Daily Archives: June 25, 2017

June 25, 2017 Screenshot of a visual rendering model of Notre Dame Cathedral, created based on plans, laser scan data and site visits. Credit: Ghost Orchestra Project/LIMSI

Paris' Cathedral of Notre Dame has a ghost orchestra that is always performing, thanks to a sophisticated, multidisciplinary acoustics research project that will be presented during Acoustics '17 Boston, the third joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the European Acoustics Association being held June 25-29, in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the project, computer models use recordings from a live concert held at the cathedral and detailed room acoustic simulations to produce a novel type of audience experience: a virtual recreation of the live performance using spatial audio and virtual reality.

Researchers reproduced the recordings using computerized acoustical data and enhanced it with computer-generated virtual navigation3-D visualizations made with immersive architectural rendering that float the viewer through the complex acoustics of the acclaimed medieval gothic cathedral.

Combined, the multimodal sound and image footage of the ghost orchestra produce a spectral tour to the sounds of the 19th century opera "La Vierge"The Virginperformed live during the 2012-2013 concert season to celebrate the Cathedral's 850th anniversary.

Multimodal virtual reality integration is central to the project's significance, said Brian F.G. Katz, lead investigator and CNRS Research Director at the Institute Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Pierre and Marie Curie University, in Paris.

"3D-audio is the hot topic today in virtual reality (VR) that is currently a very active subject in both academic and industrial research," Katz said. "With the commercialization of affordable VR systemsthe cheapest allowing for VR on smartphonesspatial audio is rapidly immerging from the laboratory."

The next stage in spatial audio is personalized audio rendering that involves being able to adjust the rendering to match one's individual head and ear details.

"The importance of multimodal interactions, how visual and auditory cues balance in spatial perception, is key to VR and the sense of immersion, of being 'in' the VR world," Katz explained.

He envisions many applications emerging from the investigation.

"For me, spatial audio is a domain on the boundary of physical acoustics, psycho-acoustics, perception and cognition, and digital signal processing."

His work focuses on using each of the fields to learn more about the othersfrom virtual audio scenes exploring how visually impaired people understand and remember architectural spaces, to improving understanding of spatial audition, to refining virtual reality rendering capabilities.

Created in the context of the French funded research projects FUI-BiLi, (Binaural Listening and ANR-ECHO), the acoustical foundation of the project is a 45 channel close-mic recording of the live concert made by the Conservatoire de Paris combined with a detailed geometrical room acoustics computational model that was created and calibrated based on in situ measurements of reverberation and clarity parameters.

Next, the team will apply the methodology to other complex multimodal environments such as theatre simulations.

"Aside from the acoustics in this project, I think we definitely learned a lot about computer graphics and VR content production, which has opened up a lot more dialogue with those communities that we intend to pursue," Katz said.

Explore further: Concert hall acoustics influence the emotional impact of music

More information: For more information about the project: groupeaa.limsi.fr/projets:ghostorch

Aalto University researchers have found that the emotional impact experienced by music listeners depends on the concert hall's acoustics.

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have developed a method that allows accurate comparisons of concert hall acoustics. The leader of the research group, Associate professor Tapio Lokki, was presented with an International ...

Researchers at Aalborg University, in conjunction with Bang & Olufsen in Denmark, have developed a sound laboratory that can reproduce the acoustics of any environment from cars to concert halls. One goal is better design ...

From the sweeping sounds of strings to the full and hearty woodwinds, live orchestral performances have a way of enveloping listeners within musical compositions. But not all symphonies are created equalmuch of what determines ...

People who are visually impaired will often use a cane to feel out their surroundings. With training and practice, people can learn to use the pitch, loudness and timbre of echoes from the cane or other sounds to navigate ...

Aalto University researchers have found that music is perceived to have greater dynamic range in rectangular, shoebox shaped concert halls than in other types of halls.

Paris' Cathedral of Notre Dame has a ghost orchestra that is always performing, thanks to a sophisticated, multidisciplinary acoustics research project that will be presented during Acoustics '17 Boston, the third joint meeting ...

Microphones, from those in smartphones to hearing aids, are built specifically to hear the human voicehumans can't hear at levels higher than 20 kHz, and microphones max out at around 24 kHz, meaning that microphones only ...

Google said Friday it would stop scanning the contents of Gmail users' inboxes for ad targeting, moving to end a practice that has fueled privacy concerns since the free email service was launched.

Like driving a car despite a glowing check-engine light, large buildings often chug along without maintenance being performed on the building controls designed to keep them running smoothly.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas are getting more out of the sweat they've put into their work on a wearable diagnostic tool that measures three diabetes-related compounds in microscopic amounts of perspiration.

Researchers at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a novel design approach for exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs that incorporates direct feedback from the human body. The findings were ...

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Seeing with your ears: Novel acoustics project aims to improve virtual reality, explore ear shape effects on 3-D sound - Phys.Org

I was speaking with my friend Melissa Amling that other day who was telling me about her virtual reality concept for a new childrens book. It is a very interesting idea to bring children into the world of the book so they could fully experience and become a part of the story. She then mentioned the newest craze, augmented reality. Augmented reality is using glasses to reveal graphics and audio as well as enhancements to our senses, into the actual world around us.

Melissa said augmented reality allows us to see things that are not there and to experience them as real. I thought perhaps that Pokmon GO was a type of augmented reality, but to the experts that does not take it far enough. Scientific American wrote a great article explaining augmented and mixed reality. Where Pokmon GO could only be viewed through a phone and was not immersive, augmented reality merges computer produced items into our reality seamlessly creating a new, enhanced reality. I wrote recently about how our brain can be influenced to see things that are not really there and now it seems this technology is making the most of our easily manipulated brains.

by Matthew Henry

To see things that are not there and to experience them as real. How often does this play out in our lives? How often does a fear consume us and suddenly cover our reality with negativity? How often do we take someones opinion and make it into a truth? How often do we want to believe something is real so we make it into a fact in our own minds? How often do we color everything we see and experience with our own bias and suppositions?

We now live in a world of alternative facts. We see things as we want to see them. We have a narrow view of how things should be and we try to interpret everything we see according to our beliefs and understanding. What happens is we are pained and stressed when the actual reality does not meet our expectations and/or we alienate others because they can not see things through our filters. What we need is to release our beliefs, to release our desire to control, release our fear of reality, and embrace what truly is. Mindfulness can help us get there.

Mindfulness teaches us to release our bias and our filters allowing us to see things as they truly are. Through mindfulness we can experience things as they are without our beliefs and expectations. Mindfulness releases our judgments helping us gain a true view and acceptance of reality. When we are mindful, we are in the present moment. We are not trying to relive our past or feed our fears thereby coloring the present. When we can be truly and completely in the moment we are empowered by seeing things as they actually are. It is in this state that we find peace and clear actions.

You can learn more about mindfulness in this article.

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Has Virtual Reality Become Your Reality? - HuffPost

Like many emerging technologies, virtual reality (VR) is a nascent industry, that is long on promise and short on mass-market products. Only a handful of companies currently ship VR products, and many of those products still fall short of their much hyped, game-changing potential.

However, as plenty of past tech trends have demonstrated, investors who are patient enough to allow this trend to develop could ride this wave to ample profits. Keeping that in mind, let's review why shares of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Sony (NYSE:SNE), and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) each make for interesting potential investments in this still-blossoming tech market.

The world's largest social-media network has moved aggressively to buy up many next-gen communications companies over the past five years. In doing so, it has largely focused on two core areas: mobile messaging platforms and virtual reality.

Facebook shelled out $2 billion in cash and stock to buy VR hardware and software start-up Oculus in March 2014. The much-discussed VR rig then went on sale in the U.S. last year.

Though technologically impressive, the Oculus -- and other virtual reality rigs like it -- have a number of headwinds that many think it will need to overcome before becoming a truly mass-market phenomenon. This chiefly includes its high sticker price of $599 and its reliance on running from PCs with high-end graphics capabilities. If the device can overcome its pricing and compatibility issues, Oculus could take off.

Image Source: Getty Images.

Sony joins Facebook as one of the leading manufacturers of VR headsets with the PlayStation VR, which it launched last October. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sony has pursued a similar pricing strategy in relation to its VR headset as it has done with its highly popular PlayStation consoles.

Sony chiefly competes with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and its Xbox franchise in the console-gaming market. Though they largely vie for the same customers, Microsoft has historically gravitated toward a slightly higher pricing strategy compared to Sony.

As just the latest example, Microsoft recently garnered criticism when it announced it planned to price its forthcoming Xbox One X console at $499, $100 higher than Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro console. Similarly, Sony has chosen to undercut Facebook's price for the Oculus, charging $499 for a bundle that includes the PlayStation VR headset and controllers.

However, like Facebook and Samsung, commercial success has been slow to come by for Sony's PlayStation VR. Recent figures from research firm IDC claimed Sony shipped 429,000 PlayStation VR headsets during the first quarter of the year. This represents nice progress for the Japanese electronics giant, but it also reiterates that VR still has a long way to go before becoming a true mass-market medium.

I wanted to highlight a potential component play as the final piece of this discussion, and though it isn't as clear-cut as the other names on this list, chipmaker AMD certainly is worth considering. The company has two potential points of exposure to this end, so let's quickly examine them both.

The first opportunity for the company lies in VR-enabled PCs. One of the key pain points in VR gaming is its annoyingly high component costs.

As previously mentioned, VR rigs like Facebook's Oculus rely on VR-optimized personal computers to handle the bulk of the image-processing workload. This means consumers must own two fairly expensive pieces of hardware in order to get a truly satisfactory VR experience. To help lighten the cost, AMD's VR-quality Radeon chips start at $199 and have been cited by PC industry publications as an ideal way for enthusiasts to reduce the cost burden relative to more traditional (and expensive) image-processing chips, like those manufactured by NVIDIA.

A second, more long-term potential growth catalyst is that AMD could eventually provide processors for stand-alone VR rigs. AMD's semi-custom chips already power the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the gaming industry's most important consoles. As such, it certainly seems plausible that AMD would jump at any opportunity to provide the combined CPU and GPU technology for VR headsets should the opportunity arise.

Of course, this involves a little projection on my part, but AMD's experience in VR graphics chips and ongoing supplier relationships with gaming leaders makes this an interesting option for prospective investors to consider.

Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Andrew Tonner has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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3 Top Virtual Reality Stocks to Buy Now -- The Motley Fool - Motley Fool