
Fred Wilson: Quirky and The Cone Of Silence - stakent
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/02/quirky-and-the-cone-of-silence.html
======
ShabbyDoo
Noisy restaurants are no accident. Young people (who spend money) supposedly
like places that feel "alive." Old people (who don't spend as much) hate noisy
places and won't go. So, restaurants who want to fill up their tables on a
Saturday night with young people drinking $12 martinis play loud music and
avoid sound dampening decorations.

I'm not suggesting that the Cone of Silence wouldn't be a good thing -- I'd
buy one! However, the way to attack the problem is social rather than
technological. Imagine starting a grass-roots campaign to tell restaurant
owners/managers that you hate how noisy their establishments are. Print
stickers that say, "I wish this restaurant was more quiet" that could be stuck
on credit card receipts so management would be forced to hear your message.
There's no business model in this, though.

~~~
bretthoerner
You know what you have to do when you're on a date in a loud restaurant / bar?

Get closer to one another.

SCIENCE!

~~~
rglullis
Or you could just make a move saying that the place is too loud, and that "we
should just go over to my place".

------
fr0sty
I know the 'wow' factor is greatly lessened but I wonder if two sets of in-ear
headphones wouldn't solve this problem easily. 20dB+ of noise isolation is not
uncommon and the addition of bluetooth (or even a physical tether) to pipe
sound between people would make conversation simple.

If I could get over the feeling that it would look incredibly out of place at
a bar or restaurant I would pursue the matter further.

~~~
toby
He states in the comments that something like that would be "too intrusive".

It's actually clear from the comments that he's become more fixated on the
device he has in mind than in actually solving the problem.

------
stcredzero
The functionality could be implemented now with in-ear Bluetooth headsets. A
small device with an array of mics would process and localize the 6 or so
closest speakers and transmit the output via Bluetooth. One could also include
some miss in the headsets to provide correlation data.

------
chime
I highly doubt the cone-of-silence as he defines it is possible either. What's
more interesting is the Quirky site/idea itself. Quirky is like
<http://www.halfbakery.com/> in action, so I guess it is fullbakery. I wonder
why startups like that don't make it to HN. Do people not know about HN?

------
leelin
Even better if it has three modes:

    
    
      1.)  Everyone else seems silent to you
      2.)  You seem silent to everyone else
      3.)  Modes (1) and (2) simultaneously
    

I'm also curious whether Fred originally wanted (1) or (2) more [assuming (3)
is not an option].

~~~
gsiener
I would imagine #1. You can control #2 on your own...

------
maurycy
+1

Silence is the ultimate luxury right now, it needs to be democratized.

