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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Noise-canceling robots to 'mute' loud conversations in cafe | What if we told you that we can actually silence a noisy table right next to us in a café?::undefined

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[-] K3zi4@lemmy.world 74 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've always thought phase cancellation technology could potentially be crazy revolutionary. Seems these guys know what they're doing, but the real challenges come with high decibel levels if I remember right.

If you tried to phase cancel out the sound of a jet engine, it would work and you wouldn't hear it, but you could also have easily just burst your eardrums too, because the sound pressure level is still present, even if the actual sound is inaudible. It's a crazy phenomena.

Edit: the sound pressure level IS cancelled out by destructive wave interference, but if this is knocked even by a matter of milliseconds, the wave is doubled and that's not good for anyone.

Also, on retrospect, phenomena was poor word choice. It's physics.

[-] Pennypacker@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Besides what you mention, I have my reservations about 'crazy revolutionary'. If I remember correctly, noise cancelling only works in one very concentrated spot where the waves are measured and cancelled out. If you move a couple of inches, the cancellation isn't perfect anymore and does practically nothing. That's why ANC headphones work well (always right by your ear) but any other open application seems implausible to me.

[-] K3zi4@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Absolutely, this is spot on, but if they can find ways to work around this like with these microphone swarms they're proposing, then there could be a lot more applications for it. Some quite scary.

[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

You're right. Without a demonstration I don't believe it works. Could be a misunderstanding on the part of the author trying to interpret what the inventors are saying...

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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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