CEVA Establishes Partnership with DARPA for Technology Innovation

CEVA announced an open licensing agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to accelerate technology innovation for DARPA programs. The commercial partnership, as part of the DARPA Toolbox initiative, establishes an access framework under which DARPA organizations can access all of CEVA’s commercially available IPs, tools and support to expedite their programs. This provides DARPA researchers with access to CEVA’s portfolio of wireless connectivity and smart sensing IPs.

During the annual Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital 2020, Qualcomm introduced its latest flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform, which will set the benchmark for flagship Android smartphones in 2021. This new platform packs industry-leading mobile innovations in 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), gaming, and camera technologies, while offering all the processing and connectivity power to enable next-generation immersive audio experiences, including support for Bluetooth 5.2 with LE Audio features.

IFA 2020, in Berlin, Germany, was "the first major global fair for consumer and home electronics" to physically take place since the pandemic. This limited push to promote a trade show again, lead some major consumer electronics companies and brands to converge their announcements in the week from September 1-5, with showcases streamed to the world live from the Berlin exhibition grounds. Some announcements were relevant to the audio industry and included the Qualcomm press conference, which used the opportunity to launch its latest Adaptive ANC platform, an important step towards smart true wireless earbuds.

Elk, the Swedish company behind the Elk Audio Operating System for embedded audio products, now announced a new real-time remote music creation and performance platform with its Aloha by Elk service. The platform allows musicians to play, teach and collaborate together live and in sync from different locations. According to Elk, in order to avoid any latency, the new Aloha collaboration service runs on high-speed Internet and over 5G networks "transforming music creation and performance today with a clear path to the future."

The 2020 edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) will take place again in Barcelona, even with all the political instability in the region, with no Uber service, and with all the geo-political pressures against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which is a major sponsor of the event. Indifferent to all this, MWC Barcelona 2020 will once again allow a unique perspective on the future of advanced audio applications, smart speakers, voice recognition and, obviously, true wireless earbuds.

Promoted every year by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), CES is certainly the largest and most influential consumer technology show in the world, increasingly the place where trends are revealed for the rest of the year, and where both the largest brands and the most promising start-ups get a vital boost to their marketing. Increasingly, the CES Show is also a vibrant market for technology vendors and suppliers and this year, from January 7-10, the #CES2020 promises to be a defining moment for the audio industry.

For the second year, IFA (The International Funkausstellung) will take place in two fully occupied exhibition areas: the entire Berlin Exhibition Grounds as well as IFA Global Markets (for trade visitors only) at Station Berlin on Gleisdreieck. Europe's giant trade show for Consumer and Home Electronics will again underline the event’s unique global standing as a driving force for growth and innovation, and there's plenty of new exhibits and events.

Futuresource Consulting has recently published its Hearables Market Report, reviewing the market size, competitive landscape, technology drivers and future trends in this new product category. Simon Forrest, Principal Technology Analyst at Futuresource discusses new monetization opportunities in the untethered hearable segment and those resulting from the new “over the counter” hearing aid category, opening up the sector to many new entrants not least the mainstream headphones companies.

MWC 2019 highlighted key areas where the audio industry should focus and from where it could gain it's most important benefits. A trade show vibrant in the presentation of audio technologies for voice interface solutions, smart and connected home and personal devices. I would never have dreamed that one day a trade show such as the Mobile World Congress would be part of my annual agenda. But now, traveling to Barcelona in February became an essential part of my duties for audioXpress every year.

At MWC19, Dirac Research announced the debut of its latest version of Dirac 3D Audio for mobile devices, headphones and VR/AR headsets. Using patent-pending Dynamic HRTFs (head-related transfer functions), Dirac 3D Audio enables positional audio reproduction with one degree of resolution in all three dimensions, and offers an unparalleled level of 360-degree audio immersion on mobile devices, ideal for on-the-go gaming and videos.