Hands-free audio control device
AssigneeMONKEYmedia, Inc.
InventorsEric Justin Gould Bear, Rachel M. Strickland, Jim McKee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Traditional head-mounted display experiences require a hand controller (e.g. thumbstick, touchpad, gamepad, keyboard, etc.) to manipulate audio controls. The invention is a hands-free, body-based navigation technology that puts the participant's body in direct control of movement through sonic space. Participants lean towards a sound source to make it louder and lean away to make it quieter. In some embodiments, the more a participant leans, the faster the volume changes. Because the interactions were designed to respond to natural bearing and balancing instincts, movement coordination is intuitive and easy to learn.
Claims30
A system for optimizing the audibility of a collection of digital audio streams, comprising:
- a head-mounted audio device configured to play one or more digital audio streams to a person wearing the head-mounted audio device, the head-mounted audio device being associated with one or more microprocessors and one or more sensors, wherein the head-mounted audio device, in combination with the microprocessors and sensors, is configured to cause at least one of the audio streams to:
- increase in volume when the person leans toward a location of the audio stream in space;
- and
- decrease in volume when the person leans away from the location of the audio stream in space.
A method for optimizing the audibility of a collection of digital audio streams, comprising:
- playing, by a computer processor associated with one or more sensors, one or more digital audio streams to a person wearing a head-mounted audio device;
- and
- causing, by the computer processor, at least one of the audio streams to:
- increase in volume when the person leans toward a location of the audio stream in space;
- and
- decrease in volume when the person leans away from the location of the audio stream in space.
One or more statutory computer readable storage media (CRM) comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer associated with a head-mounted audio device and one or more sensors, are capable of playing a collection of digital audio streams to a person and causing at least one of the audio streams to:
- increase in volume when the person leans toward a location of the audio stream in space;
- and
- decrease in volume when the person leans away from the location of the audio stream in space.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.