An intelligent microphone solution for group meetings

Microcone^® is an innovatively simple way to record and manage group conversations. Using just a single microphone array device, Microcone can record individuals within six different directions on six separate audio channels, so you won't need to purchase multiple microphones or spend time setting them up for your groups.

As well as providing a single, high-quality audio channel of the conversation, the Microcone provides a dedicated audio channel for each of the six recording directions. This audio is also complemented with information about when and where voice activity occurs in each region.

The ability to produce multiple directional audio streams together with speech activity and location information sets the Microcone apart from standard microphone devices, with potential benefits including improved group voice transcription, rich surround sound reproduction of a conversation, and the possibility to steer video cameras towards the active speaker.

How it Works: Microphone Array Technology

Microcone^® achieves this using innovative intellectual property based on microphone array techniques. Microphone arrays consist of multiple microphones functioning as a single directional input device: essentially, an acoustic antenna. Using sound propagation principles, the principal sound sources in an environment can be spatially located and distinguished from each other. While the Microcone device can be understood conceptually as a single intelligent group microphone, in fact it is a microphone array device containing several microphone elements acting in an integrated manner.

Demonstration

Now Available

The Microcone USB microphone array is available for use with the Microcone Recorder application (for Mac OS X) or with the Microcone SDK (Mac OS X and Windows 7) for software developers.

Key Features and Technical Specifications