Noise cancelling headphones work by adding noise. What's more, if you measure the annoyance of someone when a contact centre agent asks them to repeat their contact information more than once, it gets disproportionately high.

This matters when it can all be a matter of fixing the audio engagement. In this edition of the Near Futurist, IRIS Technology CEO Jacobi Anstruther explains the issues to Guy Clapperton - and looks into why the music industry still hasn't quite taken it in.

Find out more about IRIS at iris.audio