John Markoff of the New York Times (via The Australian Financial Review) writes:

Maxwell Smart’s “cone of silence” is finally a reality.

Two people in an office were having a tete-a-tete, but it was impossible for a listener standing nearby to understand what they were saying. The conversation sounded like a waterfall of voices, both tantalisingly familiar yet incomprehensible.

The cone of silence, called Babble, is actually a device composed of a sound processor and several speakers which multiply and scramble voices that come within its range. About the size of a clock radio, the first model is designed for a person using a phone, but other models will work in open office space.

The voice-scrambling technology used in Babble was developed by Applied Minds, a research and consulting firm founded by computer architect Danny Hillis and Hollywood special effects wizard Bran Ferren.

[Continue reading Silence is golden for Babble firm]