Do you remember Maxwell Smart of Get Smart fame? The cone of silence?
There were no secret conversations. Times have changed and the New Scientist reports that now the 'Cone of silence' keeps conversations secret. According to the article:
"In increasingly common open-plan offices, the violation of employees' privacy can often become an issue, as third parties overhear their conversations intentionally or unintentionally," the inventors say in their patent.
Their aim is to relieve people of that concern. Instead of plastic domes, they use a sensor network to work out where potential eavesdroppers are, and speakers to generate a subtle masking sound at just the right level.
