# No more listening in on office conversations...



## Saeltari (May 12, 2009)

Course if you don't do that anyway, it doesn't matter to you.

->A Creepy Mute Button for the Real World | Design & Innovation | Fast Company


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## Nik (May 12, 2009)

Ooh if, instead of genuine white/pink noise, you use pseudo-random sequence, you could subtract it digitally and listen to every word...

A thought: The last 'white / pink noise' generator I saw in an electronics mag *was* pseudo-random, because the threshold-biased zeners and 'backwards wired' transistors that were used ~20 years ago have long been superceded by much cheaper and more reliable digital tech......

{FX: X-files Music ;-}


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## The Ace (May 12, 2009)

Sorry, Nik, run that by me again ?


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## Ursa major (May 12, 2009)

I don't particularly want to eavesdrop, but some conversations force themselves into the foreground; which is annoying if you are trying to concentrate on something else. I'd welcome this sort of thing if I didn't think that the white noise**/whatever wouldn't be distracting, but I'd imagine it could be, albeit in its own way.




** - Would I be being insentisive if I called a lot of existing disturbance "blond(e) noise"?


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## chrispenycate (May 12, 2009)

Pumping noise in to hide it? Blea! What they ought to be doing is generating a delay compensating antiphase generator, so no information passes outside the hush zone. 

Why make things simple when you can do them complicated?


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## Ursa major (May 12, 2009)

chrispenycate said:


> Why make things simple when you can do them complicated?


 
To match some of those in need of them, perhaps?


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## chrispenycate (May 12, 2009)

The Ace said:


> Sorry, Nik, run that by me again ?



Making decent analog pink noise (where the quantity of energy in each octave was equal, rather than the quantity in each kilohertz band) is quite complicated, as it requires a three dB/octave rolloff filter, something that doesn't occur in nature (a simple RC filter is six dB/octave)

Some clever egghead a couple of decades ago came up with an algorithm that produced something functionally identical, and could be fitted into an eight-pin package; just give it volts, it gives you noise (I've built mic preamps like that) with a specified spectrum. Only thing is, it repeats a sequence; it's not truly random, hence the term "pseudo-random"

Still, what would be going into your microphone would be analog, and wide frequency range; I don't think a cycle analyser and predictive noise canceller would work. It's the thought of thing forensic audio analysis experts dream of, then go back to their hiQ filter banks, seventies technology.


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## ManTimeForgot (May 13, 2009)

Or we insulate cubicles with sound-proofing and use a few low power/range noise-cancellers (send out noise with opposing crests and troughs).  And if someone still "shouts" loud enough to be heard over all that, then they need to shut their pie-holes.  Work isn't there for you to socialize with your golf buddies or gossip about your sister's new boyfriend.

MTF


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