In a method for direction-dependent noise rejection for a hearing system, first and second input transducers are used to generate an interference signal and a target signal from a sound from the surroundings. The interference signal and/or the target signal are referenced to a useful signal source arranged in a target direction. The target signal is generated with a target directivity pattern. For each of a first plurality of frequency bands, an acoustic characteristic of the target signal is compared with a corresponding acoustic characteristic of the interference signal, and the comparison is used to ascertain a provisional weighting factor. The provisional weighting factor is used to form for the frequency band a weighting factor for the respective frequency bands. An input signal to be processed is weighted on a frequency-band-by-frequency-band basis using the respective weighting factor, and the weighted input signal is used to generate an output signal.

A wearable device can provide an audio module that is operable to provide audio output from a distance away from the ears of the user. For example, the wearable device can be worn on clothing of the user and direct audio waves to the ears of the user. Such audio waves can be focused by a parametric array of speakers that limit audibility by others. Thus, the privacy of the audio directed to the user can be maintained without requiring the user to wear audio headsets on, over, or in the ears of the user. The wearable device can further include microphones and/or connections to other devices that facilitate calibration of the audio module of the wearable device. The wearable device can further include user sensors that are configured to detect, measure, and/or track one or more properties of the user.

A method (800) to detect a hotword in a spoken utterance (120) includes receiving a sequence of input frames (210) characterizing streaming multi-channel audio (118). Each channel (119) of the streaming multi-channel audio includes respective audio features (510) captured by a separate dedicated microphone (107). For each input frame, the method includes processing, using a three-dimensional (3D) single value decomposition filter (SVDF) input layer (302) of a memorized neural network (300), the respective audio features of each channel in parallel and generating a corresponding multi-channel audio feature representation (420) based on a concatenation of the respective audio features (344). The method also includes generating, using sequentially-stacked SVDF layers (350), a probability score (360) indicating a presence of a hotword in the audio. The method also includes determining whether the probability score satisfies a threshold and, when satisfied, initiating a wake-up process on a user device (102).

Processing sound signals acquired by a microphone, for example an ambisonic type, to locate a sound source in a space including at least one wall. A time-frequency transform is applied to the acquired signals, and, from the acquired signals, a velocity vector, complex with real and imaginary parts, is expressed in the frequency domain, wherein the velocity vector characterizes a composition between: a first acoustic path, direct between the source and the microphone, represented by a first vector; and a second acoustic path resulting from a reflection on the wall and represented by a second vector. The second path has a first delay with respect to the direct path. Depending on the first delay and the first and second vectors, a parameter is determined from among a direction of the direct path, a distance from the source to the microphone, and a distance from the source to said wall.

A method and a device for controlling the propagation of acoustic waves in the vicinity of a wall, the method and device implementing a master device for controlling a set Nc of cells primarily made up of a speaker, a set of Nm microphones connected to the speaker, and a control unit, by means of control laws that determine the intensity of the electrical signal that must be sent to each speaker so as to obtain a target determined generalized acoustic impedance for each speaker, such that a fraction of the acoustic waves is absorbed by the membrane of each speaker.

A sound crosstalk suppression device includes: a speaker analysis unit configured to analyze a speaker situation in a closed space based on voice signals respectively collected by a plurality of microphones arranged in the closed space; a filter update unit that includes a filter configured to generate a suppression signal of a crosstalk component included in a voice signal of a main speaker, that is configured to update a parameter of the filter, and that is configured to store the updated parameter in a memory; a reset unit configured to reset the parameter of the filter in a case where it is determined that an analysis result of the speaker situation is switched; and a crosstalk suppression unit configured to suppress a crosstalk component by using a suppression signal.

Earpieces and methods for acute sound detection and reproduction are provided. A method can include measuring an external ambient sound level (xASL), monitoring a change in the xASL for detecting an acute sound, estimating a proximity of the acute sound, and upon detecting the acute sound and its proximity, reproducing the acute sound within an ear canal, where the ear canal is at least partially occluded by an earpiece. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Examples of the disclosure relate to apparatus, methods and computer programs for enabling audio zooming. The apparatus can include circuitry configured for determining, for an audio signal, if sound energy in at least one first direction is different to sound energy in at least one second direction by at least a threshold amount. The circuitry may also be configured for controlling an amount of headroom provided based on whether or not sound energy in at least one first direction is different to the sound energy in at least one second direction by at least a threshold amount.

A system for obtaining content for display to a user of a head-mountable display device, HMD, the system comprising one or more audio detection units operable to capture audio in the environment of the user, a motion prediction unit operable to predict motion of the HMD in dependence upon the captured audio, and a content obtaining unit operable to obtain content for display in dependence upon the predicted motion of the HMD.

A device includes a memory configured to store instructions and one or more processors configured to execute the instructions. The one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to receive audio data including a first audio frame corresponding to a first output of a first microphone and a second audio frame corresponding to a second output of a second microphone. The one or more processors are also configured to execute the instructions to provide the audio data to a first noise-suppression network and a second noise-suppression network. The first noise-suppression network is configured to generate a first noise-suppressed audio frame and the second noise-suppression network is configured to generate a second noise-suppressed audio frame. The one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to provide the noise-suppressed audio frames to an attention-pooling network. The attention-pooling network is configured to generate an output noise-suppressed audio frame.