Microsoft Shows “Audio Vision” Technology

Microsoft has just presented its practical implementation of the well-known Doppler effect. The technology is called SoundWave.

Everybody that has seen it in action is comparing it to the company’s Kinect movement detection system. Yet SoundWave is much different from Kinect, because it doesn’t use any optical viewing device.

SoundWave practically sees using your laptop’s microphone.

To be able to do that, the software emits a series of inaudible sounds in the ultrasonic 18 ~ 22 KHz range and, as the sound waves reflect from the objects near to the laptop, the program is able to build a basic model of the person next to it and interpret the human’s moves.

The system is only 90 percent to 100 percent accurate, as it only uses one microphone, but support for more sound detection devices can be added and the accuracy will quickly be up to 100 percent.

Kinect, on the other hand, has exactly this advantage: a second camera that, in collaboration with the first one, will accurately detect the body’s movement.

The technology is a little bit scary as now, with just a software update, any robot can perfectly see around.

Considering how advanced are the fighting robots presented by Boston Dynamics, we are closing fast to the “Terminator” nightmare. But until then, lets enjoy Intel’s ramblings about the Star Trek Borg and The Matrix.

We should take into account that these technologies make every one of us completely visible to anybody having the right technology at hand.