Sometimes when people talk, it’s incredibly annoying. I’ve often felt as HAL apparently did in 2001: A Space Odyssey when he said to Dave: “Nothing further can be gained from this conversation, goodbye.” How I’d like sometimes to say this and back it up with some audio muscle. So, how about a anti-noise device, modulated to a specific human voice such that the moment the target spoke, the exact inverse waveform was produced and broadcast at just the right angle to completely and immediately cancel their voice?
I imagine this would be really difficult to pull off for several reasons. First, you’d need probably to get the angles just right and account for the speaker being able to move this way and that. If you broadcast the inverted waveform and they tipped their head up, the waves would be at cross angles and wouldn’t quite be synchronized.
Second, you’d need somehow to capture the voice output close to it’s source. If you waited until it reached the receiver you’re too late as it will have spread out in all directions and most of the message will have gotten through to anyone else listening. One idea might be that you could somehow model the persons voice and use computer vision to predict how the person would sound by lip reading. You could then calculate the correct wave form to cancel the sound at roughly the speed of light.
Also, I’m left wondering if you could produce a Cone of Silence using the same setup except allowing for a thin “tunnel” of sound between the source and the target. Anyone outside could never hear what was being said since no sound would escape.
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Thanks
Truden