MWC: Voice gets context aware

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, NXP Software has demonstrated the latest breakthroughs in speech enhancement and context sensing solutions.

NXP Software, a supplier of software algorithms to enhance the speech quality of mobile devices. To date more than 3 billion mobile devices feature one or more of the algorithms from the company’s Speech and Sensing solutions. This means that today over 50% of portable devices sold around the world sound better because of NXP Software developments.

As the main demonstration at MWC, NXP Software has created a Context Call concept application. Two key features being demonstrated will be voice location and context awareness:

· Voice location will enable smartphones to have better quality conference calls by beaming-in on call participants and eliminating distracting noise. This new algorithm is designed for handsets with two or more microphones.

· Context awareness will enable the device to determine whether the user is in an office, subway, car or street and then adapt its behavior accordingly by using LifeVibes AudioSense.

AudioSense is the natural extension of the company’s skills in signal processing and audio engineering, and the most reliable acoustic sensing solution on the market today. It is highly relevant for context-aware smart, wearable and IoT devices.

Edwin Zuidema, Marketing Director of NXP Software summarizes the benefits: “Calling hasn’t changed much in 120 years. Now our Speech and Sensing solutions can radically improve call quality for all smartphones, and enable contextual sensing for the next generation of wearable and connected appliances. In short: Smarter listening, better conversations!

The LifeVibes Speech and Sensing solutions are available on all the leading platforms, and on MWC excellent synergies between NXP hardware and software will be demonstrated:

· Loud Speaker Mode will be demonstrated in conjunction with the NXP Smart Amplifier chip, where LifeVibes Echo Cancellation allows operation at full loudness with complete echo suppression, while maintaining two-way conversations.

· On the NXP Sensor Hub, always-on context recognition will be demonstrated, showing how LifeVibes software is optimized for low-power hardware.

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