A smartphone provides a voice of a person during a telephone call to a user of the smartphone in binaural sound. The smartphone stores HRTFs of the user, and a digital signal processor (DSP) processes the voice of the person with the HRTFs so the voice of the person externally localizes in the binaural sound at a sound localization point (SLP) that is in empty space at least one meter away from a head of the user. The smartphone displays an AR image at the SLP during the telephone call.

Headphones provide binaural sound to a user wearing the headphones. The headphones store HRTFs of the user and include head tracking and a digital signal processor (DSP). The DSP processes sound into binaural sound that externally localizes to a sound localization point (SLP) at least one meter away from a head of the user. The headphones receive head gestures from the user.

Methods and apparatus include headphones that measure an interaural time difference (ITD) and sound impulse responses to determine user-specific head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) for a listener. The headphones include head tracking, and sound is adjusted so that a location of a source of the sound continues to originate from a sound localization point (SLP) in empty space that is at least one meter away from the head of the listener while the head orientations of the listener change with respect to the SLP.

A smartphone provides a voice of a person during a telephone call to a user of the smartphone in binaural sound. The smartphone stores HRTFs of the user, and a digital signal processor (DSP) processes the voice of the person with the HRTFs so the voice of the person externally localizes in the binaural sound at a sound localization point (SLP) that is in empty space one meter away from a head of the user.

Headphones provide a voice of a person as binaural sound during a telephone call with a user wearing the headphones. The headphones store HRTFs of the user, and a digital signal processor (DSP) processes the voice of the person with the HRTFs so the voice of the person externally localizes as binaural sound at a sound localization point (SLP) that is in empty space at least one meter away from a head of the user. The headphones track head movements of the user and select the HRTFs based on the head movements during the telephone call.

A noise eliminating device including: an acoustic sensor array including a first acoustic sensor at a vertex forming a vertex angle of an isosceles triangle, and second and third acoustic sensors at the other vertexes of the isosceles triangle, the first sensor being arranged on a bisector between two boundaries between a direction range in which a target sound source can exist and a direction range in which a noise source can exist; and the second and third sensors being arranged so that the boundaries coincide with a direction of a perpendicular bisector of a line segment connecting the first and second sensors, and a direction of a perpendicular bisector of a line segment connecting the first and third sensors; and a processor to use signals output from the sensors to output a signal obtained by enhancing sound from the target sound source and eliminating noise from the noise source.

Devices and methods for howling suppression. One method includes receiving, via a microphone, an acoustic signal from a communication device operating in an acoustic field with the microphone. The method includes determining a reflection pattern for the acoustic field based on the acoustic signal, and determining an acoustic characteristic for the acoustic field based on the reflection pattern. The method includes determining, based on the acoustic characteristic, a plurality of howling zones for the acoustic field, each zone defined by first and second proximity thresholds. The method includes, for each of the howling zones, determining an attenuation level for the zone based on the proximity thresholds and the acoustic characteristic. The method includes determining a distance between the microphone and the communication device, selecting one of the howling zones based on the distance, and adjusting a volume of a loudspeaker based on the attenuation level for the selected howling zone.

Embodiments may find applications to ambient noise attenuation in cell phones, for example, where a second microphone is placed at a distance from the voice microphone so that ambient noise is present at both the voice microphone and the second microphone, but where the user's voice is primarily picked up at the voice microphone. Frequency domain filtering is employed on the voice signal, so that those frequency components representing mainly ambient noise are de-emphasized relative to the other frequency components. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

An audio framework for acoustic feedback suppression. One example portable communication device includes a microphone, a loudspeaker, and an electronic processor. The electronic processor receives an acoustic signal, including an audible component and an ultrasonic component, from the microphone. The electronic processor splits the acoustic signal into a first stream and a second stream identical to the first stream. The electronic processor is removes the ultrasonic component from the first stream to generate a filtered audio stream, and passes the filtered audio stream to a sound server. The electronic processor removes the audible component from the second stream to generate a received ultrasonic stream, and compares the received ultrasonic stream to a transmit ultrasonic stream to determine an acoustic distance. The electronic processor determines an attenuation level based on the acoustic distance, and adjusts an audio component of the portable communication device based on the attenuation level.

A method, device, a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for controlling a voice signal by an electronic device including a first microphone, a second microphone, a communication interface, and a processor are provided. The method includes acquiring a first voice signal by using the first microphone; acquiring a second voice signal by using the second microphone; confirming a telephone call mode for performing, by the electronic device, a telephone call with an external electronic device; adjusting a first output attribute corresponding to the first voice signal or a second output attribute corresponding to the second voice signal, based on the telephone call mode; and transmitting the adjusted first voice signal or the adjusted second voice signal to the external electronic device by using the communication interface.