At present we have active projects in:

Spatial Hearing for Hearing Aids
The development of a spatial hearing aid algorithm for the Hearing Aid industry.

Our common experience of human interactions is that they almost always involve discussions between a number of people where talkers interrupt and talk over each other in the course of a conversation. Even with the most advanced hearing aids currently available, the hearing impaired person finds that they are still unable to effectively participate in such conversations. This is a fundamental failing of current hearing aids as hearing impaired listeners expect that their hearing aid will help in what is an essential part of everyday life. In contrast to existing hearing aids, VAST Audio’s spatial hearing aid technology allows unrivalled segregation of speech in complex acoustic environments. This affords a significant leap forward in speech intelligibility for the hearing impaired listener by addressing the problem at its perceptual basis.

3D audio codec for VOiP clients
The development of a 3D audio codec for VOiP clients.

For anyone who has used the emerging VOiP software to talk across the world or across the city it represents an exciting innovation and potentially will transform the way that we communicate. However the experience to date is not always the quality we expect and communication is not seamless. We are applying our 3D Audio technologies to generate the perception of positioning the talker or talkers involved in any conversation in virtual space, so a teleconference would have the people positioned around a virtual table, you can move people off the side if you want to concentrate on one talker. These types of innovations will lift the users expectations of the value of 3D Audio.

Head Related Transfer Functions
The provision of individualised Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFS) on a commercial scale

Not every ones ears are the same, how they perceive where sound comes from is related to their HRTFs, it has always been a significant challenge to audio engineers as to how they might provide set of generic ears so that individuals could fully immerse themselves in a sound field, take the best seat at the Opera House for example and experience the full 3D sound. We have patented technology that allows for individual HRTFs to be derived and set by the individual, this allows for individual playback of music, sounds etc and fully recreates the 3D audio for that person over headphones.

Transparent Headphone
The development of a Transparent Headphone that allows for the presentation of virtual auditory displays in the real world environment

These headphones sit inside the ear canal and using the latest wireless technology communicate to intelligent devices like PDAs, Phones, MP3 players etc. The earphones provide a mechanism for delivery of auditory information to the wearer in such a way that they are perceived to be part of the existing auditory scene. Personal assistants communicate time, meeting information while appearing to sit just behind and above the wearer so the information can be presented unobtrusively.