New device ‘could silence boring people’

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A sad man
(Image credit: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Scientists have created a small, wearable sensor that could silence “pub bores”, said The Times. The size of a postage stamp, the device sticks to the upper chest and tracks the vibrations associated with talking and singing. The user can set a limit for how many minutes of vocal activity they will allow themselves in a certain period. When they near their personal threshold, the app will alert them. The app could encourage boring people to “pipe down”, said the paper.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.