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Community => Science and Technology => Topic started by: CaseAgainstFaith on March 01, 2012, 09:41:11 am

Title: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: CaseAgainstFaith on March 01, 2012, 09:41:11 am
The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas and public libraries.

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission.

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a  speaker that does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun.

In tests, Kurihara and Tsukada say their speech jamming gun works well: "The system can disturb remote people's speech without any physical discomfort." 

Their tests also identify some curious phenomena. They say the gun is more effective when the delay varies in time and more effective against speech that involves reading aloud than against spontaneous monologue. Sadly, they report that it has no effect on meaningless sound sequences such as "aaaaarghhh".
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27620/ (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27620/)

Why does it seem like Japan is always first building these interesting new toys?  I want one!
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: Cerim Treascair on March 01, 2012, 12:05:32 pm
I can attest to this WORKING.  My raid leader in WoW and I were on a podcast that had a half-second delay.  It completely fucked us up for the entire segment.
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: ThunderWulf on March 01, 2012, 12:10:08 pm
I can think of a few people to use this on already.
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: Yla on March 01, 2012, 12:15:50 pm
I can think of a few people to use this on already.
It's only cool as long as the others aren't doing it.
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: Art Vandelay on March 01, 2012, 09:20:07 pm
I wonder if it would be possible to sneak one of these things into Parliament...
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: RavynousHunter on March 02, 2012, 07:04:18 pm
An anti-filibuster tool?  Leave it to Japan to fix that irritating shit.  Thank you, Japan.
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: StallChaser on March 04, 2012, 09:11:41 am
The idea has been around for a while.  If an alleged spy claimed to be deaf, the intelligence agency would use this to tell if they were lying.  The person's own voice would be fed back into headphones, and deaf people are the only ones unaffected.  The idea of making it into a STFU gun is brilliant. :)

I can attest to this WORKING.  My raid leader in WoW and I were on a podcast that had a half-second delay.  It completely fucked us up for the entire segment.

The first thing I thought of when I read about this device was Ventrilo harassment.
Title: Re: Japanese build speech jamming gun
Post by: Cerim Treascair on March 04, 2012, 01:00:47 pm
The idea has been around for a while.  If an alleged spy claimed to be deaf, the intelligence agency would use this to tell if they were lying.  The person's own voice would be fed back into headphones, and deaf people are the only ones unaffected.  The idea of making it into a STFU gun is brilliant. :)

I can attest to this WORKING.  My raid leader in WoW and I were on a podcast that had a half-second delay.  It completely fucked us up for the entire segment.

The first thing I thought of when I read about this device was Ventrilo harassment.

We were twitching after five minutes, at 20, we stopped and asked them to fix it (they didn't, and they said the recording would be okay), and at 45, we were just exhausted in trying to talk around it.