Sometimes when you’re speaking at the phone you need to do it loudly because on the other side there’s too much noise or even because there’s too much noise where you are. This device would work as a barrier eliminating the noise around you on the one side and muffling your voice on the other, so that you can speak loudly without bothering everyone. This device would be like a helmet but would cover only the mouth and one ear. The shape can be described as two Ls, one horizontal covering the mouth and making the contour of the face and the other, a vertical one, covering the ear. They would join on a single piece so that a phone’s handset could be placed inside it.
Hypothesis 1: simple physical sound barrier – the device would cancel noise from and to the outside as result of the sound absorbing characteristics of its material.
Hypothesis 2: active sound nullifier (inverse sound wave) – I don’t know many details about these devices but they work by collecting the sound and returning the same sound wave but inversed, thus cancelling (or reducing the amplitude) of the original one.-- PauloSargaco, Mar 21 2003 Jawbone http://www.aliph.com/main/Baked [-----, Nov 02 2004] I would prefer the second option than carrying a large helmet-thing around with me. I'm imagining an active sound canceler maybe the size of a cell phone (maybe built in to a cell phone?) consisting of batteries, a microphone, a speaker, and some electronics. The active sound cancelor will be placed just below the receiver of a phone, facing away from the speaker (as in person speaking, not the physical speaker, which is on the other side - let me rephrase "away from the talker"). The sound of the "talker"'s voice is then canceled to others in the room with the "talker", yet full sound reaches the microphone of your phone. Does this warrant a seperate idea?-- Worldgineer, Mar 21 2003 It sounds like a nice extra functionality.-- PauloSargaco, Mar 22 2003 I've had many problems blocking engine noise. Have tried David Clark noise cancelling headsets (hypothesis 2), plus plugs (hypothesis 1~ish), plus filtered intercoms. Have tried many other stuff like low impedance mics (less high freq noise pickup). I hear Autocom make excellent motorcycle intercoms that block out all engione and wind noise. Try those.
Croissant for the idea of a mobile phone helmet. That'll put people off speaking in cinemas, or anywhere else, for that matter!-- FloridaManatee, Mar 22 2003 JawBone earpiece. See link-- -----, Nov 02 2004 random, halfbakery