NO YOU SHUT UP

[spectre]

http://spectrevision.net/2012/03/01/no-you-shut-up/

SILENCE ENFORCEMENT DEVICE
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/120583-new-speech-jamming-gun-hints-at-dystopian-big-brother-future

Japanese researchers have created a hand-held gun that can jam the
words of speakers who are more than 30 meters (100ft) away. The gun
has two purposes, according to the researchers: At its most basic,
this gun could be used in libraries and other quiet spaces to stop
people from speaking — but its second application is a lot more
chilling.

The researchers were looking for a way to stop “louder, stronger”
voices from saying more than their fair share in conversation. The
paper reads: “We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-
taking when speaking. However, some people tend to lengthen their
turns or deliberately interrupt other people when it is their turn in
order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful
discussions. Furthermore, some people tend to jeer at speakers to
invalidate their speech.” In other words, this speech-jamming gun was
built to enforce “proper” conversations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USDI3wnTZZg

The gun works by listening in with a directional microphone, and then,
after a short delay of around 0.2 seconds, playing it back with a
directional speaker. This triggers an effect that psychologists call
Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF), which has long been known to
interrupt your speech (you might’ve experienced the same effect if
you’ve ever heard your own voice echoing through Skype or another
voice comms program). According to the researchers, DAF doesn’t cause
physical discomfort, but the fact that you’re unable to talk is
obviously quite stressful.

Suffice it to say, if you’re a firm believer in free speech, you
should now be experiencing a deafening cacophony of alarm bells. Let
me illustrate a few examples of how this speech-jamming gun could be
used. At a political rally, an audience member could completely lock
down Santorum, Romney, Paul, or Obama from speaking. On the flip side,
a totalitarian state could point the speech jammers at the audienceto
shut them up. Likewise, when a celebrity or public figure appears on a
live TV show, his contract could read “the audience must be silenced
with speech jammers.”

Then there’s Harrison Bergeron, one of my favorite short stories by
Kurt Vonnegut. In the story’s dystopian universe, everyone wears
“handicaps” to ensure perfect social equality. Strong people must lug
around heavy weights, beautiful people must wear masks, and
intelligent people must wear headphones that play a huge blast of
sound every few seconds, interrupting your thoughts. The more
intelligent you are, the more regular the blasts.

Back here in our universe, it’s not hard to imagine a future where we
are outfitted with a variety of implanted electronics or full-blown
bionic organs. Just last week we wrote about Google’s upcoming
augmented-reality glasses, which will obviously have built-in earbuds.
Late last year we covered bionic eyesthat can communicate directly
with the brain, and bionic ears and noses can’t be far off.

In short, imagine if a runaway mega-corporation or government gains
control of these earbuds. Not only could the intelligence-destroying
blasts from Harrison Bergeron come to pass, but with Delayed Auditory
Feedback it would be possible to render the entire population mute.
Well, actually, that’s a lie: Apparently DAF doesn’t work with
utterances like “ahhh!” or “boooo!” or other non-wordy constructs. So,
basically, we’d all be reduced to communicating with grunts and
gestures.

SPEECH-JAMMING
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27620/
How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun
Japanese researchers build a gun capable of stopping speakers in mid-
sentence / 03/01/2012

The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at
conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries. Today, Kazutaka
Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both
in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that
forces recalcitrant speakers into submission.

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is
almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a
delay of a fraction of a second. Kurihara and Tsukada have simply
built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that
does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them
with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are
directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance,
like a gun.

In tests, Kurihara and Tsukada say their speech jamming gun works
well: "The system can disturb remote people's speech without any
physical discomfort." Their tests also identify some curious
phenomena. They say the gun is more effective when the delay varies in
time and more effective against speech that involves reading aloud
than against spontaneous monologue.

Kurihara and Tsukada make no claims about the commercial potential of
their device but list various aplications. They say it could be used
to maintain silence in public libraries and to "facilitate discussion"
in group meetings. "We have to establish and obey rules for proper
turn-taking when speaking," they say. That has important implications.
"There are still many cases in which the negative aspects of speech
become a barrier to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, " they point
out.

CONTACT
Kazutaka Kurihara
http://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english
email : k-kurihara [ at ] aist.go.jp

Koji Tsukada
http://mobiquitous.com/index-e.html
email : tsuka [at] mobiquitous [dot] com

ABSTRACT
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6106
SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with
Delayed Auditory Feedback
by Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada / 28 Feb 2012

"In this paper we report on a system, "SpeechJammer", which can be
used to disturb people's speech. In general, human speech is jammed by
giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few
hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any
physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stop speaking.
Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker. We
utilize this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by
combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive
speaker, enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed. We
discuss practical application scenarios of the system, such as
facilitating and controlling discussions. Finally, we argue what
system parameters should be examined in detail in future formal
studies based on the lessons learned from our preliminary study."

SPEECHJAMMER
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/japanese-speech-jamming-gun/

Two Japanese researchers recently introduced a prototype for a device
they call a SpeechJammer that can literally “jam” someone’s voice —
effectively stopping them from talking. Now they’ve released a video
of the device in action. “We have to establish and obey rules for
proper turn-taking,” write Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada in their
article on the SpeechJammer (PDF). “However, some people tend to
lengthen their turns or deliberately disrupt other people when it is
their turn … rather than achieve more fruitful discussions.”

The researchers released the video after their paper went viral
Thursday, to the authors’ apparent surprise. “Do you know why our
project is suddenly becoming hot now?” asked Kurihara, a research
scientist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology in Tsukuba, in an e-mail exchange with Wired.com.
(Kurihara’s partner Tsukada is an assistant professor at Ochanomizu
University in Tokyo.)

The design of the SpeechJammer is deceptively simple. It consists of a
direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, a
motherboard, a distance sensor and some relatively straightforward
code. The concept is simple, too — it operates on the well-studied
principle of delayed auditory feedback. By playing someone’s voice
back to them, at a slight delay (around 200 milliseconds), you can jam
a person’s speech.

Sonic devices have popped up in pop culture in the past. In sci-fi
author J.G. Ballard’s short story “The Sound-Sweep,” published in
1960, a vacuum cleaner called a “sonovac” sweeps up the debris of old
sounds. The wily German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen had plans for a
“sound swallower,” which would cancel unwanted sounds in the
environment using the acoustic principle of destructive interference.
And in 1984 German film Decoder, special yellow cassette tapes play
“anti-Muzak” that destroys the lulling tones of Muzak, stimulating
diners at a fast-food restaurant to throw up en masse and start
rioting.

But instead of sci-fi, the Japanese researchers behind the
SpeechJammer looked to medical devices used to help people with speech
problems. Delayed auditory feedback, or DAF, devices have been used to
help stutterers for decades. If a stutterer hears his own voice at a
slight delay, stuttering often improves. But if a non-stutterer uses a
DAF device designed to help stutterers, he can start stuttering — and
the effect is more pronounced if the delay is longer, up to a certain
point.

“We utilized DAF to develop a device that can jam remote physically
unimpaired people’s speech whether they want it or not,” write the
researchers. “[The] device possesses one characteristic that is
different from the usual medical DAF device; namely, the microphone
and speaker are located distant from the target.”

Being at a distance from the target means it’s possible to aim the
device at people who are several feet away — sort of like a TV B-Gone,
but for people. Bothered by what someone at a meeting is saying? Point
the SpeechJammer at him. Can’t stand your nattering in-laws? Time for
the SpeechJammer. In the wrong hands — criminals, for instance, or
repressive governments — the device could have potentially sinister
applications. For now, it remains a prototype.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXp0dq2h1OI

INSPIRATION
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/speech-jamming-gun-inspiration/

“One day I just came by a science museum and enjoyed a demonstration
about Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) at [the] cognitive science
corner,” says Kurihara. “When I spoke to a microphone, my voice came
back to me after a few hundred millisecond delay. Then, I could not
continue to speak any more. That’s fun!”

Kurihara soon realized his adventures in the science museum could be
applicable to other fields. He was already interested in developing a
system that “controls appropriate turn-taking at discussions.” The
science museum visit was his “aha!” moment. “Then I came up with the
gun-type SpeechJammer idea utilizing DAF,” says Kurihara. “That’s the
destiny.”

Kurihara enlisted the talents of Koji Tsukada, an assistant professor
at Tokyo’s Ochanamizu University who he calls “the gadget master.”
Tsukada has been involved in a number of strange and intriguing
projects, including the LunchCommunicator, a “lunchbox-type device
which supports communication between family members”; the
SmartMakeupSystem, which “helps users find new makeup methods for use
with their daily cosmetics”; and the EaTheremin, a “fork-type
instrument that enables users to play various sounds by eating foods”.

Tsukada introduced Kurihara to a parametric speaker kit, which they
could use to convey sound in a very direction-sensitive way. “After I
explained him my idea, he soon agreed to join my project,” says
Kurihara. “It was a marriage between science and gadgets!”

As for SpeechJammer’s potentially sinister uses? “We hope SpeechJammer
is used for building the peaceful world,” says Kurihara. The world can
only hope.