The SpeechJammer and Other Innovations to Come
The mind boggles at the possible situations when a SpeechJammer (affectionately known as the "Shutup Gun") might come in handy - raucous parties, boring office meetings, spousal arguments, playdates with whiny children. From the New York Times: When you aim the SpeechJammer at someone, it records that person’s voice and plays it back to him with a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This seems to gum up the brain’s cognitive processes — a phenomenon known as delayed auditory feedback — and can painlessly render the person unable to speak. Kazutaka Kurihara, one of the SpeechJammer’s creators, sees it as a tool to prevent loudmouths from overtaking meetings and public forums, and he’d like to miniaturize his invention so that it can be built into cellphones. “It’s different from conventional…