Second Apple patent on virtual positioning of audio hints at AR on MacBooks
Apple has been granted a patent for AR headphones, which enable you to hear where people are located within a room even when they are not physically present.
The patent positions augmented reality headphones as a business tool, ideal for listening to conference calls, but it’s not hard to imagine entertainment-based uses for the same tech.
The patent granted today, and spotted by Patently Apple, achieves the same thing with MacBook speakers.
A virtual acoustic system is one that gives the user the illusion that sound is emanating from elsewhere in an indoor or outdoor space than directly from a loudspeaker (e.g., one that is placed in a room, one that is built into a laptop computer, etc).
Audio signal processing for virtual acoustics can greatly enhance a movie, a sports even, a videogame or other screen viewing experience, adding to the feeling of “being there”.
It works by canceling crosstalk, which is a similar technique to noise-cancellation. At its simplest, Apple employs noise-cancellation on one side of the MacBook so that the sound appears to come from the other side.
But the patent describes supplementing this with a similar approach to the HomePod, where microphones pick up reflected sound and the speaker output can then be adjusted to suit the acoustic characteristics of the room. In this case, adjustments are made so that the combination of direct and reflected sound can be used to fool us into thinking the sound originates from a particular position off to one side.
See the full story here: https://9to5mac.com/2019/12/31/ar-on-macbooks/