Design of Spatialized Audio in Nomadic Environments.pdfVIP

Design of Spatialized Audio in Nomadic Environments Nitin Sawhney and Chris Schmandt Speech Interface Group MIT Media Laboratory 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 {nitin, geek}@ ABSTRACT This paper describes an on-going research project at the MIT Media Lab, exploring the use of audio as a primary modality for nomadic computing applications. We are developing a framework for use on a wearable audio platform, Nomadic Radio, that presents dynamic information within a spatialized audio environment. The contextual state of the nomadic listener indicated by time of day, physical positioning, scheduled tasks, message content, and level of interruption is used to present relevant information in the user’s listening space. In this paper we will consider issues related to auditory presentation and spatial techniques for awareness and browsing of audio messages on wearable computing. INTRODUCTION In an information rich environment, people access a multitude of content such as news, weather, stock reports, and data from a variety of information sources. Much of this information is now accessible from desktop computers. People also increasingly communicate via email, fax, and voice mail. It is desirable to provide seamless access to personal information and communication services to individuals situated away from their desktops (i.e. nomadic listeners) such as in meetings, classes or simply while walking. Such services should be made available on-demand in a passive and unobtrusive manner, based on the user’s level of attention and interruptability. The MIT Media Lab’s Nomadic Computing Environment [1] enables subscribers to manage personal information via fax, pagers and telephony access using digitized audio