Nokia said on Monday that its CEO, Pekka Lundmark, had a phone conversation utilizing a new technology known as “immersive audio and video,” which enhances the quality of a call with three-dimensional sound and makes interactions more lifelike.
In 1991, Lundmark, who was also in the room for the first 2G conversation, declared, “We have demonstrated the future of voice calls.”
With 3D audio, a caller will experience everything as if they were in the same room as the other person, replacing the flatter, less detailed, monophonic sound of current smartphone conversations.
According to Jenni Lukander, head of Nokia Technologies, “it is the biggest advancement in the live voice calling quality since the introduction of monophonic telephony audio used in smartphones and PCs today.”
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The conversation was held with Finland’s Ambassador for Digitalization and New Technologies, Stefan Lindström.
According to Lukander in an interview, this is now standardizing, allowing network providers, chipset makers, and phone manufacturers to start incorporating it into their devices.
Using a standard smartphone and a public 5G network, Nokia made the call.
According to Jyri Huopaniemi, head of audio research at Nokia Technologies, this may be utilized in conference calls in addition to person-to-person immersive conversations, where participant voices can be distinguished depending on their geographical placements.
The executives stated that since most smartphones have two microphones or more, this technology may be used to convey the spatial parameters of a call in real time.
The technology is a component of the future 5G Advanced standard, and Nokia wants to obtain licensing opportunities for it. It will probably take a few years for the technology to become publicly available.