What is interesting about Microsoft’s vision is the focus on tactile technologies, and in particular augmented and virtual reality. This is particularly relevant for the ‘listen with your own ears’ project (see About) given that the technology is all about creating a personalised virtual audio environment. Thus it could be used to compliment the technologies of the future in a big way.

Have a look at the montage and see what you think.

Visit the site and watch the short movie (or watch it below) for some amazing audio effects. Remember to wear your headphones.

Enjoy

The GSMA Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM World Congress) represents the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry with a stimulating and insightful congress that brings together prominent leaders and personalities from mobile operators and equipment vendors, as well as Internet and entertainment professionals. Arkamys will have a stand at the GSMA Mobile World Congress showing off its latest technology from the 16th to the 19th of February. http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/overview.shtml

It is an example of what is called a ‘binaural recording‘. A dummy head, with tiny microphones stuck inside its ears, is used to record an acoustic environment such as a person cutting your hair or a band playing in a room. You then listen to the binaural recording over headphones and it is as if you were sitting at the position of the dummy head at the moment of the recording. The best way to really understand the process is to just watch and listen to these examples:

YOU MUST USE HEADPHONES FOR THE FIRST EXAMPLE!

‘Snakecharmer-Binaural‘ by Ottmar Liebert

John Q. Walker’s talk (7 minutes 45 seconds in) entitled ‘Re-creating great performances’ from the EG 2007 conference posted on TED

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Here is a very accessible scientific journal article explaining how the shape of your own ear is unique and how this determines your perception of the sounds you hear around you everyday. And can you adapt to new ear shapes, or learn to listen with someone else’s ears?

If the journal article was not convincing enough, have a look at this 1998 BBC report on how a murderer was caught using his earprint…

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The photos are currently offline for this post. They will be back very soon!

Below is a run-down of the process normally involved, which makes the technology difficult to commercialize in its current form. Thus the push for a viable method in the current ‘listen with your own ears’ project in which a personalized 3D audio will be generated from a simple photo of the person’s head and ear.

A sound proof anechoic (no echoes) chamber is needed first.

Then tiny microphones are placed into my ears.

I am then seated in the middle of the chamber with the microphones inside my ears, and a head tracker on my head to let us know the position of my head at all times. Then sounds are played consecutively out of the three small speakers seen in the above photo on the robotic arm. The sounds are recorded with the small microphones in my ears. Then I am rotated around say 15 degrees on the chair and the sounds from the speakers are again played and recorded. This process continues for a full rotation, and then the robotic arm rises up a few degrees and a new rotation begins. This way the sound from the speakers is recorded from many positions on an imaginary sphere around my head.

The recorded signals taken from the microphones for the many positions around my head are then stored on a computer. Using these recordings we can see how my own ears filter sounds for each position in space. Using this information we can then take any audio stimulus and synthesize it so that when I listen to it over headphones I will get the impression that the sound is coming from one of the recorded positions in space. I will at this stage have a personalized 3D audio.

Thanks to Jack for the shots.

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