Advances in Audio Technology to Transform Listening Experience

Experts at the ITU workshop on “The Future of Audio in Broadcasting” last week revealed how new developments in audio delivery will affect the way programmes are made, and the new ways that sound will be brought into our lives.

Sound today is an indispensable part of television and radio. But there will be much more to it in the years to come, as part of advances in audio technology.

In real life, we hear sound from all around us – a bird above us, a car behind us, and a voice ahead of us. Emulating this same experience in the media will be 'immersive audio'. Coupled with new ultra high quality UHDTV Television, which offers enhanced image rendition, immersive audio will lift the television experience to an entirely new level, further blurring the line between physical reality and virtual or digital simulation.

Future technical capabilities for audio will also allow viewers to select their own menu of services. They will be able to decide on and adjust the level of immersive sound in their living rooms, creating dynamic sound imaging.

These features become possible with 'object based coding'. It will allow viewers to personalize their viewing and listening experience 'at the point of consumption'. This could include setting language and dialogue levels and selecting different aspects or sections of programming, which could also bring added benefits for people with disabilities.

“We are on the threshold of an exciting new age of 'sound' for broadcasting,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “These new audio systems will provide additional features and performance well beyond those available today.”

Meanwhile, The latest edition of ITU's comprehensive report on global ICT regulatory developments, Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2015, reveals a fast-evolving ICT landscape, as devices and services proliferate, broadband connectivity becomes increasingly pervasive, and the hyper-connected world of the 'Internet of Everything' starts to become a reality.

The world's most comprehensive overview of the policy trends and challenges facing today's ICT regulators, ITU's Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2015 provides a host of data and analysis to help regulators, ICT analysts and tech journalists navigate the issues surrounding so-called 'fourth-generation' ICT regulation.

Characterized by greater complexity and cross-sectoral implications, fourth-generation regulation attempts to come to grips with the enormous social and economic disruption ICTs are bringing in their wake. The report recommends flexible, light-touch regulation, and a recognition of the rights of both businesses and consumers in defining new frameworks for an emerging global digital environment.

“There are many ways in which ICTs can make the world a better place,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General. “In a digital world, creating the conditions for a data-driven economy to flourish is a must, so getting the regulatory environment right is absolutely vital.”

To assist ICT regulators and policy makers, ITU has developed the ICT Regulatory Tracker, a new evidence-based analytical tool to help pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory interventions. As featured in the report, the Tracker shows that an optimized combination of just a handful of key regulatory measures is closely associated with a catalytic effect on ICT market take-up.

Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2015 confirms that future network traffic will increasingly be driven by machine-to-machine (M2M) traffic generated by billions of connected devices, products and sensors, with M2M communications over mobile cellular networks already emerging as the fastest-growing ICT service in terms of traffic.

In total, one billion different kinds of wireless IoT devices are expected to be shipped in 2015, up 60 per cent from 2014 figures to reach a predicted installed base of 2.8 billion connected devices by end 2015. Wearable devices are estimated to have reached 109 million by the beginning of 2015.

As many as 25 billion networked devices are predicted to be connected by 2020, driven largely by consumer-connected entities (including businesses, hospitals, local authorities and other organizations and institutions) and followed by manufacturing, utilities and transportation. In terms of revenues, the market for IoT is expected to grow to $1.7 trillion by 2019 to become the largest device market worldwide.

The report finds that a proliferation of apps is turning consumers into digital social consumers, digital communicators and prime agents of change in a digital transformation that is sweeping the ICT sector.

In January 2015, the number of global active social media accounts reached over 2.07 billion, with active mobile social accounts representing 81 per cent of that total. With active social media users spending an average of nearly two hours 25 minutes per day on social platforms, the economic impact of the time spent on social media has not been lost on marketers and advertisers.

Every hour of every day, over one hundred million photos are uploaded to Facebook: every second, one hour's worth of video footage is uploaded onto YouTube. Google is estimated to process well over a petabyte of data every single day – equivalent to 100 times the data stored in the largest library in the world, the US Library of Congress.

With the cost of computing (both processing and storage) falling and the speed and ease with which data can be transferred rising with ever-faster processor speeds, applications that draw on Big Data are proliferating.

Data that cost $150,000 to store in 1970 now cost as little as one cent. Advanced software to aid fast data retrieval, new-breed databases capable of storing very diverse and unstructured data, and fast-improving sensor technology are together making it possible to capture ever more aspects of human existence in digital form – precisely and at low cost.

The report outlines eight principles of Big Data implementation, and recognizes Big Data's power as a driver of innovation. But it also warns of the potential downside to the dramatic increase in the collection and storage of data, including personal data, and notes that regulators will need to come to grips fast with both the positive and negative applications in order to maintain consumer trust.