The Japanese have invented a speech-jamming device that forces people you find annoying to shut up.
Psychologists, who apparently don’t have anything better to do, did research that proved that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.
Japanese researchers have built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that 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 it can be aimed like a gun.
Someone points that baby at you and you may as well take a break. Nothing coherent is going to pass beyond your lips.
The speech jamming gun works better against reading aloud than plain talking. Which means it would be an effective weapon against the reading of bad poetry.
That alone makes it worth the sticker price.
So far no one has come up with any practical commercial applications for the device.
Then again, no one could imagine any practical use for the telephone when it was first invented either. Look at how that puppy caught on.
Who knows? This could become a major shift of our cultural landscape. A prospect that is both frightening and mind boggling.