Apple patents adaptive volume controls based on environment, not quality of your music
By Ross Miller 
posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:07PM
posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:07PM
[Via Electronista]
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Quick and easy way to get deaf!
Awesome!! I want in!
Woot
Anyone else notice how the reflection of that iPhone doesn't match what's on the screen at all? Is it wrong that I immediately noticed that?
lol! I noticed that too.... Nice photoshop there guys! :P
Yeah nerdtalker, you probably are suffering from Reflectionitize, a disease that causes you to notice Photoshop mistakes way faster than normal beings, and sometimes much more differently than other people. Thank god it's only stage one of more to come. I suggest that you visit a doctor immediately, these things could turn out to become some serious troubles in the coming future.
A gift:
Whoops messed up with the link there. Here it is: http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=applepatentlp6.jpg
Next thing you know, they will be offering ear operations! It's just triple the price than a normal one, due to their usage of special Apple certified equipment!
How can they patent this? I swear my friend's Mazda 6 stereo has been doing this since 2004!
Yeah, my silly little Citroen Pluriel does this too. It sucks when your music suddenly gets quiet.
"Jack Hohnson"
"If I Had Eyes"
"Sleep Through the Static"
Whooooops.
"Jack Johnson"
There's no way this patent will hold up. Hell, a friend of mine had this same functionality in the factory stereo in his 1987 Mitsubishi Starion. When it got louder (because of road noise or the windows going down or whatever) in the cabin, the stereo got louder to compensate. Amazing thing was that it actually could tell the difference between noise and conversation -- for conversation, it slightly turned down the stereo volume. Was pretty awesome tech for 1987.
Yes, I love how the reflection doesn't match!!!! Haha!!!!
I want this. I love riding my scooter with my iPod, but the wind and other noise like that can really get bothersome when you can't change the volume. I've mastered the art of changing the songs while it sits in my pocket, but you can't very well change the volume without reaching in at a stop light.
http://www.ccrane.com/radios/radio-accessories/inline-volume-control.aspx
http://www.google.com/products?q=headphones+in+line+volume+control&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7RNWE&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Wow, a Microsoft employee did the exact same thing!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163341.aspx
I don't recommend listening to an iPod on your scooter or motorcycle. It's pretty dangerous, plus illegal in many jurisdictions. Besides, it's way cooler to find a novel way to cram a stereo in your scooter.
Stop the world, mr jennings did a recommendation.
So remember kids, get a zune not an ipod for listening in traffic.
Car audio systems have been doing this for years. When will Apple ever patent something that's acutally novel?
I was gonna comment that my Benz does exactly this. I don't see how this is new or patent worthy.
You guys are insane. Clearly Apple invented this and car manufacturers stole the technology and took it back in time with them. Only they failed because people didn't want it then. They want it now, and the iPhone will give it to them.
Xerox invented cars in 1984.
IF this patent is granted (it does not sound like it has been, yet), then you dills should be criticising the patent office, not Apple. It is the patent office's responsibility to check for prior art, not the applicant.
yea even my Dad's 2000 Chevy Blazer did that
The system in my 350 Z does this, and I find it very annoying. I turned it off.
I was just going to say the same thing - my old Malibu from 99 or 2000 did that. And I absolutely hated it, because it didn't do it very well...I had to adjust the volume so frequently that I almost stopped listening to the radio altogether.
Bring on the 3rd-party "get back control of your volume" patches.
I wonder what would happen if you put two of these computers next to each other...
Sounds a lot like the Logic 7 system (which I think sucks ass... but, yeah).
Hah, I, too, came here to comment on how annoying this system is in my car. Switched off first thing.
Don't cars just adjust the volume to your speed? My mini turns it up at about 35Km/h and then again at 70Km/h, but not "just" according to ambient noise.
Who cares about a fking filed patent? 2,000,000 are filed every year. Save yours and our time plse, and post on products who's availability is imminent.
This is engadget, and they have admittedly covered apple patents regularly for some time now. If that's news to you, sorry!
As someone else noted, car audio has been doing this forever (with respect to road noise and vehicle speed). I fail to see how this is novel. Plus, a majority of people dont walk around with their iPods outside a pocket/case. Placing a mic somewhere practical will be challenging.
dude.... ITS FRICKEN APPLE!! everything they do is important!! this patent is made by apple, hence this patent is important.... DUH
I'm surprised this has never been patented before... even I've thought of something like this a couple times while I walk onto the bus/subway and need to turn my volume up.
I'm wondering if sticking the mp3 player back into your jeans/coat/bag will muffle the sound going to the sound sensor, so it won't really adjust well?
You'll go deaf every time you fart!
@Pradster
HAHA!!! +1,000,000,000 win!
HAHAH awesome!!! @pradster that is the best comment i've read on engadget..ever!
kudos, brownie points, etc etc. :D
@Pradster
Ripper vs. SBD... Go deaf or die from the stench... what a choice.
Odd. This seems to have been covered by Patent US 7,302,062
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm&r=2&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&p=1&p=1&S1=(((adjust+AND+audio)+AND+output)+AND+ambient).ABTX.&OS=abst/(adjust+and+audio+and+output+and+ambient)&RS=ABST/(((adjust+AND+audio)+AND+output)+AND+ambient)
Leave the patent hunting to Chapel and Flashpoint. Boy those muffins are so good at it, I bet they get cc'd on every patent Apple files!
Yep, almost verbatim, and it's already been approved. Sorry, Apple, try again.
How about just adding in noise cancellation instead...
Photoshoped iPhone reflection = Fail.
or you could buy shure se110s and avoid hearing loss
The patent has illustrations of a laptop not an iPod so I think the idea here would be for your laptop to automatically adjust its volume. This would be handy I think and would prevent that annoying case where you come into work, fire up your browser and the YouTube video you left open starts blasting.
@Graham, plz read the granted patent again. The patent claims are of utmost importance and it bears no restrictions to a device (ie laptop, portable MP3 player, etc). It claimed the methods of detecting ambient audio conditions to auto adjust audio output. It actually went into more detail mechanisms that what is proposed by Apple's application
@ Pradster:
Ouch, you must have some explosive flatulence experiences.
Crap, i forgot to press the reply button
LOL, Brighten up sunshine!
My old 1993 BMW did this. How is this patent worthy?
Yay! Something else to waste battery, just what we needed. -_-
When I'm migrating from one noise environment to another, I rely on my ears as sensory input. When biking or driving, surrounding noise can tell me of oncoming cars, emergency situations, etc. When walking, sometimes I need to hear what's going on in a room, at least vaguely.
@Jon Nelson
No. Bad idea. If you're in a vehicle completely exposed to everything around you, you WANT that information from ambient noise.
I'm all for sound isolation when appropriate (flights and train rides, or even as a passenger in a car) but when you NEED to hear what's going on around you...I hope I can turn off such a feature.
I know I've seen this in cars before, I once had a suburban that did this.
yeah, cars have had this for years. In effect, anyway. Not sure if it's ambient noise or speed controlled though.
you guys say cars had this in earlier years, but i could of swore i heard another company was gonna do this. possibly another headphone or player, i have no idea, i don't even know where to begin to find or talk about it, but it seems familar.
My friend had this on the stock car stereo...with no way to turn it off. That was annoying as hell.
Outdoor public address systems have been doing it for years too.
I don't know who to say "screw you" to. Apple for pretending they invent everything, or the people who report on every effing patent application.
Why spare the "screw you's".
Let both Apple and Engadget have it.
They do deserve it for their self-aggrandization and adulation, respectively.
Well to Apple's mind this is a patent : you take a well mastered technology, invented and patented 5 to 10 years ago by companies with an actual R&D department, then you "patent" an "amazing" and "original" application of this technology onto an apple branded metal/plastic box.
Exemple :
-multitouch touchscreens
-accelerometer
-scrolling wheel
-blablabla
I had this years ago (even before the patent linked above) on an older Kyocera cell phone - for phone calls, not for music.
Wasn't something just like this put into a car a few years ago?
Here's something from 2001 that seems to be the same thing. I assume that by a 'recent' apple patent you mean less that 7 years old.
http://www.alango.com/contents/products/technologies/avq/papers/
And an excerpt from one of them:
"This paper addresses the problem of equalizing an audio signal in a constantly changing noisy environment. The purpose of equalization is to provide perceptually equal loudness of sound regardless of the environmental conditions. Based on an automatic estimation of noise level and its spectral content, selective amplification of frequencies masked by noise is performed. In the case of speech signals, the result is intelligible speech regardless of the surrounding noise. For musical signals, an improved comprehension of the musical content is achieved."
Actually, it seems like a more advanced version of the same thing - it increases the volume of certain frequencies based on the noise in those frequencies, rather than increasing the total volume based on the total noise.
I think this would be way too distracting. I wouldn't want my volume going up and down from places to places.
Besides, many people use noise isolating earphones these days. I'm hardly affected by outer noise with my Shures on.
I'd say this is just a typical Apple patent that never materializes to anything.
That's pretty cool.
O M G ...
Tell me please tell me it IS sarcasm ...
What's "pretty cool" in this ?
Yeeeah, no. Apple didn't invent that. Honestly, if you're walking around a construction area or near an especially busy street you should probably be paying attention to what's going on around you, not drowning it out with music. I didn't even realize the things had volume controls to begin with, though they came hard coded at max. What? Exactly. SMS (that's TXT'ing, for all you hipsters) wasn't invented because its convenient, it was invented because you're going to be deaf before you're 30.
What about headphones with higher impedance's?
I have to crank my Zune up more than normal (for earbuds) to get the same volume on my m-audio Q40's.
You need a dynamic system that compensate for different impedances? are you kidding? How "dynamically" do you change your headphones?
Oh right, this is an apple thread and I mentioned 'Zune'
My bad.
@Pretol:
Although I don't do this, I could certainly understand someone using earbuds when taking a jog, walk, or some other activity, but then when sitting at work at a computer all day it might be more comfortable (and helpful for blocking out noise) to use some nice pro-level, over-the-ear, closed-back headphones. The two different headphone types typically have noticeably different impedance levels, and therefore you have to crank up the volume more on the pro-level headphones (higher impedance).
So to answer your question (and spare you the need to exercise your imagination), I can imagine someone changing their headphones up to twice daily easily. I can also see that it would be nice if the system could compensate for the differences when there is an impedance change, but I don't think this is an effort that would pay off enough to make it worth it, as it's very reasonable to expect to set the volume once in a while.
Isn't this available on Nokia & Sony Ericsson Walkman series phones already? Comon Apple, innovate something instead of taking something already created & packing it in iCloth to iSale iIt
another name for "sound sensor" is "microphone".
Shuuuuussh !
Dude seriously, don't you know what's marketing and communication ? (well it's a triple-retro-recursive-acronym for Let's sell crap to those morons telling them it's amazing Hot brand new technology, by renaming a 100 years old microphone a "sound sensor" !)
"isn't that amazing ?" yes indeed !
And you sir, are Ruining all those efforts with you're sarcasm and you lack of enthusiasm for this masterpiece of the Apple's R&D..
Pfff a microphone !
How can they patent that shit...It's in cars everywhere already. The faster you go, the louder your car is, the louder your stereo plays. Am I right people...that's the same thing. Geez apple...what next make everyone chop down apple trees because YOU are apple.
Really? Is that a US and A only thing? Because we have three cars at home, and none of them do that. At least it's not noticeable.
@ Patriks7
Here in the UK, it's normally only aftermarket car stereo's that have this so it may not be a common thing in stock systems where you are.
We all ask for one thing.. Apple gives us something completely irrelevant to what WE NEED!!
Apple's inovation has reached warp speed. At this rate, by 2012, they'll have detailed schematics, patents pending and a DJ infused release of sliced bread.
Count me into the many, many people saying "my XYZ device has done this for ages". My TomTom 920T GPS has adjusted its audio volume around a user-preset level based on external noise levels for the last year. It does this not only for navigation, but also for MP3 music and other items, both on its internal speaker and on its FM radio transmitter.
This idea is not new, has been not only thought-of but well implemented before, and is not worthy of a patent.
Hey Apple, how about supporting replay gain, first. Thanks!
how unoriginal. wasn't this in one of sony's products???
It should be for the RINGTONES' volume!
I always wished my Nokias could automatically switch between the Loud, Normal, and Polite/Meeting profiles based on ambient sound. Nothing's worse than Avril Lavigne's «Girlfriend» blaring at level 5 in the office, except maybe missing an important call in the car because your phone is still in polite mode.
It is for the ringtone volume as well. Did anyone actually read the patent? It specifically mentions computer boot tones and ringtones.
Prior Art? My Jawbone headset does this. I'm sure lots of others do too.
FAKE
"Ever walk through a crowd with your headphones on, only to find your music drowned out by the uproar? "
No, its called noise canceling headphones.
No it's called iBuds (if you speak to an apple fanboy you HAVE to use the apple name, else you are denying the fact that the aforementioned item could have been invented/developed/brought to the World by someone else than Steve Jobs, which could result in his whole universe collapsing)
But yep that's pretty much the point of noise-cancelling headphones or "intras".
Apple just has a revolutionnary way of dealing with noise :
- PUT UP THE VOLUME !
- WHAT ?
- PUT UP THE VOLUME !!
"and ... BOOM !"
When you start walking, your phone in your pocket picks up the rustling from your jeans, and cranks the music?
I hope this feature's default is off - anyone with in ear headphones will be blasted when they get on the subway if they didn't know about it...
I am extremly bored!
Proof: This phone was playing "Sleep Through the Static" by Jack Johnson before it was photo-shopped. It took me 6.34 minutes to read the mirrored and upside down reflection.
Now what?
apple's patent troll on the move again, lol.
Wow another Apple first bit like this http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
one guy gives a very good insight into the mind of Apple customers! Enjoy
I was looking for something to drain my iPhone's battery faster while listening to music.
My car (Ford Focus) does this with the stereo already. As the car gets louder (higher rpm, more wind/road noise) the volume automatically increases. You can even customize the rate of increase based on amount of noise.
I created a similar app for Windows Mobile a few years back. I should still work on most smartphones, if not, I could probably rework it or release the source under GPL.
http://xymus.net/ava/files/ava.zip
the patent is for a laptop, but you put it on the screen of an iphone? what?
How the hell did they get a patent for this? I understand the patent quality is all downhill but automatic volume control (AVC) has been around in cellphones for eternity! AVC works on the speech side and if the microphone is sensing too much noise, the audio stream to the speaker gets a little bit of a gain applied to it (and vice-versa).
There is nothing worth patenting here!
Ever heard of ambient noise cancellation? Sounds like prior art to me!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control