A method performed by a wearable audio output device worn by a user is provided for controlling external noise attenuated by wearable audio output device. A speech is detected from a user wearing the wearable audio output device, wherein the audio output device has active noise reduction turned on. It is determined, based on the detecting, that the user desires to speak to a subject in the vicinity of the user. In response to the determining, a level of noise reduction is reduced to enable the user to hear sounds external to the audio output device. It is determined that the user desires to speak to the subject by detecting at least one condition of a plurality of conditions.

A noise reduction apparatus includes: an input device to which an electric signal is input from an external device; a signal processing circuit configured to perform predetermined signal processing on the electric signal input to the input device and output a generated signal to an external device; a switch configured to change over to either one of a connected state in which the input device and the signal processing circuit are electrically connected to each other and a disconnected state in which the input device and the signal processing circuit are electrically disconnected to each other; and a noise processing circuit configured to subtract a noise signal output from the signal processing circuit when the switch is in the disconnected state from the signal output from the signal processing circuit when the switch is in the connected state, and output a subtraction result.

A baby monitor system with white noise filtering comprises a camera unit and a monitor unit, wherein the camera unit is predefined soothing sounds and play at least one of the predefined soothing sounds for baby; the camera unit records the mixture sound of baby, ambient noises and white noises and transforms the mixture sound to sound features, wherein the white noises at least include the soothing sounds and stationary noise; the recorded sound features are compared to local audio features of the predefined soothing sounds; if there are matching features between the recorded sound features and the local audio features, removing the matching features from the recorded sound features; the stationary noise features are extracted and removed from the recorded sound features; the camera unit outputs the recorded mixture sound without the white noise to the monitor unit.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a vehicle privacy system (700), comprising audio input means (130, 190, 720) for receiving an external audio signal (725) indicative of audio from within a vehicle (900), audio source means (710, 910) for receiving the external audio signal (725) and determining an output audio signal (735) in dependence thereon for reducing an external intelligibility of speech within the vehicle (900), and audio output means (145, 146, 147, 730, 920) for receiving the output audio signal (735) and outputting audio (925) corresponding thereto to be at least partly audible external to the vehicle (900).

A room monitoring System is provided, comprising: a speaker; a microphone; and a digital signal processor (DSP) adapted to generate and transmit a first audio test signal to the speaker to be broadcast in the room, wherein the first audio test signal comprises a power spectral density that is inversely proportional to its frequency, and wherein the transmitted first audio test signal is reflected within the room, and wherein the DSP is further adapted to process the reflected broadcast first audio test signal received by the microphone, generate and save a frequency-amplitude analysis of the received first audio test signal as an initial reference curve, periodically test the room in a substantially similar manner to generate one or more additional reference curves, and compare the one or more additional reference curves to determine whether they are within a known, predetermined tolerance of the initial reference curve.

The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and a method for cancelling echo by an electronic device. Here, a method of operating an electronic device includes converting a first digital signal related to a sound to be output through a plurality of speakers into a first analog signal; outputting the converted first analog signal as a sound using at least a part of the plurality of speakers; filtering at least a part of the converted first analog signal and/or the output sound and then generating a second analog signal; and outputting the second analog signal as another sound using at least another part of the plurality of speakers.

An audio processing system is described including an amplifier configured to receive a first audio signal and output the first audio signal to an acoustic transducer comprising a voice coil. A sensor detects a signal corresponding to voice coil current of the acoustic transducer. A controller compares the first audio signal and the detected signal and determines a second audio signal from the comparison. The second audio signal is representative of an external sound source detected via the acoustic transducer. The audio processing system may simultaneously output the first audio signal and receive the second audio signal using the same acoustic transducer.

A voice signal processing method includes acquiring a near-end noise signal and a near-end voice signal by using at least one microphone, acquiring a far-end voice signal according to an incoming call, determining a noise control parameter and a voice signal change parameter based on at least one of information about the near-end voice signal, information about the near-end noise signal, or information about the far-end voice signal, generating an anti-phase signal of the near-end noise signal based on the noise control parameter, changing the far-end voice signal to improve articulation of the far-end voice signal based on information related to at least one of the voice signal change parameter, the near-end noise signal, or the anti-phase signal, and outputting the anti-phase signal and the changed far-end voice signal.

Provided is a control apparatus that includes a tactile control section and an audio control section. The tactile control section generates, on the basis of a tactile signal for tactile presentation, a tactile control signal for driving a tactile presentation unit. The audio control section generates, on the basis of a first audio signal and a second audio signal, an audio control signal for driving an audio output unit, the second audio signal containing sound components that are in an opposite phase to sound generated on the basis of the tactile signal and generated from the tactile presentation unit.

A method of performing cancellation for acoustic or electromagnetic measurement or communications includes receiving an output signal to be applied to a transmit transducer, introducing a delay to the output signal to produce a delayed output signal, applying the delayed output signal to the transmit transducer, receiving an input signal from a receiving transducer, wherein the input signal comprises at least a portion of the delayed output signal, and iteratively solving a Kalman filter problem as a function of the input signal, the output signal, and the delay to produce a first filtered input signal.