Essential Updates on Headphones, TWS, Hearables, Voice and More in audioXpress April 2020

The April 2020 edition of audioXpress is now available and features two essential Market Updates, one focusing on the industry transition to active headphone and earphone designs, and another on how to leverage the latest voice capture and processing technologies. The issue also explains how to evaluate listening effort, and Stuart Yaniger puts the Linear Audio Autoranger Mk II Interface to the test, while Ed Simon writes about AC Power Rectification. Another issue to read and use as reference.

Lattice Semiconductor announced its new low power FPGA platform, Lattice Nexus. The platform is architected to deliver power-efficient performance that will benefit developers of a wide range of applications, including voice processing and edge computing for connected devices. Built with innovations at every level of design, from solutions, to architecture, to circuit, the new Lattice Nexus FPGAs deliver higher system performance at significantly reduced power consumption.

Wow! What a lineup for this year's Audio Collaborative conference! Promoted every year by market research firm Futuresource Consulting, Audio Collaborative is a premier must attend event for consumer audio, pro audio and entertainment industry professionals. This year dedicated to Content & Technology Evolution Spurring Innovation, Futuresource's Audio Collaborative 2019 event has an amazing lineup of speakers and activities confirmed. Plan to attend the sixth edition, taking place in London, November 7, 2019.

Dusun Electron demonstrated its far-field voice control solution at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, and the company now confirmed its availability. This new voice control solution enables voice-activated devices to clearly capture voice commands from a distance or even in noisy environments for a hands-free interactive experience. The Dusun platform features multi-microphone interfaces, an ARM-based processor, and supports voice front-end processing algorithms such as AEC, AGC, NR, beamforming, etc.

QuickLogic Corporation announced it has partnered with Shenzhen Horn Audio Co., Ltd. to deliver a Bluetooth-enabled headset reference design supporting Amazon Alexa Voice Services (AVS) for both Apple and Android smartphones and tablets. Based on QuickLogic's EOS S3 Voice and Sensor Processing Platform, the new reference design features advanced always-on and always-listening voice processing capabilities with the industry's lowest power consumption.

Wireless communications chipset specialist, DSP Group and LISNR, a global provider of data-over-audio technology, developed the Audio-D, a solution that supports data-over-audio communication for any device with a speaker or microphone. This solution, based on DSP Group’s DBMD4 Voice SoC and LISNR technology, overcomes device-to-device hardware restraints regarding RF protocols. This enables always-on communication and high level of interoperability while consuming low power.