Bench Talk

Microsoft’s support for the Windows Subsystem for Linux and the OpenSSH standard increases your options to manage Linux-based cloud environments and IoT devices. Use these tools to securely authenticate your devices and encrypt all communications.

With features such as wireless connectivity, digital signal processing, and multi-room capability, speaker design is advancing to the next level. In this blog, we investigate some of the key aspects of next-generation speaker design.

Directional sound pickup using microphone arrays is being used in devices like the Amazon Echo. What if this technique could be reversed, controlling the sound fields of speaker arrays using digital-signal processing algorithms? This blog looks at a train whistle and how applying these techniques could prove beneficial to the application.

Consumers won’t sacrifice audio performance for form factor—they want both. Maxim’s patented Dynamic Speaker Management (DSM™) technology provides a way to safely drive micro speakers beyond their specified maximum power rating.

Industrial designers are always looking for ways to improve user interface controls by combining functionalities of rotary switches, pushbuttons, trackballs, potentiometers, and touchscreens. In doing so, they can save on component costs and streamline the user experience. Now, Touch Encoder technology is available that helps modernize and simplify designs, while also making it much easier to support applications with multiple languages or configurations.

Have you ever knowingly encountered a chatbot? A recent experience left me frustrated, yet smiling when I realized that “Albert, the Customer Service Agent” was really “Albert, the AI Chatbot.” Even cooler is that “Albert, the AI Chatbot” was good enough to have fooled me into thinking I was talking to a human.

Flops in technological development are nothing new, but how do they relate? They were led by bright minds who ignored customer sentiment.

Hearables—computing devices that fit into your ears and primarily use an audio interface—received a boost with the launch of Apple’s AirPods wireless earbuds last year. However, AirPods are just a tentative first step for hearables, which are a potentially huge market that still seems up for grabs for whoever can developer a killer product.

As a Senior Technology Specialist, I am always interested and looking at the most advanced technologies and applications. When it comes to audio, I recently became aware of something that I had never really spent any time on considering, the ubiquitous resistor. I had soldered oodles of them on to various guitar effects and amplifier repairs over the years, but have never spent much real time investigating their sonic qualities.

I’ve always been fascinated by the audiophile community, as it strives to achieve the absolute best possible audio fidelity, and in the late ‘60s and ‘70s I read magazines like Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and yes, Stereo Review and High Fidelity cover to cover. I marveled at the insanely-expensive equipment I couldn’t possibly afford but did everything I could within my severely restricted budget to create a system that delivered high-quality audio. I treated my (now-scorned) Shure V15 Type IV cartridge and records like they were gold, built my own speakers, and performed rudimentary testing on them. I was in pseudo-audiophile heaven.