Company
Be Heard with Audience
Audience is a voice processor company that enables clear communications anywhere with noise suppression technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. The technology is applicable across a broad range of consumer products where voice needs to be intelligible in noisy environments. The company launched its first commercial product into the mobile handset market in 2008. Audience is one of 34 founding member companies of the Open Handset Alliance and the only one with advanced noise suppression technology.
Market
With nearly 3 billion users worldwide, the mobile phone has become the most personal and ubiquitous communications device.
In cellular networks, voice communications is still by far the killer application. Mobile operators generate 90% of their revenue from voice minutes despite the tremendous growth in applications such as SMS and MMS. The number of voice minutes used has been steadily increasing over the past five years because the use of mobile phones as a percentage of overall phone usage has been growing.
As voice is the primary application for mobile phone usage, it remains at the top of consumers minds for improvements in their phones. According to a 2007 survey of 15,000 consumers in 37 countries by Global Mobile Mindset, consumers wanted "louder, clearer voice quality" from their cell phones. Voice quality ranked as one of the top 5 improvements requested.
Non-Stationary Noise Suppression - The Next Voice Quality Hurdle
Noisy environments wreak havoc with voice quality. And while several products on the market can handle low levels of stationary noise, they are not robust enough to suppress non-stationary noise. Carriers are coming to understand the difference and are putting standards in place to test the performance of products for non-stationary noise.
Audience worked closely with several leading mobile carriers and handset vendors to ratify a new standard for subjective testing of non-stationary noise suppressors, and in October 2007, the ITU-T standardization committee approved Amendment 1 Appendix III of the P.835 standard. While the original P.835 standard recommended a test methodology for stationary noise testing, the new amendment enhances the standard by adding comprehensive test methodology for non-stationary noise.
The amendment recommends test conditions for emulating real world conditions of multiple, moving non-stationary noise sources. This amendment is a major step in helping the mobile industry demand and ensure higher voice quality in real world environments. Mobile carriers, handset suppliers, and component vendors will all benefit from a common way of testing and measuring performance in these noisy conditions.
Technology Inspired by the Intelligence of Human Hearing System
Lloyd Watts, PhD, founded Audience after spending his early career developing technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. He conducted his doctoral work under Dr. Carver Mead, Caltech professor and an inspiration for a generation of microchip inventors. While studying under Dr. Mead, Watts developed a chip model of an electronic cochlea, the portion of the inner ear that does signal processing in the human hearing system.
As principal researcher at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, Watts expanded his early work on an electronic cochlea to include algorithms and collaborated with the world's leading auditory neuroscientists on his vision of a machine that could hear as people do.
In 2000, Paul Allen transferred the rights of Watts' technology and invested in the founding of Audience, along with Dr. Mead. Since that time, the company has continued to develop patented technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. By thoroughly understanding the entire auditory pathway - from the cochlea to the brain stem to the thalamus and cortex - Audience has been able to create innovative methods for processing signals designed specifically for the human ear.
Audience is the first company to deliver a commercial product based on the science of Auditory Scene Analysis, which entails the grouping of components in a complex mixture of sound into sources. Just as the human auditory system can readily ignore background noises while focusing on a voice of interest, Audience's technology enables instantaneous noise suppression up to 25 dB for both stationary and non-stationary noise sources to provide unparalleled voice quality within even the noisiest environments. The company has been demonstrating early prototypes of its ground-breaking technology and received tremendous feedback from the marketplace.