it when programming, but people do stop breathing, unconsciously, and that's not a good thing.

Re:Breathing

[Anonymous Coward]

Vehicular near-misses don't last more than a few seconds. Why does it matter if the driver holds his breath for a 5-count or not?

BTW, your ambiguous martial art sucks. Mine is better because it's (older | harder to learn | used by navy SEALs | more dangerous | illegal in 37 countries)!

Re:Breathing

[Anonymous Coward]

Vehicular near-misses don't last more than a few seconds. Why does it matter if the driver holds his breath for a 5-count or not?

Maybe not at all, but that doesn't say anything about my premise that people hold their breath sometimes without realizing it.

Are you agreeing that people do stop breathing without realizing it? It sounds like it!

Re:Breathing

[Cederic]

people do stop breathing, unconsciously

Sorry, I'm having a quiet giggle to that one.

A couple of better ideas

[I-Secure-Space]

Other solutions that actually work, but not exactly the issue?: If dealing with youths, and you are 'older', use a high frequency generating buzz(As we age, our ability to hear these higher frequencies diminishes). Numerous studies have found very effective. I beleive that cell hardware manufacturers are startuing to use these frequencies so they can tailor to the younger customers. And then there is the slice and dice method. This device, which I cant yet find link to, "encyrpts" your voice. Apparently it rebroadcasts what you say (e.g. in to the phone) with a slight delay. That basically makes what you are telling the person on the other end of the phone unintelligible to everyone nearby you. I would guess that unintelligible might become "white noise". I wonder if one were to mic' the poeple standing nearby and rebroadcast their conversation with a delay (e.g. via PC speaker) back towards them (call this "crypto-talk"), would they be unable to understand each other? That could be an incentive for them to move farther away (where the effect of the speakers would diminish). And it might not be too detectable - when they stop talking, the crypto-talk stops also. Any audio engineers want to postulate on this? I really need to find the link....

Standard audio I/O still not enough

[archeopterix]

It should be obvious that you need a computer to run the software. And not unreasonable to assume that you need both audio input and output devices. Yes, but not just any input/output devices. For noise cancelling to work, you need the microphone and the speakers in specific positions and they have to meet some rather strict bandwidth and phase requirements. Randomly picked mic and speakers just won't do.

Peopleware

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a book called Peopleware which everybody here should have read (go read it now).

In it, they describe a study in which people were given a problem to work on, and some did it in a quiet room, and some with music playing. Result: all performed about the same on coming up with a direct solution ... except those with music playing tended to miss the fact that the whole problem reduced to something trivial.

Music involves the creative portion of your brain -- the same creative portion that would be coming up with creative solutions to the problem you're working on. So companies hire creative people for their problem-solving ability, and then put them in noisy cube-farms so they have to wear headphones to concentrate, and that destroys the creativity that the company is paying for. Gun, foot.

I would be curious to see this experiment reproduced with ChatterBlocker.

Rip off

[Venik]

Just tried the demo version of ChatterBlocker. From reading the description on their site, I imagined this to be some sort of active sound cancellation software. It's not. No microphone is required. It just loops through pre-recorded sound samples. The effect is more annoying than any office chatter.

yes, it run in Linux OR ogg123

[goslackware]

If you install this through wine, make sure you install it to the correct directory, not %system_drive% path, but to c:\program files\
The program is really just a mixer with some ogg music files.
What I do instead is run
ogg123 -q -z ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/ChatterBlocker/ChatterBlocker_Content&

I'll run this each time for to add to the collection of concurrent sounds.

The Whispering Box Mystery

[ZorroXXX]

This reminds me of a Rick Brant book, The Whispering Box Mystery by John Blaine. It is probably 15-20 years since I read the book, but the plot is like the following:

Someone invents a device to emit a high frequency sound that paralyzes people (the balance organs are located in the ears) and uses this for robbery. Rick becomes involved and manages eventually to create another device that produces a counter sound to neutralize the paralyzing device.

Of course this is fiction (and interference was not accounted for at all in the book as far as I remember), but never the less it was an interesting concept.

Pink noise sucks

[RingDev]

Which makes me think that it is nothing more than "Pink noise". Basically white noise (random) with a filter on it that limits it to common frequencies in human speech.

We have this in our office on a PA system. It annoys the crap out of me. When the office is quite, it sounds like the HVAC is running. When there are people talking, I can still hear them, I just can't make out their words as clearly.

-Rick

Re:Pink noise sucks

[funkmasterbillis]

pink noise isn't filtered to speech frequencies, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise

Re:Pink noise sucks

[Your Pal Dave]

Yeah, they put a pink noise generator on our PA for a while, it mysteriously kept getting unplugged.

To me, these things are like people using a lot of perfume to cover up B.O. instad of bathing.

Re:Pink noise sucks

[RingDev]

Regardless, it sucks as a noise management solution.

-Rick

Glowing praise if I ever heard it

[Anonymous Coward]

less distracting than listening to pop music

Also, more comfortable than a sofa made from bricks and nails, shinier than a black hole, more accurate than a blind man at a dart board, and with fewer moving parts than a V8 with a 7-speed transmission!

Don't think so..

[Anachragnome]

As a location to advertise, Slashdot would probably be the WORST place to try and sell something this blatently useless. It did elicit a few giggles from me though, and thus, is indelibly etched in my consciousness, so it at the very least it raised some "product awareness".

Develop Selective hearing.

[fuego451]

That is what I did but it was just a knack I unconsciously developed over time to make up for a severe hearing loss. I learned to give all my attention to one voice or sound at a time. This does cause problems because people often think you are ignoring them or that you are just a jerk.

Now, a hearing aid in my left ear brings its 95% hearing loss to about 70% and I have a 60% loss in my right ear. I still rely on my selective hearing in bad acoustics or where there is ambient noise, though the chip in my hearing aid has modest noise canceling technology.

Shure E2C

[Alan426]

These are great headphones. I use them on the motorcycle, but I can also tell you they block out human voices *really* well. Whenever my riding partner says anything, I just smile and waive, because I can't hear a word. It takes a little fiddling to find the right combination of earbuds from the sizes and styles they supply -- but once you get a good fit, the results are worth it.

I just use my cone of silence

[mvidal01]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence

free alternative

[LeonardsLiver]

http://www.luketan.com/songs/audio/WhiteNoise.mp3

Can still hear the guy across the room

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at school studying hard(ly) for an exam tomorrow and there's a guy about 50 feet away whose occasional booming laughter this program is not masking at all. I'd still buy it in a heartbeat if it was $15 or 20, though. $40 is just waaaaay out of my price range. FWIW, my $5.00 CVS pharmacy ear plugs were working just as well.

BH

This is where it starts...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

First, we block out distracting speech

Then, we block out political speech

Then, we block out negative political speech

Finally, the government makes them mandatory

Lo and behold, no free speech.

The Silence of Interstellar Space

[thermocline]

For when I really need to concentrate:

          MAX(c) polyurethane foam earplugs (NRR 33)
      + Elvex UltraSonic HB-650 tactical hearing protectors (NRR 29)

http://earplugstore.stores.yahoo.net/holemaxuffop. html
http://www.elvex.com/tactical-hearing-protection-e armuffs.htm

No...

[LordEd]

I was running chatterblocker at the time.

Demo works fine on my Sennheiser PXC 300s

[funkdancer]

Then again most everyone else have just left the office so a bit hard to judge. It really does seem block out any office sound though, even when played at low volume.
This program combined with the PXC 300s might be overkill but I'm tempted to buy it nevertheless.
http://www.di.fm/ does also work very well with the 300s.

I too find that a noisy work environment is bad for my concentration as a programmer.
[Now, what am I doing here on /. ... ;) ]

Also blends nicely with classic

[funkdancer]

Also seems to combine very well with di's classic.fm channel; Haydn's #53 blends very well in. Shame the demo only allows for a total of one hours sampling.

Slashdot coupon code?

[funkdancer]

Any hope of a slashdot coupon code special to make it slightly more accessible?
I found it good but maybe a bit expensive. I'm quite tempted to buy it, this would make the decision making process a lot easier.
Thanks.

Re:Slashdot coupon code?

[evickers]

Actually, we've decided to make it more accessible to everyone by cutting the price in half. I hope this makes the decision-making easier.

I encourage people to read the friendly website and try the demo. We welcome all constructive comments and suggestions.

Re:w00t

[Anonymous Coward]

nigga waht

Strange I never see people with headphones at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange but I haven't seen anyone working in the industry wearing headphones in years. Maybe its because you won't hear the sharks coming until they are eating you alive? (watch out for that boxcutter) No seriously I think that anyone that couldn't carry on two conversations at once while three more are going on, with construction work and other distractions going on at the same time is already out of a job.

If you need longer than 60 minutes to try it out

[Anonymous Coward]

Open regedit and find \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\The Sound Guy

Delete the entire "The Sound Guy" group and reinstall Chatter Blocker

No go back into regedit and find \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\The Sound Guy\ChatterBlocker

Export the key Preferences

Whenever your time runs out, just run the exported key - you'll get your hour back

Typing while conversing

[Geoff0]

It doesn't work for all of us. I'm one of those unfortunate people for whom the fingers will stop doing their thing when I stop paying close attention. It made high speed typing very slow to learn, and very error prone, and never all that fast. It also made playing a musical instrument frustrating as hell, and ultimately a lost cause. I just don't have adequate "muscle memory". -- Geoff

Some people having auditory issues

[TrogL]

Specifically, central auditory processing deficits that prevent them from hearing more than one conversation at a time. Hearing the clutter from several competing, but incomprehensible conversations can be distracting.

Nobody fucking knows do they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone's got an opinion but they don't have anything useful to say. Fuckers.

Re:Earplugs and leet skillz!

[TechnoLust]

I wear my iPod in the office, often with Noise Cancelling headphones. I used to eat with a group of guys from work, and I was very good about focusing on the conversation and filtering background noises. However after 5 years of eating with the same set of married guys, the stories became repetative. Wife won't let me buy a new truck, she never cooks, not enough sex, she's gaining weight, kids are doing well/poorly in school. Boring! In addition to convincing me that I had made a mistake by getting engaged, it also taught me that I was able to eavesdrop on nearby conversations while still hearing the minor details that changed in the story du jour.

When I moved to ATL, I didn't know anyone except the girl I was living with, and I was contracting so I job hopped a lot. The first few months I ate lunch alone many times. When in a crowded restaurant, I would hear several conversations going on around me. I would listen to all of them simultaneously to see which was more interesting so I could focus in on that one. Then one day I realized that I was getting 90% of the conversations before I focused on one. So one day I tried to see how many I could "focus on" at once. I found out that 3 seems to be the magic number. I tried 4 but I missed a lot of detail and found myself getting confused. It could probably be done with practice, but 3 conversations is sufficient for entertaining me at lunch.

And yes, I can talk to someone and type emails or code, but I prefer to give my cow-orker my attention unless I don't want to talk to them. In those instances, I tell them I'm busy (Which I always am) and ask them to talk about this later. If they still continue talking, I continue working while listening.

Thankyou

[funkdancer]

That is an affordable price; I just purchased my copy. I do quite like the program and am looking forward to seeing how this can help my work.

Shameless Plug

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you want to bet that this was a plug for a paid product? Does anyone really care about a Windows paid product in Slashdot (at least publicly). Especially a lame one as this one. Was Slashdot paid for it or whether the editors were suckered into posting this may be debatable considering the low IQ of the editors.