All items in category Industry News
Qualcomm and Amazon Deepen Strategic Engagement with the Pre-Integration of Alexa Custom Assistant with Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platform
by Joao Martins

Qualcomm and Amazon Deepen Strategic Engagement with the Pre-Integration of Alexa Custom Assistant with Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platform

Qualcomm Technologies and Amazon announced new joint efforts to pre-integrate the Alexa Custom Assistant with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms - the new-generation of automotive-optimized SoCs from Qualcomm. This new system is designed to support automotive OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers to build customizable, in-vehicle intelligent assistants and is offered as an extension module to the Alexa Automotive Software Development Kit (SDK).
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True Wireless Stereo Earbuds Sales Grow 90% in 2020 as Chinese Vendors Surge
by audioXpress Staff

True Wireless Stereo Earbuds Sales Grow 90% in 2020 as Chinese Vendors Surge

According to a newly published series of reports from the Device Technologies (EDT) team at market research firm Strategy Analytics, total global Bluetooth headset sales have reached volumes over 300 million units in 2020. As a category, True Wireless Stereo (TWS) Bluetooth headset sales witnessed growth of nearly 90% in 2020. This level of growth originates from a large number of Chinese vendors challenging Apple's significant lead.
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Audinate Announces SDK for Dante Embedded Platform
by audioXpress Staff

Audinate Announces SDK for Dante Embedded Platform

Audinate, the developer of the industry-leading Dante AoIP networking technology, has announced the availability of a software development kit (SDK) for manufacturers of ARM-based audio products. This SDK lets manufacturers deploy Dante audio networking as on-chip software in their products, reducing costs and conserving on space while still delivering the same audio performance. This means that embedded computing platforms with a simple Ethernet connection can now be Dante-enabled.
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Creative and Technical Achievements in Audio, Music and Sound Celebrated at the 36th Annual NAMM TEC Awards
by audioXpress Staff

Creative and Technical Achievements in Audio, Music and Sound Celebrated at the 36th Annual NAMM TEC Awards

Winners of the NAMM Technical Excellence and Creativity (TEC Awards), honoring the best in professional audio and sound production, have been announced in a virtual event on the final day of NAMM’s Believe in Music week, a global online gathering to unify and support people who bring music to the world. Presented by NAMM on Believe TV, the annual event recognized the highest achievements in the pro audio and sound worlds of music making, live performances, video games, television and films.
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In-Car Voice Controls Must Be Context-Based to Offer Best User Experience Finds Strategy Analytics
by audioXpress Staff

In-Car Voice Controls Must Be Context-Based to Offer Best User Experience Finds Strategy Analytics

As voice controls are fast becoming a primary interaction modality of choice in-vehicle, Strategy Analytics identified that context is key in user experience. Automakers of all types have largely aligned on touchscreen and voice control as the primary modalities for infotainment HMI. While touch-and-voice-centric HMI has achieved a majority market penetration in all major markets, China in particular spearheads voice as the primary modality in many verticals.
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Native Instruments Receives Major Investment From Francisco Partners
by audioXpress Staff

Native Instruments Receives Major Investment From Francisco Partners

Native Instruments, EMH Partners, and Francisco Partners announced an agreement where the Berlin-based music creation company will sell the majority of its shares to leading technology-specialized investment firm, Francisco Partners. Both EMH Partners and the founding shareholders will remain involved with NI as significant minority shareholders. The agreement was described as necessary to support a new expansion strategy for Native Instruments.
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OSTF Labs vMic Contact Microphone Improves Voice Capture
by Joao Martins

OSTF Labs vMic Contact Microphone Improves Voice Capture

Leveraging the expertise of its co-founders, OSTF Labs is a highly regarded research organization in the field of intelligent electronic systems with successful product applications. Their latest announcement, vMic, is a noise-free surface vibration microphone that senses speaking vibrations through contact with the skin near the throat. The solution was promoted at the Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) at Eureka Park during CES 2021 as part of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups.
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Kakao Enterprise and DSP Concepts Raise the Bar for Voice Performance in Mini Hexa Smart Speaker
by Joao Martins

Kakao Enterprise and DSP Concepts Raise the Bar for Voice Performance in Mini Hexa Smart Speaker

DSP Concepts announced it partnered with South Korea's Kakao Enterprise to enable the voice user interface in its latest Mini Hexa smart speaker (KE-H200). The Mini Hexa is the company’s fourth smart device to be released and uses DSP Concepts’ TalkTo audio front end to eliminate unreferenced sound for far-field voice control in noisy and unpredictable environments. The result ensures flawless speech recognition regardless of external sound for an optimal user experience.
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The Audio Engineering Society Welcomes Jonathan Wyner as President
by audioXpress Staff

The Audio Engineering Society Welcomes Jonathan Wyner as President

Jonathan Wyner has started his term as President of the Audio Engineering Society beginning January 1, 2021. "Jonathan has proven his leadership and vision during his year on the AES Board of Directors as President-Elect," comments outgoing AES President Agnieszka Roginska. "The AES is in excellent hands for the coming year." Wyner’s experience includes 30-plus years as both an active AES member and as an audio technologist.
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Sensory Opens VoiceHub Online Portal Allowing Developers to Quickly Implement Voice Recognition to Any Project
by audioXpress Staff

Sensory Opens VoiceHub Online Portal Allowing Developers to Quickly Implement Voice Recognition to Any Project

Following demonstrations to the industry, Sensory announced the official release of VoiceHub; the fast, free and flexible online portal for creating and designing accurate natural language, voice user interfaces. With the official release of VoiceHub and the companion apps for Android and iOS, the company has integrated support for TrulyNatural, its large vocabulary speech recognition solution that runs on device with customizable natural language understanding (NLU) capabilities.
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