IDEA: Adaptive surround sound using proximity detection

There’s been some great stories of people hacking X-Box Kinect to create really cool apps and services around recognising and positioning people in 3D space.

Here’s one for someone. A system which can automatically adapt the sound coming from speakers on a laptop, desktop, TV sound system based on a persons position in a room.

In other words, I’m sitting in a space where my right speaker is closer to my computer than the left so the “system” knows a) where the speakers are (proximity chip) and where I am (camera, kinect, proximity chip) so adjusts the cross-fade accordingly.

Yes of course if there’s multiple people in a room it’s more of a challenge (read: impossible) but it could still compromise on the “best” sound position to allow everyone to get a better experience.

Cool Kinect hacks :-

http://kinecthacks.net/

http://bit.ly/ifP0Sm