God bless Danny Hillis, as he could become the savoir of those of us who dwell in Cubeland (or Paper-Thin Walls OfficeLand).
Hillis and his company, Applied Minds, have created Babble, a device that attaches to a phone and turns a person’s conversation into, well, babble. Or as The New York Times writes a “muffled cacophony to anyone within earshot.” Yeah, they would describe it as such.
Anyway, the device is a sound processor/speaker setup that scrambles and multiples the voices in its range. That means you don’t have to be subjected to Coworker A fighting with her mother or the prurient details of Coworker B’s hot date last night.
While the current telephone model will be available in June, one that applies the same technology to open office space is also in the works.
