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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?
I dunno. Sounds like it would have a chilling effect on free speech to me.
Nothing to hear here, move along.
This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earplugs ought to work just as well, if not better.
Cheaper too I'd suppose.
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.
This guy's the limit!
WOW. MINDBLOWING.
[insert witty comment here]
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.
This guy's the limit!
snakeoil ...
... people buying this may be stupid. But reminding them to breathe ?
Quote:
"ChatterBlocker includes bell sound loops that can be used as periodic reminders to breathe"
now, come on
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.
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
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.
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.
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.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I just keep a bowl of crunchy cereal at my desk AT ALL TIMES.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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.
My computer came with a hardware version. It sits near the back and blows air out a vent to create speech-canceling noise.
--When you buy proprietary software, you don't get better software. What you get is the right to complain about it.
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.
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.
This guy's the limit!
No.
hmmm... only item on 'news' page: "10/20/06 ChatterBlocker 1.0 was finally released!"
Slashvert?
Yes.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
That does sound simple I would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
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!
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.
I don't suppose this 'Anonymous Reader' who submitted this is an employee of the ChatterBlocker company looking or free ad space on Slashdot...?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Do you have any idea what kind of energy is released when chatter voices come into contact with anti-chatter voices?
http://nerdcartoons.com/
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.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
...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....
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.
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.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
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.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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.
... we simply used walls for that.
So i guess the way it works is by making sounds that blend with other background noises, but aren't as annoying (in theory).
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
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?
I ate your fish.
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.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
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.
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
Better known as 318230.
http://www.nch.com.au/ams/index.html
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
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....
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.
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.
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