Determination of ambient sound processed audio information

• US 9,143,875 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2013
• Issued: 09/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Ozcan, Koray
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Khai N
• Application Number:
  US14/021,815
• Publication Number:
  US 20150071449A1
• Time in Patent Office: 743 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.01, 379/201.01, 379/202.01, 379/351, 379/372, 379/388.01, 379/388.02, 379/388.04, 379/406.01, 379/406.02, 379/406.03, 381/56, 381/57, 381/71.1, 381/94.1, 455/570
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6008 in the transmitter circuit
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/605 involving control of the receiver volume to provide a dual operational mode at close or far distance from the user
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72469 for operating the device by selecting functions from two or more displayed items, e.g. menus or icons
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/00 Monitoring arrangements; Testing arrangements for hearing aids H04R25/30; detection of loudspeaker connection H04R5/04; sound-field adaptation dependent on speaker detection H04S7/308

Abstract

A method comprising receiving an indication of an input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus, determining an ambient sound non-limitation directive associated with the audio uplink based, at least in part, on the input, receiving other audio information, determining ambient sound non-limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, and causing transmission of the ambient sound non-limited audio information by way of the audio uplink is disclosed.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor;

at least one memory including computer program code, the memory and the computer program code configured to, working with the processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following;

receive audio information, from at least one microphone, for an audio uplink associated with another apparatus;

receive an indication of an input indicative of a user facing the apparatus;

in response to the input indicative of the user facing the apparatus, determine first ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises a first magnitude of ambient audio information;

cause transmission of the ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink;

receive other audio information from the at least one microphone;

receive an indication of an input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus; and

in response to the input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus, determine second ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the second ambient sound limited audio information comprises a second magnitude of ambient audio information that is greater than the first magnitude of the ambient audio information.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein determination of the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises utilization of one or more ambient sound reduction techniques.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first ambient sound limited audio information or the second ambient sound limited audio information is determined based, at least in part, on an ambient sound directive that specifies a magnitude of ambient audio information.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the audio information is received from a plurality of microphones, and the ambient sound reduction technique comprises determination of directional audio information.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the audio information comprises audio information received from at least one speech microphone and audio information received from at least one ambient microphone, and the determination of the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises cancelling at least part of the audio information received from the speech microphone based, at least in part, on the audio information received from the ambient microphone.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory further comprises computer program code that causes the apparatus to perform:

receive other audio information;

receive an indication of an input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to a user'"'"'s ear;

in response to the input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to the user'"'"'s ear, determine third ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, such that the third ambient sound limited audio information comprises a third magnitude of ambient audio information that is lesser than the second magnitude of the ambient audio information; and

cause transmission of the third ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory further comprises computer program code that causes the apparatus to perform:

receive other audio information;

cause display of an interface element associated with ambient sound;

receive an indication of an input indicative of selection of the interface element;

in response to the input indicative of the selection of the interface element, determine third ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, such that the third ambient sound limited audio information comprises a third magnitude of ambient audio information that is lesser than the second magnitude of the ambient audio information; and

cause transmission of the third ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus comprises the microphone.

9. A method comprising:

receiving, by an apparatus, audio information, from at least one microphone, for an audio uplink associated with another apparatus;

receiving, by the apparatus, an indication of an input indicative of a user facing the apparatus;

in response to the input indicative of the user facing the apparatus, determining, by the apparatus, first ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises a first magnitude of ambient audio information; and

causing, by the apparatus, transmission of the ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink;

receiving, by the apparatus, other audio information from the at least one microphone;

receiving, by the apparatus, an indication of an input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus; and

in response to the input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus, determining, by the apparatus, second ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the second ambient sound limited audio information comprises a second magnitude of ambient audio information that is greater than the first magnitude of the ambient audio information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises utilization of one or more ambient sound reduction techniques.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the audio information is received from a plurality of microphones, and the ambient sound reduction technique comprises determination of directional audio information.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the audio information comprises audio information received from at least one speech microphone and audio information received from at least one ambient microphone, and the determination of the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises cancelling at least part of the audio information received from the speech microphone based, at least in part, on the audio information received from the ambient microphone.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the first ambient sound limited audio information or the second ambient sound limited audio information is determined based, at least in part, on an ambient sound directive that specifies a magnitude of ambient audio information.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving, by the apparatus, other audio information;

receiving, by the apparatus, an indication of an input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to a user'"'"'s ear;

in response to the input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to the user'"'"'s ear, determining, by the apparatus, third ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, such that the third ambient sound limited audio information comprises a third magnitude of ambient audio information that is lesser than the second magnitude of the ambient audio information; and

causing, by the apparatus, transmission of the third ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving other audio information;

causing display of an interface element associated with ambient sound;

receiving an indication of an input indicative of selection of the interface element;

in response to the input indicative of the selection of the interface element, determining third ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, such that the third ambient sound limited audio information comprises a third magnitude of ambient audio information that is lesser than the second magnitude of the ambient audio information; and

causing transmission of the third ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink.

16. At least one non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform:

receiving audio information, from at least one microphone, for an audio uplink associated with another apparatus;

receiving an indication of an input indicative of a user facing the apparatus;

in response to the input indicative of the user facing the apparatus, determining first ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises a first magnitude of ambient audio information; and

causing transmission of the ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink;

receiving other audio information from the at least one microphone;

receiving an indication of an input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus; and

in response to the input indicative of the user not facing the apparatus, determining second ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the audio information, such that the second ambient sound limited audio information comprises a second magnitude of ambient audio information that is greater than the first magnitude of the ambient audio information.

17. The medium of claim 16, wherein determining the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises utilization of one or more ambient sound reduction techniques.

18. The medium of claim 17, wherein the audio information is received from a plurality of microphones, and the ambient sound reduction technique comprises determination of directional audio information.

19. The medium of claim 18, wherein the audio information comprises audio information received from at least one speech microphone and audio information received from at least one ambient microphone, and the determination of the first ambient sound limited audio information comprises cancelling at least part of the audio information received from the speech microphone based, at least in part, on the audio information received from the ambient microphone.

20. The medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions that, when executed by a processor, further perform:

receiving other audio information;

receiving an indication of an input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to a user'"'"'s ear;

in response to the input indicative of the apparatus being proximate to the user'"'"'s ear, determining third ambient sound limited audio information based, at least in part, on the other audio information, such that the third ambient sound limited audio information comprises a third magnitude of ambient audio information that is lesser than the second magnitude of the ambient audio information; and

causing transmission of the third ambient sound limited audio information by way of the audio uplink.