Frontier Introduces Multi-Ecosystem Voice Control to Smart Speakers

Frontier Smart Technologies, a pioneer in development platforms for wireless audio, digital radio and voice recognition solutions, announced a significant enhancement to its Minuet Smart Audio platform, which will be the first in the world to allow smart speakers, soundbars and AVRs to be simultaneously controlled by voice-enabled devices from Google, Amazon and Apple, helping manufacturers to differentiate, and not have to compete head on with 1st party devices.

After reviewing my notes from CES 2018 and the announcements from NXP, I decided it was fitting to share some parts of my interview with Martyn Humphries, vice president and general manager Media IoT and i.MX Applications Processors at NXP (and former Freescale executive). Basically, we discussed the environment that lead NXP to create its i.MX 8M single-chip media application processors, currently the most advanced integrated platform available for audio manufacturers.

XMOS announced the launch of its xCORE Array Microphone aggregation solution for voice user interfaces (VUI) in smart home applications. With the ability to aggregate up to 32 MEMS microphones, and offering USB and I2S backhaul, XMOS enables a new class of array microphones to be created. Applications include smart TVs, soundbars, virtual digital assistants (VDAs) and smart home automation.