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Technology Science

The Mind of an Inventor 135

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

The Mind of an Inventor

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  • "Babble" is about the size of a paperback book and plugs into the phone with two external speakers that you place on the top of your cube. While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice which makes your conversation practically unintelligible to people as close as 4 feet away.

    Ingenious. I would love to test one.
    • Just a minute.. If people four feet away can hear an unintellible conversation, surely the person on the other end of the phone will be hearing "random meaningless snipits of your own voice" too...
      • It may work if you put the device near one corner and you have your conversation at the other corner. However, you're thinking inside the box...or cubicle, in this case. This has numerous applications, from the mundane to the Mission Impossible.
        • Actually, if you're supposed to put the speakers on top of your cubicle you first need a top on your cubicle.

        • It may work if you put the device near one corner and you have your conversation at the other corner.

          Assume the loudness of the babble speaker is about the same as that of your voice. If the speaker is 3 feet from your head, and the phone microphone is 1 inch from your mouth, that's a ratio of 1/36. Now square that. You get .00077 -- that's how much quieter the babble will be. (Furthermore, phone mikes are usually set up so that ambient noise hits both sides of the diaphragm and gets cancelled out, but

    • Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Funny)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:15AM (#13703100)
      How about buying a few thousand and hiding them at strategic locations in the meeting places of the US Congress and other world parliaments? Of course it is always possible that nobody would notice since most of what comes out of those places is practically unintelligible anyway.....

    • Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Funny)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:33AM (#13703175) Homepage
      My cubicle neighbor's nonsense is annoying enough, and now this device will make me suffer his inate monologues full-time?

      How about a device that will play "sh!" everytime his voice is recognized (think Austin Powers 2).

    • Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Funny)

      by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .bob_eissua.> on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:45AM (#13703234) Journal
      While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice which makes your conversation practically unintelligible to people as close as 4 feet away.

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

      • Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Funny)

        by op12 ( 830015 )
        Yes, I believe this device could be a change catalyst which would allow us to re-engineer our business case and leverage best-practice synergies to proactively actualise our bottom-line.

        Sounds like ozmanjusri got a Babble plugin for Slashdot.
    • I would guess it's at least as useful as my Cone of Silence.

    • Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Informative)

      by Pyrowolf ( 877012 )
      Go here [nytimes.com] to see babble... go here [npr.org] to hear babble.
      • Heck, that sounds like the voices in my head. I'd claim prior art, but I'd probably be sued by my company for keeping my voices to myself. Stupid company, stupid voic... We'll show em!
    • I saw this tested after the CES show this year. It was the most obnoxious thing I've ever seen. I'm better off just playing lowlevel random junk on my PC! Then at least I can have some control of the white noise. :P

      Jho

  • What's wrong with a hand operated air raid siren? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Steven Reddie ( 237450 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:02AM (#13703031)
    It would also make calls unintelligible within 4 feet.

  • "I hear voices" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:02AM (#13703034)
    Meanwhile Johnson in the next cube has been interpreting the voices as instructions to bring an AK-47 to work and begin the Day of Reckoning.

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpectreBinary ( 913950 ) <spectrebinary@hotmail.com> on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:03AM (#13703036)
    So the two morons I am forced to sit next to at work who never get off the phone can broadcast MORE OF THEIR VOICE TO ME.

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

    • Re:Great (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Peldor ( 639336 )
      Yes, but with random words spouted by the new black box, you'll have a million-monkey-writes-Shakespeare chance of hearing something intelligent.

      Here's a nice project for someone: Play the POTUS's speeches into this thing and record what comes out.

  • Oh Excellent (Score:4, Funny)

    by colonslashslash ( 762464 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:04AM (#13703038) Homepage
    Now, not only do I get to hear my neighbouring co-workers babble incoherent and meaningless nonsense whilst I'm on the phone, but I get to hear my own voice doing the exact same thing!

    How is this a good invention?

  • route to postal (Score:2, Interesting)

    by welshwaterloo ( 740554 )
    "[..]place on the top of your cube[..] Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice."

    Oh great. Gimme 40 of those in an office & see how long before someone snaps...

    the voices! the voices!..!

    • Re:route to postal (Score:3, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 )
      Ooh, good call.

      Let's fill it up with subliminal hints.

      'Theyhateyou'. 'Fear'. 'Worry.' 'Unworthy'. 'Panic'. 'Cthulhu fh'tagn!' Just underlaid with ordinary conversation.

      See how long it is before management calls in an exorcist or a Feng Shui consultant to rid the building of whatever it is that's troubling the staff...

      • I once had a background program that did something like that... except that at random intervals, it would take over the keyboard and type messages. ^_^ Took my co-worker a while to figure out what was going wrong.
  • Wow, is this a privacy application or a tool to help me hear my own voice?

    If I plug this into my computer will it make my music downloads unintelligable to them? Terrific! This will also bring technobabble to a new high (low).
  • It would be really bad to start hearing yourself LCD Display with your spewing random comments out whilst your trying to speak.
    It could mean the difference Also, in 2020, everyone on between winning a contract or losing a customer.

    I really couldn't put up with it for long sci-fi show that was from the creator of Buffy before I smashed it up.

  • What good is this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aalnoi707 ( 880009 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:11AM (#13703075)
    Why Is this Useful. Where at work, its noisy enough as it Is, why add more to it. Plus when did Privicay become an Issue at the job. I can see this to twart coorproate espinoge but really. I have headaches enough at work listening to stupid people I dont need any more of It

    • Re:What good is this? (Score:3, Informative)

      by parkrrrr ( 30782 )
      I think I heard this guy interviewed on NPR's Day to Day a month or two ago. He contends that it works better than noise cancellation because the nonsense doesn't activate the speech-recognition parts of the brain in the same way that even a quiet conversation down the hall might. In some sense, your brain gives up on trying to interpret the babble and starts ignoring it, whereas a barely-audible conversation will just make some part of your brain work harder to attempt to pick out the signal from the noi
    • >>I can see this to twart coorproate espinoge

      A good point, and well made. Indeed, why do we need this device when we could just learn how to spell like yourself in order to twart all the espinoge?

      -Nano.

  • Inventor? Or Mad Scientist? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:12AM (#13703083) Journal
    This guy seems like more of a Mad Scientist [project-apollo.net] than an inventor to me.

  • Meaningless Snipits (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Goody ( 23843 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:12AM (#13703085) Journal
    What if the "meaningless snipits" just happen to have the words "fire", "bankruptcy", "layoffs", "harassment", "pregnant" or "terror" in them?

  • User testing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Peregr1n ( 904456 ) <ian.a.ferguson@gmail.com> on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:12AM (#13703088) Homepage
    I wonder how much user testing they have tried with this product. It sounds like the helpful MS Office paperclip, or automatic spell checking as you go along - great ideas in theory but intrinsically flawed in practice.

    Privacy or not, I cannot think of anything more irritating, to myself, colleagues and the person I'm talking to on the phone, than meaningless drivel coming out of my speakers in my voice.

    I can hear it now:
    Me: Can you confirm that order please?
    Stationers: Two printer cartridges, twelve reams of paper, and one partridge in a pear tree.
  • Ever try to talk to someone who has their cellphone speaker turned up too loud, causing you to hear your own voice every now and then? It makes it really hard to get a decent stream of words out.

  • ... and we're hiring (Score:5, Informative)

    by yppiz ( 574466 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:19AM (#13703118) Homepage
    If you are in the SF area and very well versed in Java, C, or AJAX-like techniques, and looking to work on really interesting problems, let me know. Bonus points if you're a hacker (in the traditional sense).

    --Pat

  • How about... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spencer Mabrito ( 890642 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:30AM (#13703165)
    ...reading the linked article? It is full of descriptions of amazing things, and indeed does say that Hillis is quite childlike - his inventions are almost toys, very expensive and shiny toys. It's not just Babble.

  • Mind of Mentifex (Score:1, Informative)

    by Mentifex ( 187202 )

    Danny Hillis [wikipedia.org] was once a big name in artificial intelligence.

    His Connection Machine [wikipedia.org] was an awesome, state-of-the art supercomputer.

    Stumbling upon [stumbleupon.com] artificial intelligence was supposed to happen Real Soon Now with Danny's thinking machines.

    Thinking Machines [wikipedia.org] was the name Danny gave to his ambitious enterprise.

    True Artificial Intelligence [sourceforge.net] proved far too hard for Danny Hillis and now he has gone on to less difficult challenges.

    Slashdot readers [slashdot.org] expect more from the Mind of an Inventor.

    • Re:Mind of Mentifex (Score:3, Informative)

      by Flamefly ( 816285 )
      Ignore the links to "True Artificial Intelligence" and "Stumbling upon" which link to Mentifex's web site.
      He is a troll of the AI community. Before you assign him informative mod points for links to his own useless work, please read the following page http://www.nothingisreal.com/mentifex_faq.html [nothingisreal.com]

  • Active noise cancellation anyone?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Plammox ( 717738 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:35AM (#13703183)
    Instead of contributing to the overall noise level, why not research an effective noise cancellation solution? I realize that they're not completely effective, but they ought to be able to muffle the noise somewhat to the point that your noise blends in with the background noise of a thousands mouse clicks and Windows ding sounds.

    • Re:Active noise cancellation anyone?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Znork ( 31774 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @10:13AM (#13704243)
      Actually, there are _very_ effective noise cancellation solutions.

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

      However, they're probably not 'hip' enough for todays corporate interior designers, and they may not be patentable, which makes this solution a more desireable one for the interested parties.
      • It is amazing that businesses cannot figure out that cubicles are a complete and utter failure. Whats worse is that companies then decide to put employees who do not have the mental capability to think if there is any noise in the room in this environment. This leads to the mentally deficent to consistantly complain because the guy in the cube next to them is having a conversation.

        Walls, solve this problem. Those with problems thinking can have their quite, and those that do not can have their noise.

      • However, they're probably not 'hip' enough for todays corporate interior designers

        I think the problem is they're a bit too 'permanent' for today's corporate building managers.

    • I have one better. VNC to a coworker's machine, and start a Rap/Hip Hop/Death Metal play list on his/her workstation with the volume cranked all the way up. Pick a different victim for each phone call, and people will too busy playing "whack-a-mole" with whatever is blasting the din to listen in on your conversation.
    • Dumbass, noise cancellation doesn't work throughout space, it's strictly localized. That's why you have noise cancelling headphones, but no noise cancelling speaker systems (at least not ones that are not restricted to specific 'sweet spots').
      Noise cancelling can only be throughout space if both the speaker and noise source had the same location -- clearly a ludicrous setup. Otherwise, what you get is both areas of cancellation and areas of reinforcement. Try this: draw two sound sources with equidistan

  • Bahhh (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can do this already after a fifth of gin

    =)

  • Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 3D-nut ( 687652 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @07:44AM (#13703226)
    In Kissinger's memoirs, White House Years, he describes how he and others, probably Nixon included, while in Moscow for a summit meeting, brought along a device I believe he called "the babbler", which was a tape player that played the sounds of many people speaking or maybe splices of babble. Then they could converse in their presumably bugged living quarters while playing the babbler. Kissinger wrote that it became intolerable after a while, it was so distracting.

    • It wouldn't have worked. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Russians had so may bugging devices in the US embassy they could have used the difference in mike locations to filter by position of sound source.
    • Kissinger wrote that it became intolerable after a while, it was so distracting.

      So it was Kissenger who blanked out those tapes!

  • most of my conversations with people might as well be in jibberish..

  • Increase privacy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cyn ( 50070 ) <{cyn} {at} {cyn.org}> on Monday October 03, 2005 @08:06AM (#13703329) Homepage
    No - increase headaches.

    I thought it was going to be a cone of silence like device, where it could cut down on outside distractions - maybe some white noise generation. A cone of silence type device.

    Nope, it's a damned chatterbox. I can't imagine anyone who would want to hear random snippets of themselves while talking on the phone, talk about totally breaking your train of thought.

    If you need privacy while speaking in your cubicle, you can just as easily leave your cubicle and use either a cellphone or another phone to have that privacy. If you're really talking about company secrets at work and your coworkers *shouldn't* be overhearing, go petition to your boss to get a real office, because you shouldn't have to be the one to find some crazy solution to what should be a nonissue. If it's personal, then pop out to break and actually deal with it, instead of muffled tones that waste more time than you need to spend, and distract everyone else around you whether they want to listen in or not.
  • I'd have to see how it works in real-life to really judge, but I'm not sure how well it'd really work.

    I know every time I hear myself with a delay while I talk (a friend's cell phone has time-delay feedback, bad speaker/mic config on teamspeak), I have a hard time talking. Hearing my own voice while I try to talk is ~confusing~, and results in me having to concentrate to say what I need to say.

    ~D
  • In the Bin cave or 6 star resort. Meeting the CIA or just chatting about the next "marriage" or "game". The perfect gift for any man on a mission.
  • Of course, planting one of these in The Oval Office would produce perfectly intelligable speechy for someone standing outside. We live in hope.
  • Does anyone else think it'd be fun to hide this in the conference room hooked up to the speakerphone?
  • I'd like something that converts the unintelligible babble of my coworkers into something coherent. Productivity would skyrocket!

  • And it's not distracting to the user? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @08:52AM (#13703649) Homepage
    The article says:

    "As promised, when the speakers play a scrambled version of your voice, your real conversation can't be understood by someone standing even four feet away. (In tests by NEWSWEEK, no one wanted to stand four feet away, because the chatter from those boxes was anything but soothing.)"

    What the article doesn't say is how the chatter from those boxes affects the person talking on the phone. I'm prepared to believe that it doesn't irritate the user him-or-herself, but I'm from Missouri, you've got to show me.

    Or at least show me some convincing testimony from Newsweek reporters!
  • Security; Badges are required at all times and without the warm Semi-privacy of a Cubicle and the wise but stern support of a middle manager, geeks cannot invent anything worthwhile.

    Company Cafeteria food; while bland is meets your nutritional needs, It's a single cell protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs. Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?

    Mandated clothng choices; Pressed white shirt and simple black tie.
  • One day, I was talking to a friend on the phone and said the F-word. Later that day I was talking to my mother and said the word "Nuns".

    During a private conversation, the speakers above my cubicle spouted out "F**K NUNS"...

    My privacy has never been more complete!

  • Useless to me since I'm deaf (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lemkebeth ( 568887 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @09:18AM (#13703817)
    :shrugs:

    Useless to me since I'm deaf and use a TTY anyway. A TTY is a text based telecommunications device that works over a phone line. You can buy software TTY's though they aren't as good as the hardware.

    Kind of hard to overhear a TTY since it isn't verbal. :grins: One of the few advantages of being deaf, that and not hearing some of what you don't want to.
  • ...That's a real nice website they've got there. Yes sir, real nice.
  • While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice which makes your conversation practically unintelligible to people as close as 4 feet away.


    Finally! A way to do away with Rosie O'Donnel and Barbara Streisand! Send 'em some of these, free.
  • Cubes are mostly echo proof as it is. There's no need for an eletronic device to mask the contents of your personal calls.

    Instead, why not raise the height of the standard 5'6" cube walls with 7 or 8 foot. Then put a roof and door on it. Voila - problem solved.

    I suspect the reason we don't do this is because a 7x7x7 cubicle would be a bit too much like a cocoon. As a cubicle dweller I'd say you don't have to provide me with anything but overhead bins. Then I'll sling my hamock in and enjoy my day.
  • This is going to revolutionize politics!
  • Increasing the noise level in the average office workspace will only decrease the productivity. For details, see Peopleware by DeMarco & Lister ISBN 0-932633-43-9.

    Here's an even better idea, office with a door!
  • ... that this company wants inventors who are willing to relocate. If nothing else, innovation requires comfort. It's too bad such a company can't be innovative about telecommuting. ;-)
    • From the article:

      Nonetheless, he insists that "people tend to overestimate the individual inventor and underestimate the system that makes their inventions real."

      So, if the system is important, they either have to bring the system to the telecommuter, or bring the employee to the system.

      I find that a lot of my more create solutions aren't something that I come up with in a vaccuum, but come from talking to other people. (and it may just be that something that I say to them, explaining the nature of the pro

  • In addition to describing interesting "Babble" devices the linked article from the posting talks about another interesting device that allows the user to change satellite views on a table-top by putting your hands on the table and spreading them, you zoom into a region, a city, a neighborhood. You can also slide your hand over the table to expose the view as captured at an earlier time. Even more interesting is that the surface of the table rises to create a model of the actual terrain.

    As a sophomore in
  • While holding a normal conversation on the phone Babble plays back random meaningless snipits of your own voice
    I just do this manually. No external device needed. Makes for entertaining phone calls too.
  • Watch *shit* those words that *asshole* you record onto that *Microsoft* machine.
  • I'm curious - how do these boxes decide to become active? Do they require to be activated manually or do they detect human speech automatically? If so, it would be be fun to fill a room full of these devices and just let them run wild.
  • Just hook it up while someone is gone or not paying attention and disguise it in a plant or something like that. Imagine their surprise when the plan starts "Babbling" back to them. LOL! I work in a rather stuffy office, this is just what someone would need to liven things up a bit!
    • Just hook it up while someone is gone or not paying attention and disguise it in a plant or something like that. Imagine their surprise when the plan starts "Babbling" back to them.

      I don't know why Mel dove out the window. He had just gotten back from medical leave for a nervous breakdown, and was taking a call...

  • This could also help in finding and diagnosing early schyzophrenia in people! or making them believe they are!

    Add a voice modulator and a reverse voice setup and you may make them believe they are possessed.

  • For starters, the speakers should send out a audio cancellation on the user's voice, and put the "babble" out in a low, quiet volume level. "Babble" parts should probably be soft sounds, so that to an obvserver, it sounds like a low murmur of activity.

    The feedback of voice from a cube is nice, because it alerts others not to disturb a phone conversation. Keeping it low, combined with the audio cancellation, should provide ample protection against eavesdroppers, without disturbing the surrounding cubicles.

    If
  • I remember reading about a product that does the same, except that it produced a white noise that made eavesdropping difficult. Sounds like the same goal and result...without the mindless chatter. Martin Tibbitts
  • And what company in their right mind is going to allow this? It's a cute technical solution that inserts even more noise into the workspace. Like many cute technical solutions, were these people even thinking of what the real world impact would be? Or do they just have the tunnel vision of, Hey, it works and solves the immediate problem. What more is required?
  • ...are presented
    • here [reactivesoundsystem.com];
    • here [aylogence.com].

    (I worked on the audio masking algorithms for prototypes of this system. It's pretty much all written in Max/MSP [cycling74.com]. Here's a shot of the prototype rigs [cassiel.com].)

  • Does this mean the amount of noise in the office could double?
  • There is a great program called SoundTimer [sparkleware.com] that plays random keystrokes and mouse clicks out of your PC speakers. Makes it sound like you're working really hard :D
  • Sometimes I wonder if /. uses this "random meaningless snippet generator" already.

    Here's the quote at the bottom of my /. window right now:
    Barbie says, Take quaaludes in gin and go to a disco right away! But Ken says, WOO-WOO!! No credit at "Mr. Liquor"!!

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