Babble offers privacy in open plan offices
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Article Summary
January 16, 2006 Open plan offices have their strengths and weaknesses. Considered from the employee’s point of view, the biggest weakness is a lack of privacy, so we were particularly keen to take a look at Sonare's new, next generation babble device. Babble was developed by Applied Minds to address the challenging issue of workplace confidentiality for phone conversations in any open workspace. Babble is a desktop device that connects inline between your desk phone and it's handset and sends the user’s voice out in multiplied and “babbled” form through proprietary speakers arranged in the work area. It achieves confidentiality without distracting the user of the device, and those in the user’s immediate area hear what sounds like an indiscernible, low-volume group conversation. The benefits of Babble go beyond the critical requirement of safeguarding information, contributing to increased productivity by allowing the user to have confidential telephone conversations at their workstation, where their computer and files are located.
