Don’t you just hate it when you have to take an important phone call and you’re surrounded by potential eavesdroppers? You either have to whisper or go outside to keep the conversation private, which is not exactly ideal. Now, a new gadget aims to fix this problem by muffling your voice and making you look like Bane in the process.
Hushme is a bizarre high-tech mask that blocks the sound of the wearer’s voice so that people nearby can’t hear what is being said. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and comes with a pair of earbuds. When you get a private call, all you have to do is put the muzzle-like mask on and it will do the rest. The pair of thick cushy pads over your mouth do a good job of muffling your voice, but to ensure nothing gets through, Hushme also features external speakers that play a variety of sounds when you speak.
The Hushme mask, which comes in a variety of colors, can be worn around the neck, like a regular pair of earphones, and attaches in front of your mouth thanks to a couple of very powerful magnets. It’s not yet clear how comfortable speaking with this Bane-like mask over your mouth really is, or how effective its speech muffling capability is, so all we know so far is that it makes you look weird.
The sound options for covering your voice currently include wind, ocean, rain, birds, monkey, squirrel, R2D2, laughing Minion and Darth Vader breath, but new ones could be added in the future.
While Hushme is promoted as a phone call privacy protection device, you could always use it to protect your ears from loud mouth co-workers at the office. Just slap this baby over their mouths and you can get on with your work.
Advertised as the 「world’s first voice mask for mobile phones」, Hushme was unveiled at CES, at the beginning of this year. It’s not commercially available yet, but its makers plan to start a crowdfunding campaign in May, and to start selling it by the end of the year. Engadget reports that it will cost around $200.
當你接到一個重要電話，卻發現身邊可能有人在偷聽時，會不會覺得很討厭？為了保護通話隱私，你即便不想，也只能降低音量或者出去說。不過現在，有個新裝置能幫你解決問題，它可以減弱你的聲音，而且你戴上它就仿佛變身《蝙蝠俠》中的反派貝恩。
Hushme是一款樣子奇怪的高科技口罩，它能阻隔佩戴者的聲音，這樣周圍人就聽不到講話的具體內容。它通過藍牙連接手機，並配有一副耳機。你在接到私人電話的時候，只要戴上這個嘴套式口罩，剩下的一切它都會幫你解決。它有兩塊厚實的軟墊蓋住嘴唇，消音效果非常出色，另外為了保證沒有聲音洩露，Hushme的外部揚聲器也是一大特色，它可以在你講話的同時播放各種各樣的聲音。
Hushme口罩有多種顏色可供挑選。它可以像普通耳機一樣戴在脖子上，也可以靠兩塊強力磁鐵的吸附而牢牢罩在嘴上。不過，戴著這個看起來像貝恩的口罩講話是否舒適，以及它的消音能力是否有效，都還有待驗證，目前知道的就是它戴上去顯得很奇怪。
如果想要用其他聲音掩蓋自己的聲音，目前可供選擇的有風聲、濤聲、雨聲、鳥鳴、猴子叫、松鼠叫、《星球大戰》裡R2D2機器人的聲音、小黃人的笑聲和達斯?維達的呼吸聲。不過，以後還會新增其他選項。
雖然Hushme的定位是通話隱私保護裝置，但你也可以用它來保護耳朵，免受辦公室裡大嗓門的同事的幹擾。只要把這個小玩意卡在他們嘴上，你便能耳根清淨，安心工作了。
今年年初，Hushme在國際消費類電子產品博覽會上亮相，它被宣傳為「全球首款手機消音口罩」。Hushme如今還未上市，但製造商已計劃於五月份發起眾籌，並於年底開售。《癮科技》稱，Hushme預計售價在200美元（1378元人民幣）左右。