When you buy office furniture, acoustics are an important concern. That’s why there’s so much information available about the ratings for different cubicle systems. Some panels are better at muffling noise than others, but none of them offer perfect privacy. So, if you don’t want coworkers overhearing each other, you have a couple of choices. You can put each employee in a sound proofed, padded cell (sans straightjacket), or you can add an office furniture accessory to help cover up the sound of sensitive conversations.

That’s where the Babble machine from Herman Miller can come in handy. It’s way beyond next generation white noise. In fact, this technology is very “Bourne Identity”.  According to HM, this diminutive desktop device electronically captures your voice as you speak into a phone and reroutes it through speakers that project sound into the area around your workstation. But the version that is broadcast into the workspace is garbled beyond recognition. The person you are talking to on the phone can hear you loud and clear. The person working in the cubicle next to you just hears gibberish!