NTT DoCoMo has announced a new efficient mobile spatial audio transmission technology that enables a mobile phone user to assign a spatial position to each sound source when listening to multiple sound sources, such as during a game or a conference call. 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.
The technology will enable a user listening with headphones to, for example, hear each speaker’s voice as if it were coming from a unique direction, creating a virtual face-to-face communication environment.
