I've gotta get one of these.
Unlike Hillary's "Reset" button or Staples' "Easy" button, this one is a "Shut-up button" that actually works. Or as they call it, a Speech Jammer.
It looks bulky, but once Moore's law catches up with it, it's bound to shrink. Kurzweilai.net explains in an easy to understand what it is and way how it works.
As described in the arXiv reference cited below, the device basically includes a laser pointer, directional microphone, distance sensor, microcomputer for delay, and parametric (directional) speaker. The parametric speaker modulates the voice audio onto an ultrasonic beam, which perturbs the air in a narrow beam, demodulating the audio to generate audible sound to anyone within that beam.
It records a person's voice then plays it back at the speaker at a millisecond delay, and through some mysterious psychological reason, it causes the speaker to be unable talk.
Of course, anyone using one of these devious devices should only use if for practical jokes. We've all seen video of audience members attempting to drown out speakers with whom they disagree politically. Not very cool.
Updated 9/24/2012: SpeechJammer takes home the Ig Nobel ACOUSTICS PRIZE! Congratulations!
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