The fact that Facebook has invested heavily in Augmented Realtiy and Virtual Reality in recent years is nothing new. But in its latest Deep Dive, the Internet giant shows that it is about more than just a sophisticated immersive headset. They want to put “smart audio” at the center of their developments and set themselves apart from the competition.
“At FRL Research, we are exploring new technologies that can extend, protect, and enhance your hearing ability – giving you the ability to increase concentration and focus, while allowing you to seamlessly interact with the people and information you care about. At the heart of this work is a focus on building hardware that is deeply rooted in auditory perception and augmented by the latest developments in signal processing and artificial intelligence.”
The current headset, on which the development department Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) is working, should enable the wearer to “zoom in” on and amplify the sounds that are important to him or her in a real situation. Loud background noises, on the other hand, should simply be faded out or made quieter.
Facebooks Smart Audio in use (Source: Facebook)
This concept is already known from spy movies or from superheroes who concentrate on a conversation and hide their surroundings. In reality, the Smart Audio concept can be used in a noisy bar, for example, where you want to concentrate on the TV despite loud background noise. This is just one of the many uses that Facebook addresses in its Deep Dive.
The possibilities of current audio research on Facebook are immense. The development lab believes that its focus on the immersive sound experience could change the way people communicate for all users, everywhere, and may even be partially incorporated into hearing science to enable the next generation of hearing aids.
Facebook Reality Labs sees its focus as helping people and making their lives the way they want them to be.
Post picture: Facebook
