Research & Technology
Audio technology has come a long way in a surprisingly short time, evolving from radio and television commercials into a whole new industry of interactive, highly sophisticated digital applications and synthetic soundscapes. In these episodes, we examine just how the market's continuing to change through guest interviews and discussions about the new technology that's leading the audio revolution, from cutting-edge voice conversion software and the online integration of sonic branding to scientific breakthroughs and the seismic cultural shifts that they can bring to the audio industry.
Voice Technology: Speaking Your Mind
Voice and sound interfaces are becoming an essential part of our daily lives. Whether they're smart speakers powered by voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, or smart cars, smart doorbells, and even smart refrigerators, our devices are listening to us, and we're interacting with them without ever having to look at a screen. The internet of things is being increasingly driven by sound, and these episodes feature interviews with technologists, developers, and industry leaders who help us take a closer look at the work going on behind the scenes to create a smooth and natural experience for the user.
Business Technology: Putting Sound to Work
The business world’s also adapting to the explosive growth of audio technology: when it comes to sonic branding and marketing, it really is a new world out there. We explore the shifting paradigms and new developments that sound technology has opened up, talking to business analysts and digital leaders who help us consider how early and strategic early adoption, and choosing the right technology platform for your brand, can help protect your data and create new opportunities.
The Architecture of Sound
Sound research isn’t just about inventing and improving the devices that create sound. It can also focus on the acoustics all around us, the natural and artificial soundscapes that we’re immersed in from one minute to the next. We also talk to researchers who are working to change the very backdrop of sound, from buildings constructed from the ground up with a specific resonance to hospitals that use new technology and design concepts to lower stress and help patients recover more quickly.
Keeping up with the science and technology behind audio branding can be a challenge, especially as new developments and discoveries seem to come each day. It’s a particularly exciting time for the sound industry, and these episodes offer a variety of stories and interviews to help you keep up with the latest research, and what it means for both the present and future of audio branding.
“And so many people don’t pay attention to the sound that they are exposing themselves to. And, like, whenever you go to, I want to say, a large restaurant, high action, high volume, and you have to yell at the person next to you, and you have to yell your order to the server. And […]
This is the third episode of a three-part series about sonic tactics, and it’s been quite a journey. So far, I’ve talked about how animals use sound in the wild, from spiders doing wasp impressions to sperm whales whose calls can be deadly at close range, and how people in the past have learned to […]
During my last episode about sonic tactics, I talked about the different audio strategies that animals have developed for hunting prey and escaping predators, whether they’re orcas using tail slaps to stun schools of fish or moths evading a bat’s sonar with their clicks. As it turns out, some of those strategies are surprisingly similar […]
Five years ago, the first stories broke about a mysterious syndrome affecting American and Canadian diplomats in Cuba. Each case began with the victim hearing inexplicable grating sounds that people around them couldn’t detect, which then developed into headaches, hearing loss, vertigo, and even brain damage. New cases began to appear in embassies all around […]
“We go through all these things and talk about all these problems with annoying sounds and how important it is for the bellows sounds to be informative. And all this just hearkens back to the point where the essential goal here of these so-called auditory ‘alarms’ isn’t to alarm, it’s to notify. And I think […]
“Persuading hospitals and manufacturers to adopt better alarms aside from the standard is to persuade them that this is important and that it’s cool to do so, and that this is what everybody is doing and it’s a selling point for you if you’re using better alarms or more safe alarms or your false alarm […]