4 pointsby Balgair3 hours ago1 comment
  • nativeit3 hours ago
    Interesting, but coming from the perspective of an audio engineer it all sounds a little too woo-woo without specifics. The $1200 price also seems absurd for something that appears to emit ultrasonic noise and scan for IoT devices. The fact it's taking pre-orders is also something of a red flag.

    Maybe I'm too cynical, but these things strike me as money grabs that prey on peoples' understandable paranoia surrounding privacy. I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but those were the first impressions of someone with a passable knowledge of how such devices ostensibly function. Unless it's doing something special I'm not aware of, a fairly basic filter on the microphone to limit any sounds outside of audible midrange would likely render these devices moot.

    • nativeit3 hours ago
      To be less of a cynical idgit, here's some cool future tech that does work--not great, I imagine, but getting better and could certainly be employed to keep the sounds you emit localized to a single point (controlling/defining the point might be tricky, and would require the listener to stay stock-still):

      ‘Audible enclaves’ could enable private listening without headphones - https://www.psu.edu/news/engineering/story/audible-enclaves-...

    • nativeit3 hours ago
      Related: This Jammer Wants to Block Always-Listening AI Wearables. It Probably Won’t Work - https://www.wired.com/story/deveillance-spectre-i/
    • verdverm3 hours ago
      I don't know much about these things, but I can say it comes off as a scam to me as well.