Three-dimensional audio technology that is currently used to make computer games more realistic will soon be applied to the next generation of mobile phone.
Engineers at technology company Sensaura, based in Middlesex, England, originally developed their 3D Positional Audio system to enhance music recordings. They developed the system to work with personal computer games and are now looking to put it to mobile phones.
Giving a 3D impression of sounds through speakers depends on mimicking the way in which humans interpret sound. The Sensaura system relies on a pair of headphones attached to a phone. Software is used to simulate the time delay and difference in sounds that each ear picks up.
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鈥淲e have developed ways to synthesise these acoustic effects,鈥� said Sensaura鈥檚 Principal 快猫短视频 Alastair Sibbald. 鈥淏ut the commercially available artificial heads were not precise enough, so we created our own pair of perfectly matched 鈥渄igital ears鈥� to get the data we needed. It enables listeners to program the sound output to their own head shape, to get bespoke surround sound.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 on the train鈥�
The upshot is a personalised system that gives the impression that the caller on the other end of a phone call is standing somewhere nearby, while the background noise is further off. This could make for clearer conversation and remove the instinctive impulse to shout into a phone when the line is very noisy.
The engineers behind the technology say that it may even remove the need to tell a caller, 鈥淚鈥檓 on the train,鈥� because they should already have a realistic impression of the surroundings.
Sibbald says that the system should find its way into the next generation of mobile phone in the next few years. These phones have greater computational power and are designed to integrate music and multimedia with voice. 鈥淲e want to integrate this with other audio capabilities,鈥� he told 快猫短视频.
Senaura has been nominated to receive the UK Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, worth 拢50,000, for the innovation.