soundscape
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Grimes and Endel bring their AI-powered sleep sounds to Android
Last October, Endel announced that it had partnered with Grimes for a special ‘soundscape’ inside its music app, which is meant to help you focus, relax or fall asleep. The collaboration was called AI Lullaby and, as you might have guessed from the name, combined artificial intelligence with Grimes’ original music and vocals. The slumber sounds have now disappeared for iPhone users and, as promised, hopped over to Endel’s Android application.
Bose Frames work with Microsoft's navigation tech for the blind
When they came out last year, the Bose Frames were an interesting, albeit unfinished showcase of what a company could do by fusing together smartglasses and headphones. We didn't think Bose's experiment was a consistent success, but clearly the wearable had potential. Microsoft certainly thinks so.
The band X Ambassadors created a music video for the visually impaired
For people who are blind or visually impaired, listening to a music video is often just like listening to the track. The band X Ambassadors wants to change that. They've teamed up with Microsoft to create an "audio-only music video" that's meant to allow blind, low-vision and sighted fans to enjoy the single "Boom" in a new way.
LG's latest sound bars feature Dolby Atmos and Google Assistant
LG sells a lot of TVs, so if you're not into a full, eight-speaker home theater system, it wants to sell you a sound bar to go along with it. The problem is, sound bars are kind of boring, so with CES 2019, LG is trying to sex them up. For its three latest sound bars, it has integrated Google Assistant for voice control, offered Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support, teamed up with Meridian Audio for simulated multi-speaker sound and unveiled an all-new, more modern design.
Microsoft's navigation tech for the blind is now an app
Microsoft has been working on its 3D soundscape technology for years. In 2014 it developed a bone-conducting headset to help visually impaired people navigate around cities using audio cues, and now that technology is available in app form, allowing users to pinpoint their location and identify areas of interest using only their phones and a stereo headset.
The best soundbar
By Chris Heinonen and Dennis Burger This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. After conducting a thorough survey of Wirecutter readers and combining those insights with extensive research and testing, we think the Sonos Playbar is the right soundbar for most people. The Playbar sounds fantastic and it's easier to set up and operate than any other soundbar we've tested.
Embers of Caerus tours the green hell of Nupoanqa
Embers of Caerus just wrapped up a week focusing on the continent of Nupoanqa, and if you missed it, we have a few dev blogs along with a video so that you can cram before the test. Nupoanqa is a region covered in the "green hell" of a jungle and has a trio of indigenous factions for players to discover: the Onakawa, the Senoka, and the Benghi. One of the dev blogs discusses the inspiration behind each of these factions, while the remaining two deliver short stories if you want to get into the lore. While the following video eschews actual gameplay footage of Nupoanqa, it does contain four minutes of animated concept art set to the music and sounds of the area. Get a feel for Nupoanqa after the break -- it's quite relaxing. [Thanks to Dave for the tip!]
Peek inside Samsung's sound lab to see ringtones being born
Samsung's opened up about how the engineers in its sound lab build the default tones for your handset. Tasked with developing a "Sonic Branding," a ringtone that's as iconic and recognizable as Nokia's famous reworking of Gran Vals is to the Finnish handset maker. Research showed that most phones are answered within 10 seconds, so for Over The Horizon, the two-second is repeated and variated several different ways. Designing the soundscape for NatureUX also posed problems of its own. In order to create those aquatic noises, designers stirred a rubber bowl of water and scratched wet plates with toothpicks hundreds of times until the perfect tone was found. What was the leading cause of rejection? The enhanced sounds were a little too similar to that of a flushing toilet. Of course, while handset sound design is the team's most famous effort, it's also tasked with producing the audible signals from everything from Microwaves to Washing Machines -- so perhaps your next load of clean laundry will be heralded with a three-minute guitar solo.
Pepsi's 'Sound of Football' project lets visually impaired players see the pitch with their ears (video)
One one side of the field was a team of former pro soccer players. On the other, a squad of visually impaired amateurs. The two sides laced 'em up, stretched out their quads and went head to head in a scrimmage, though the matchup was a lot more even than you might expect. It's all part of something called the "Sound of Football" -- the latest experiment from the Pepsi Refresh Project. The idea was to level the playing field, so to speak, by forcing both teams to play a match using only their ears, and a pretty nifty tracking system. Created by Tracab, this system was comprised of 16 cameras covering the entire pitch (including two stereovision cameras placed at mid-field), and used jersey colors to distinguish the home team from the away team, and to identify the referees. This set up, which was deployed during the last World Cup, essentially tracked the position of each player in real-time. This information was then funneled into an iPhone attached to each player's headset, and converted into a surround-sound landscape, using an app created by a company called Society 46. Unique sounds were assigned to both the ball and the goal; turning your head in the direction of one goal would produce one sound, facing the ball would result in another. This allowed each player to get a better idea of his surroundings and of his spatial positioning, though, as many of the pros found out, it wasn't quite as easy as it looked. The designers of this system are now looking to use their technology in other, non-sports arenas, in the hopes of helping the blind and visually impaired "see" more of the world around them. Check out a pair of videos on the match and the technology behind it, after the break. [Thanks, Martin]
ArenaNet releases third Guild Wars 2 sound design dev diary
ArenaNet's third and final Guild Wars 2 sound design dev diary is live without a net on the company's official blog, and today's installment comes through with an interesting conclusion to the sonically inspired trilogy. The piece is clearly written by and for sound geeks, and we mean that in the nicest possible way (as some of the terminology left us scratching our heads). Lead sound designer Drew Cady and sound engineer Robert Gay are our guides to everything from voice processing, to mastering, to parallel processing. We're not sure what the heck any of that means either, but we're confident you'll get it if you go read the blog right now. If you're in a rush, the long and short of it is that ArenaNet is spending a lot of time, effort, and money on Guild Wars 2's sound design. Though gaming soundtracks are often drowned out by custom playlists and voice chat, Tyria's soundscape is shaping up to be one worth hearing.
New Darkfall video highlights environmental sounds
Asking a room full of MMORPG enthusiasts what the word Darkfall brings to mind isn't likely to net you many serene responses. The game and its associated tomfoolery certainly don't trigger tranquil thoughts or conjure idyllic fantasy scenes complete with beautiful deserts, atmospheric forests, and stoic mountain terrain. No, the sandbox title from Aventurine is most famous for its cutthroat FFA full-loot PvP implementation, which makes a new video designed to show off the game's stunning environmental soundscapes all the more curious. This isn't the first time Aventurine has experimented with environmental sounds, but it is the very latest iteration of how Agon is seen and heard. The clip runs for over five minutes and features a multitude of characters traversing many of the terrain types found in the huge game world. The trailer also highlights the upcoming tweaks that link Darkfall sounds to specific locations as well as the continuous randomization of environment sounds and 3-D emitter effects. Immerse yourself in the world of Agon after the cut, or head to the Darkfall Epic Blog to learn more.
The Daily Grind: How important are incidental sounds?
One of the things that many people have raised about Runes of Magic as a reason they won't play it is the lack of incidental sounds in the game. These are the noises that we take for granted in many other games; the noise of mining or gathering, hopping on your mount, running across the ground, the sounds of spells, swords clanging, armor ringing - even things as simple as doors opening and closing. While the Runes of Magic team has assured us that they are working on fleshing out all the sounds in the world, we were a bit surprised just how much we missed them in the first place. Most of us tend to play our own music, but realized we leave incidental noises on and starkly miss their presence. This morning, we thought we'd ask you - how important are incidental, background type noises to you? While you may not pay attention to them (and honestly, you're really not supposed to) do you think your gaming would be missing something if they weren't there? If you've played a game that didn't have them, did you also find you're surprised at how much you miss them? Or do you generally play your music and just turn off all sounds?
