Trend: Voice Privacy

Babble has nothing to do with the yellow leech-like Babel fish from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. Babble does not help to understand any language, but is a voice privacy device.

The first model is about the size of a clock radio and is designed for a person using a phone, making it possible to have confidential telephone conversations in an office cubicle. That means no one near this person can understand what the phone-conversation is about. Other models will even work in open office spaces. The idea is basically to substitute for walls.

Babble is based on a sound processor and several speakers that multiply and scramble voices that come within its range. There are similar products which use computing technology to shape sound; for example, stereo systems that can direct sound to a particular location.

The device randomizes the voice of the person on the phone and sends this randomized voice out with the natural voice (that’s speaking). Because the human brain has a hard time deciphering multiple streams of information, this combination of voices is impossible to understand.

The technology used in Babble was developed by Applied Minds, a research and consulting firm founded by Danny Hillis, a computer architect, and Bran Ferren, who developed special effects for Hollywood. The distributor of the Babble system is Sonare Technologies, oddly enough a subsidiary of Herman Miller, the furniture company who revolutionized the US office structure 40 years ago with the idea of cubicles.

Now the company plans to bring privacy back to corporate America by selling Babble for less than $400 through consumer electronics and office supply stores. Target markets are the health-care industry, law firms, research firms and any other place where information has to be handled confidentially.

Sonare Technologies

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