When the person next to you on the train or the bus insists on talking loudly into a phone about what's for dinner or who was drunkest last night, or you're on an early train home and it coincides with chucking out time for the local sixth form college and dozens of boisterous teenagers have to talk across each other at 90db, wouldn't you just love one of these...
Japanese researchers Kazutaka Kurihara (National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology) and Koji Tsukada (Ochanomizu University) have invented a "SpeechJammer".
It looks a bit like a speed-gun, but when you point it at a person's mouth peace and quiet dewscends. It records the speaker's voice through a directional microphone, adds a 0.2 second delay and fires it straight back at the speaker.
Human brains need instant feedback and the continuous "echo" of their voice disrupts the thought process and brings "target" to a stop.
It may be hard to believe that someone makes these, but as a commuter I think I want one!
Source: Gizmag
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Now this sounds like it might be a really clever piece of kit, and I suppose in a way it is. But it requires no knowledge of electronics whatsoever to assemble it.