Tech Ticker

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has developed a new spatial audio transmission technology that allows a mobile phone user to assign different spatial positions to each sound source, i.e. different callers in a conference call.

The technology for instance, enables a user listening with headphones to hear different speaker voices coming from different directions thus, making a virtual face-to-face communication environment.

The technology is still undergoing research and DoCoMo will commercialize it soon as it can be used for conference calls, tele-education or online games.

NTT DoCoMo will showcase its creation at Wireless Technology Park 2009 at Pacifico Yokohama from tomorrow.

How it works:
The processes are collaboratively performed on both the server and client sides. The server identifies the important sound components of each speaker’s voice, compresses them efficiently into a single stream and transmits it to the mobile phones. Each phone then decodes the received stream and simultaneously synthesizes spatial audio images.

Press Release