Audio conferencing using a distributed array of smartphones

A computation device comprising:

• a computer processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed by the computer processor, causes the computer processor to perform operations of hosting a teleconference among a plurality of client devices arranged in two or more acoustic spaces, each client device having an audio capturing capability and/or an audio rendering capability, the operations comprising:
• grouping the plurality of client devices into two or more groups based on their belonging to respective acoustic spaces, wherein the two or more groups include a first group into which two or more client devices in the plurality of client devices are grouped, wherein the two or more client devices belong to a first acoustic space in the two or more acoustic spaces;
• receiving, by the computation device, first audio streams from the plurality of client devices;
• for each client device among the plurality of client devices:
• detecting whether the respective client device renders audio via headphone loudspeakers, and for each client device that is determined to render audio via headphone loudspeakers, assigning two or more active talkers sound sources to at least one virtual source location in a virtual listening environment to be rendered on the client device;
• generating, by the computation device from the first audio streams, second audio streams for rendering by respective client devices among the plurality of client devices, wherein the second audio streams are generated based on the assigning of the two or more active talkers to the at least one virtual source location;
• and
• outputting, by the computation device, the generated second audio streams to the respective client devices for rendering.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed by a computer processor, causes the computer processor to perform operations of hosting a teleconference among a plurality of client devices arranged in two or more acoustic spaces, each client device having an audio capturing capability and/or an audio rendering capability, the operations comprising:

• grouping the plurality of client devices into two or more groups based on their belonging to respective acoustic spaces, wherein the two or more groups include a first group into which two or more client devices in the plurality of client devices are grouped, wherein the two or more client devices belong to a first acoustic space in the two or more acoustic spaces;
• receiving, by a computation device, first audio streams from the plurality of client devices;
• for each client device among the plurality of client devices:
• detecting whether the respective client device renders audio via headphone loudspeakers, and for each client device that is determined to render audio via headphone loudspeakers, assigning two or more active talkers to at least one virtual source location in a virtual listening environment to be rendered on the client device;
• generating, by the computation device from the first audio streams, second audio streams for rendering by respective client devices among the plurality of client devices, wherein the second audio streams are generated based on the assigning of the two or more active talkers to the at least one virtual source location;
• and
• outputting, by the computation device, the generated second audio streams to the respective client devices for rendering.