Has there ever been a time that you have wished that someone would just shut the hell up? Of course there has – and if you had this device you would be able to get them to do it… without being overtly rude or insulting.

This speech jamming gun, which is the work of researchers in Japan, makes use of an effect called delayed auditory feedback (DAF) to silence speakers from a distance of up to 100 feet. How it works is this: a directional microphone picks up what a person is saying and plays it back to them after a delay of 0.2 seconds. If you’ve ever found yourself in a phone conversation with a delay, you will have some idea of the process involved. No pain is involved, just a whole lot of confusion, that you can actually learn to work around if you have a strong mind a little bit of practice.

Hopefully it is used for good not evil.