BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Paula Poundstone, Luke Burbank and Adam Burke. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you so much, Bill. Thanks everybody. Right now it is time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to play any of our games on the air. Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
NANCY YOUNG: Hi. I'm so excited to be on the air.
SAGAL: I'm excited to have you. Who is this?
YOUNG: This is Nancy.
SAGAL: Hello, Nancy.
YOUNG: I'm in Middletown, N.J.
SAGAL: Oh, Middletown. OK. What do you do there in Middletown, N.J.?
YOUNG: Well, I am a mom. And I'm currently working with and for my husband in his law firm.
SAGAL: Wait a minute. With or for?
YOUNG: Well, I say with. He says for.
SAGAL: I see.
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SAGAL: Nancy, welcome to the show. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Nancy's topic?
KURTIS: Mind your manners.
SAGAL: It's important to have good manners.
YOUNG: Oh, boy.
SAGAL: Although to be perfectly polite, we should refer to manners as personers (ph). Sometimes...
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SAGAL: Sometimes, we need a little help, though. Our panelists are going to tell you about how technology is giving our etiquette a little assist. Pick the one who's telling the truth. You'll win our prize the voice of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
YOUNG: Yes.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Luke Burbank.
LUKE BURBANK: If you follow culinary trends, you've probably noticed that a ramen craze is sweeping the country. The delicious, savory, noodley (ph) soup comes from Japan but can now be found everywhere stateside from high-end restaurants to little hole in the walls next to your favorite vape shop.
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BURBANK: And if you've had the stuff, you know there's only one thing more enjoyable than slurping up a huge mouthful of piping hot ramen. And that is never having to hear other people slurping up a huge mouthful of piping hot ramen. Enter Japanese company Nissin and their new invention, the Otohiko noise cancelling Ramen fork.
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BURBANK: Citing the cultural friction around eating ramen, Nissin engineers recorded a whole range of slurping sounds and then designed special noises to, in effect, cancel out the sound of slurping. By the way, "The Sound Of Slurping" would be the worst Simon and Garfunkel song ever.
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BURBANK: The Otohiko relies naturally on a smartphone app which takes its cues from highly directional microphones built into the fork that trigger the noise-canceling effect. Nissin is using crowdfunding to sell the idea, saying that if they get 5,000 preorders, they will start mass production. No word yet on what the fork's catchphrase will be. But I'd like to humbly submit Otohiko, like those Bose headphones but for your mouth parts or Otohiko, for when you're not trying to go on a slurping safari.
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SAGAL: All right. Electronic ramen forks that, using your phone, to cancel out the sound of your slurping the noodle soup. Your next story of better manners through technology comes from Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Yawnbiance (ph), the small music player that mounts on a back molar of the user's mouth, is the hot new solution to the embarrassment of yawning. Sound equipment expert and excessive yawning sufferer Maria Kyra (ph) put her very significant brain to solving the problem. If I suffered from excessive sneezing or hiccups or even burping, says Kyra, people would have some sympathy. But when you yawn, they just think it's rude, like I'm acting bored.
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POUNDSTONE: It's a physical condition that I am not in control of. Now when Kyra yawns, The Pointer Sisters 1980s hit song "I'm So Excited" blares from her mouth.
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POUNDSTONE: I was sharing a cab with a coworker who has a Yawnbiance device, says Amazon reviewer Steve Kahn (ph).
POUNDSTONE: I heard "I'm So Excited," and I thought it was on the radio. I love The Pointer Sisters. So I'm singing along. I start to sing. (Singing) I want to squeeze you, please you - like, in a big, loud voice. But the song stopped.
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POUNDSTONE: Then it happened again. I'm belting out (singing) I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.
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POUNDSTONE: And again, The Pointer Sisters stopped singing. I finally realized it wasn't the radio. It was my friend Joann's (ph) mouth. It happens every time she yawns. It's clever. But, geez, she must get sick of that song.
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SAGAL: The Yawnbiance device that will fill the room with the sounds of excitement whenever you yawn. Your last story of science improving etiquette comes from Adam Burke.
ADAM BURKE: The problem of manspreading, that computer crime in which a rider, usually a male one, monopolizes seat space with a wide-legged stance, has been plaguing public transportation systems around the world for some time. Now a French company, Espas Personnel, (ph) thinks it has solved the issue with the help of the Paris metro. A pilot program on the metro's ligne sept - line seven - uses special electronic seats that not only detect egregious limb width but will also deploy automatic buffers that will mechanically shove the offending knees...
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BURKE: ...Back together. The buffers are padded with a soft felt so as to avoid injury...
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BURKE: ...Said lead designer Michelle Le Grand (ph). And they are art nouveau, so they fit in with the environment.
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BURKE: The robot thigh wranglers have their fans, such as visiting American student Amy Prince (ph). It's wonderful, she said. The amount of times i'VE had to stand there was some oblivious dude airs out his crotch is ridiculous. Longtime male riders, however, were less sanguine. C'est incorrigible...
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BURKE: ...Moaned 65-year-old cravat salesman Pierre Du Pont (ph)...
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BURKE: ...Upon having his legs realigned. A man should be able to splay himself however he chooses. C'est terrible, insisted Claude Onre (ph), a lorgnette polisher from Montparnasse...
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BURKE: ...While being despreaded. This is worse than the Germans.
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BURKE: Despite the complaints, the program itself is due to spread to other lines early next year.
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SAGAL: So anywho (ph), these are your choices. One of these is real, honestly.
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SAGAL: Is it from Luke Burbank, the electronic fork that will cancel out the noise of your ramen slurping, from Paula Poundstone, the device you put in your teeth so that when you yawn, instead of yawning, you hear The Pointer Sisters singing "I'm So Excited" or from Adam Burke, anti-manspreading devices installed on the Paris metro? Which of these is the real technological aid to people behaving better?
YOUNG: Oh, man.
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YOUNG: It's got to be A. The ramen craze.
SAGAL: All right. You've narrowed it down and you've chosen Luke's story of the electronic ramen fork.
YOUNG: I know it's ridiculous. but..
BURBANK: It is ridiculous.
SAGAL: It may well be. But well, you've chosen it. To bring you the real story we spoke to someone who was familiar with that real story.
SWAPNA KRISHNA: They made a fork that connects to an app on your smartphone and...
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SAGAL: That was Swapna Krishna. She's a contributing writer from Engadget talking about the electronic ramen fork.
BURBANK: Yes.
SAGAL: Noise-canceling ramen fork.
BURBANK: The Otohiko.
SAGAL: The Otohiko ramen fork. Congratulations, you got it right. You earned a point for Luke, and you have won our prize.
YOUNG: Thanks very much.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
YOUNG: Bye.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.