Author: simonmackay

Articles

There needs to be some work to make USB-C a worthwhile replacement for the 3.5mm audio jack on a smartphone

What you need to know about USB-C audio | Android Authority

My Comments

At the moment, the USB-C audio application case isn’t being implemented consistently across all mobile devices that rely solely on that connection form.

There are two operating modes – a “passive” accessory mode which creates inbound and outbound analogue audio paths as if it is a 3.5mm audio jack, and an “active” mode which uses USB Audio device classes and outboard digital-analogue audio circuitry to create the sound to be heard via the accessory.

Passive setups

The former passive setup is primarily exploited by USB-C jack adaptors and basic headset implementations, especially “earbud-style” headsets. Here, the host device which is typically the smartphone or tablet would use an onboard audio chipset to convert the sound between an analogue and digital representation.

If there is some form of remote control, a basic implementation may be in the form of a single button that starts and stops media or answers and ends calls. On the other hand, if the USB Human Interface Device specifications are implemented properly in mobile operating systems, it may allow for a device to support advanced multifunction remote control.

At the moment, it may be a case of trial-and-error to find out if a USB-C Audio passive-mode headset or adaptor will work across USB-C-equipped regular computers. So for, to my knowledge, recent iterations of the Apple MacBook lineup of laptops that use this connection will provide some support for this setup.

Active setups

The latter active setup would be targeted at premium or audiophile applications such as highly-strung USB digital-analogue adaptors, noise-cancelling headsets or headsets with highly-strung digital-analogue circuitry. In some cases, this setup may also support accessory devices that implement multiple-microphone arrays.

It may also apply to wired setups involving home or car audio equipment. In this case, one would be thinking of this kind of equipment providing digital-analogue interface, power to the host device and remote-control / accessory-display abilities.

Here, they have to fully implement the USB Audio Device Class 3 peripheral class as expected in the “textbook”. As well, iOS and Android need to provide a native class driver for this device class and implement its code as expected for a mobile device which will do communications and / or multimedia. This would mean that microphones have to be used as an audio endpoint for communications purposes including regular telephony as well as for multimedia purposes. It may be a non-issue with regular computers running the Windows or MacOS desktop operating systems where it is easier for the operating system or application software to “purpose” an audio endpoint.

USB Audio Device Class 3 provides inherent support for audio-processing so accessory manufacturers don’t need to reinvent the wheel by creating their own software to implement any sort of sound processing. As well, Android and iOS need to support the inclusion of audio-processing logic in the inbound or outbound audio-signal paths in a purpose-specific manner.

Power and connectivity

There will be power and connectivity issues raised for both implementations of the USB-C Audio application. Active devices will need to draw power from the host unless they have their own battery. But with proper implementation of USB-C Power Delivery, it could allow a USB-C Audio accessory with a very high capacity battery to provide power to the host smartphone.

The passive setup wouldn’t work properly with USB-C hubs or devices that have this function unless it is assured that the hub will assure a proper clean electrical connection between the host and the accessory.

Remote control and accessory display

Another issue yet to be raised is implementation of USB Human-Interface-Device Classes and Usage Tables when it comes to using a USB-C accessory as a control surface for the host. The key issue here is whether there is proper operating-system support especially in the mobile operating systems. In the same context, there will be a market requirement for the accessory device to be able to view host-device-held lists like call lists, message lists and track lists.

The functions considered relevant to this usage case would be sound volume and transport control (play / pause / next track / previous track / etc) for multimedia; and caller volume, microphone mute and call control for communications. Accessory-based display would also need to be factored in with USB-C audio adaptors and in-line remote-control modules which implement an LCD or OLED display.

There may be use cases where multiple remote control devices are used in the same setup, typically to offer complementary functionality. Examples of this may include a USB headset with elementary remote-control for volume and a single-button control for multimedia “start-stop” or call “answer-end” functionality; along with a display-equipped inline remote control which allows for track navigation or advanced call-control.

Broadcast-radio reception

There will also be an issue regarding use of the USB-C cable as an aerial (antenna) for broadcast-radio reception whether the tuner is built in to the smartphone or the accessory. It is because of a long-standing design factor for Walkman-type radios with separate headphones where the headphone cord served as the radio’s aerial. Similarly single-piece headphone-based personal radios implemented the headband as their aerial.

It also extends to the ability for mobile operating systems to control broadcast-radio tuners integrated within smartphones or accessories to the fullest extent possible. This would include preset-station management, “follow-this-station” operation for stations appearing at other broadcast locations, graphical identifiers amongst other things.

Conclusion

If the smartphone and audio-accessory industry wants us to think of using the USB-C connector as the point to connect all peripherals, they need iOS and Android to have full native USB Audio Device Class 3 support including support for advanced-audio modes. As well, the operating systems need to have USB Human Interface Device class support for remote-control and accessory display abilities. Similarly, there would have to be proper support for broadcast-radio operation with USB-C-based mobile-device setups.

QNAP TS-251 2-bay NAS – units like this could become a capable edge-computing device

The high-end network-attached storage system is a device able to augment the cloud computing trend in various forms. This is by becoming a local “edge processor” for the cloud-computing ecosystem and handling the data that is created or used by end-users local to it.

High-end network-attached-storage systems

We are seeing the rise of network-attached-storage subsystems that are capable of running as computers in their own right. These are typically high-end consumer or small-business devices offered by the likes of QNAP, Synology or NETGEAR ReadyNAS that have a large app store or software-developer community.

The desktop variants would be the size ranging form half a loaf of bread to a full bread loaf, with some rack-mounted units about the size of one or two pizza boxes.This is compared to servers that were the size of a traditional tower computer.

But some of the apps work alongside public cloud-driven online services as a client or “on-ramp” between these services and your local network. A typical use case is to synchronise files held on an online storage service with the local storage on the NAS unit.

These high-end network-attached-storage devices are effectively desktop computers in their own right, with some of them using silicon that wouldn’t look out of place with a traditional desktop computer. Some of these machines even support a “local console” with a display connection and USB connections that support keyboards and mice.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing takes an online-service approach to computing needs and, in a lot of cases, uses multiple computers in multiple data centres to perform the same computing task. This is typically to host the data in or close to the end-user’s country or to provide a level of scalability and fault-tolerance in the online service approach.

A cafe like this could benefit from big-business technology without paying a king’s ransom thanks to cloud computing

Small businesses are showing an interest in cloud-driven computing solutions as a way to come on board with the same things as the “big end of town” without paying a king’s ransom for hardware necessary for an on-premises computing solution. In some cases, it is also about using different endpoint types like mobile-platform tablets for daily use or as a management tool, underscoring such concepts as low cost or portability that some endpoints may offer.

Typically, this kind of computing is offered “as a service” where you subscribe to the service on a regular, usually monthly or annual, basis rather than you spending big on capital expenses to get it going.

But, due to its nature as an always-online service, cloud computing can cause reliability and service-availability issues if the Internet connection isn’t reliable or the service ends up being oversubscribed. This can range from real-time services suffering latency towards a cloud-computing experience becoming unresponsive or unavailable.

Then there is the issue of privacy, data security, service continuity and data sovereignty which can crop up if you change to a different service or the service you use collapses or changes hands. It can easily happen while cloud-computing faces points of reckoning and the industry goes in to consolidation.

Edge computing

But trends that are being investigated in relationship to the “Internet Of Things” and “Big Data” are the concepts  of “edge” and “fog” computing. It is based around the idea of computing devices local to the source or sink of the data that work with the locally-generated or locally-used data as part of submitting it to or fetching it from the cloud network.

It may allow a level of fault-tolerance for applications that demand high availability or permit scalability at the local level for the cloud-computing application. Some systems may even allow for packaging locally-used data in a locally-relevant form such as for online games to support local tournaments or an online movie service to provide a local storage of what is popular in the neighbourhood.

The ideas associated with “edge” and “fog” computing allow for the use of lightweight computer systems to do the localised or distributed processing, effectively aggregating these systems in to what is effectively a heavyweight computer system. It has been brought about with various early distributed-computing projects like SETI and Folding@Home to use personal computers to solve scientific problems.

What is serving the edge-computing needs

This Qarnot Q.Rad heater is actually a computer that is part of edge computing

Some applications like drones are using the on-device processing to do the local workload. Or we are seeing the likes of Qarnot developing edge-computing servers that heat your room or hot water with the waste heat these computing devices produce.  But Amazon and QNAP are working on an approach to use a small-office NAS as an edge-computing device especially for Internet-Of-Things applications.

The NAS serving this role

Here, it is about making use of these ubiquitous and commonly-available NAS units for this purpose as well as storing and serving data that a network needs. In some cases, it can be about the local processing and storing of this locally-generated / locally-used data then integrating the data with what is available on the cloud “backbone”.

For some applications, it could be about keeping enough data for local needs on the NAS to assure high availability. Or it could be about providing scalability by allowing the NAS to do some of the cloud workload associated with the locally-generated data before submitting it to the cloud.

The NETGEAR ReadyNAS on the right is an example of a NAS that is capable of being an edge-computing node

This may be of importance with IT systems that are moving from a totally on-premises approach towards the use of cloud-computing infrastructure with data being stored or processed online. It is where the focus of the cloud infrastructure is to make business-wide data available across a multi-site business or to provide “portable access” to business data. Here, a NAS could simply be equipped with the necessary software to be a smart “on-ramp” for this data.

For small and medium businesses who are moving towards multiple locations such as when a successful business buys another business in another area to increase their footprint, this technology may have some appeal. Here, it could be about doing some pre-processing for data local to the premises before submitting to the cloud as part of an online management-information-system for that small effort.  As well, it could be about keeping the business-wide data “in-sync” across the multiple locations, something that may be important with price lists or business-wide ledgers.

This kind of approach works well with the high-end NAS units if these units’ operating platforms allow third-party software developers to write software for these devices. It can then open up the possibilities for hybrid and “edge” computing applications that involve these devices and the network connectivity and on-device storage that they have.

Conclusion

What needs to happen is that the high-end network-attached-storage systems of the Synology or QNAP kind need to be considered as a hardware base for localised “edge computing” in an online “cloud-computing” setup.

This can be facilitated by the vendors inciting software development in this kind of context and encouraging people involved in online and cloud computing to support this goal especially for small-business computing.

Articles

Classical music streaming no longer plays second fiddle | CNet

A streaming service that works for classical: Thomas Steffens, CEO of Primephonic | Bachtrack

From the horse’s mouth

Primephonic

Product Page

My Comments

Most streaming music services like Spotify focus on popular music. There is not much classical music in library and these services don’t support the kind of metadata associated with classical-music works like composers, multiple-movement works or performers. As well, they adopt a royalty-payout model that only works well with the three-minute song.

A streaming-music service that supports classical music needs to allow searching and browsing in a “composer-then-work-then-performance” approach so you can find recordings of a particular piece. It also has to handle the reality that a significant number of classical-music pieces have multiple movements, where there is the ability even to call out a particular part of a movement like the “Ode To Joy” chorus within the fourth movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Choral) rather than having the whole movement. In the case of musical theatre like opera, you may have to call out a particular aria, duet or chorus without the need to have any bridging music.

There is also a want to allow a particular piece, including a particular movement, to be identified by different names such as language-specific names or names brought on by particular applications. A good example of this is Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 which ended up being known as the “Elvira Madigan” concerto thanks to a film adaptation of the Elvira Madigan story created in 1967 which featured the (very romantic) second movement.

A significant number of works in the classical-music canon are performed and recorded by different combinations of performers. For example, a concerto would be performed by one or more known soloists and a supporting orchestra conducted by a certain conductor. Here, it may be desirable to look for works performed by a particular performer or orchestral works played by a particular orchestra or conducted by a particular conductor.

Of course there is the desire to look for works based on particular eras like the Romantic era or the Baroque era. 

There is also the fact that a movement can play for a very long time such as some of Beethoven’s popular concerti having a first movement that has a duration of at least 20 minutes. Here. a “per-track” royalty payment approach typically used for popular music that is based on the three-to-five minute song is not economically viable in this domain. Instead, there has to be a sustainable economical approach to pay out arrangers, living composers, music publishers, performers and record labels their royalties for use of pieces in an online music service.

Thomas Steffens who runs Pentatone, the company that was formerly the well-known Philips Classics music label, discovered the limitations concerning how classical music can be enjoyed on online music services.  He conceived the idea of an online music service in 2016 and built up Primephonic as a streaming music service that answers the needs of this class of music.

The music catalogue that supports Primephonic is based on the mainstream classical-music labels alongside some niche labels. Genres are curated and catalogued by musicologists and classical-music students and the service allows for searching also by mood. There is the support for various themed playlists which is very similar to a compilation album based on a mood / occasion , composer, instrument, era or other factor. Users can also have the ability to listen to the parent work of a movement that they are currently listening to in a playlist.

Primephonic stays away from Amazon-type artificial-intelligence “recommend-music” algorithms based on like music or “critic’s choice” lists that are narrowed down to particular performances of particular works. This is to encourage users to work across the whole catalogue and discover more music. But a significant number of classical-music listeners will think more of particular works by particular composes and choose any performance of that work, but they may focus on a particular performer if they are interested in their output.

During playback, Primephonic will show up as a Web page details about the composer, work and performer so you have a similar kind of rich learning experience that was feasible with the notes written on the back of an LP record’s outer sleeve or in a booklet packaged with a CD. There is even the ability for users to know of a local performance of the work if local performers, orchestras or venues register these performances with Primephonic. It can then lead to the idea of providing a link to the box office that is associated with that performance to encourage listeners to book tickets for the event.

Primephonic offers the music as FLAC-based high-quality recordings and costs US$14.99 or GBP£14.99 per month to subscribe. They pay out time-based royalties to the people and entities who have a hand in recording the works that exist on the service’s catalogue.

Alongside the Web-based user interface, Primephonic offers an iOS and an Android mobile-platform app. But what they need to do is work with consumer-AV names to allow this service to work tightly with their equipment. This is more so where the equipment has its own user interface.

Once Primephonic and others get on board with a high-quality classical-music streaming service that supports people who love this kind of music. It could even complement Spotify or TiDAL as an on-demand service for classical music.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Technics SL-G700 Network SACD Player – the first of its kind to fully reproduce SACDs

Panasonic USA (Technics)

Energize music from multiple sources with the Grand Class Network / Super Audio CD Player: SL-G700 (Press Release)

My Comments

Over the past few years Yamaha and Marantz have put forward a relatively-new type of hi-fi component unit in the form of the network CD player. These are CD players that connect to your home network to play audio content hosted on equipment on that network or on an online service.

A core advantage these units have is you only use one line-level input on your amplifier or receiver to serve one piece of equipment that plays a CD or to listen to an online audio service or something held on your network-attached storage device. They also fit in well when it comes to upgrading or replacing an existing CD player that you have and you want to benefit from your home network and online audio services.

For a long time, Technics was the hi-fi arm for the original Matsushita (National Panasonic) brand, offering value-priced and premium hi-fi equipment such as the legendary SL-1200 series of DJ turntables. It was while they were applying itself to musical instruments made by Matsushita. This brand even started the idea of the main Japanese consumer-electronics names running a separate brand for their hi-fi equipment through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But through the late 1990s and the early 2000s, Technics evolved itself to the musical instrument and DJ equipment market while having value-priced audio equipment under the Panasonic name. A few years ago, they rebuilt the hi-fi image by focusing on equipment destined to the high-end hi-fi market with them supporting vinyl, optical-disc and network / online delivery.

Now Technics have come to the fore at CES 2019 by premiering the Grand Class SL-G700 Network SACD player. This is a network CD player that is optimised for audiophile high-end listening by providing full playback of SACD discs along with file-based or CD-based audio content based on the high-end MQA standard. Here, it is infact the first network CD player to provide full playback of SACD discs.

This unit’s digital-to-analogue path has been worked on through the use of premium DAC circuitry that is built with a dual-mono approach. It is as if two digital-to-analogue signal paths are created within the unit – one for the left channel and one for the right channel.

It also includes circuit-based isolation to prevent digital-processing noise from creeping in to the post-DAC analogue signal path. As well, a separate digital-analogue signal path exists for the unit’s headphone jack. There is an operation mode that effectively provides SACD/CD direct sound when you play a regular CD or high-end SACD.

As far as I know, the network aspect for the Technics SL-G700 network SACD player supports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. There is support for AirPlay and Chromecast audio streaming from iOS, MacOS or Android devices. It also has access to Spotify, TiDAL and Internet radio online services.

What I see of this player is that it is another brand’s attempt to focus the network CD player towards the high-end audiophile market who may be maintaining their CD collections but make use of online music services. This is more so if the premium amplifier that they use has as few line-level inputs as possible.

Article 

Netgear takes its Orbi mesh Wi-Fi system to the next level with Wi-Fi 6 | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

NETGEAR

LEADING A NEW ERA OF WI-FI, NETGEAR ANNOUNCES ORBI MESH WI-FI SYSTEM USING WI-FI 6 SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR THE GIGABIT INTERNET HOME (Press Release)

Product Page

My Comments

As Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless networking comes to the fore, there will be a desire to see distributed-wireless-network systems that support this technology. Here it’s about being able to support many Wi-Fi client devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones along with devices that are designed “Wi-Fi first” including smart-home devices.

NETGEAR have started to refresh the Orbi distributed Wi-Fi system by making a new version that supports this new technology as part of the product lineup they are premiering in Las Vegas at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. It uses the separate radio backhaul that their Orbi system is know for, thus avoiding a dent in performance that can be brought about with systems that use the main “fronthaul” Wi-Fi segment for their backbone data transfer.

But it uses four data streams across the dedicated Wi-Fi 6 backhaul to allow high-speed high-capacity data transfer. It is in addition to four concurrent data streams on the 2.4GHz band and four concurrent data streams on the 5GHZ band for the client devices to use. The system is powered by Qualcomn networking system-on-chip silicon that allows for the higher data throughput.

It is expected to appear during the second half of 2019, primarily as an updated take of the RBK50 wide-coverage devices. A question that will perplex those of us who have an Orbi distributed-Wi-Fi setup is whether the existing Orbi equipment will work with the newer Wi-Fi 6 Orbi devices.

This is more so where smaller or specialised Orbi satellite modules like the RBS50 Orbi Outdoor Satellite unit or the Orbi Voice which is a combination of a satellite unit and Amazon-Alexa-driven smart speaker are part of your Orbi setup. Or you like the idea of “pushing down” existing equipment to secondary purposes so you get more value out of the equipment you own.

What is being highlighted is the idea of using Wi-Fi 6 as a future-proof approach for wireless local networking, including distributed- Wi-FI setups.

Article

Cast Drawings On Your Phone To Your Television Using A Chromecast And This App | Lifehacker

Video (Click or tap to play)

Get this app here

CastPad (Google Play for Android)

– Free version has ads, in-app purchase for premium version

My Comments

The idea of using a regular TV as the electronic equivalent of a chalkboard (blackboard) or whiteboard has been explored through the 1980s thanks to a few key drivers.

A use case that was being put forward was to work with the then-new hobby of home videography thanks to the arrival of affordable video cameras and portable video recorders. Here it would be about creating title cards for one’s home video projects. As well, third-party peripheral vendors created light-pen setups that work with various home-computer platforms like the Commodore “VIC” computers (VIC-20 and Commodore 64), the Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 and the BBC Micro. The software that came with these setups included an elementary “paint” program that worked with the light-pen and allowed the (low-resolution) drawings to be saved to the computer’s secondary-storage medium (cassette or floppy disk) or printed to a connected printer.

The mouse, along with various graphics programs for later computer platform, extended the concept further even though newer computers were hooked up to displays better than the average TV set.

But the concept has been revived using the CastPad app for Android. This app allows you to draw using your finger or stylus on your Android smartphone or tablet, then “cast” it to your TV or monitor that is connected to a Chromecast or has full Chromecast ability built in. There is also the ability to “cast” to other Android devices running the same software and connected to the same logical network that the Chromecast is connected to.

You can save what you drew to your Android device but I am not sure whether it supports printing via Android’s print functionality. There is a free ad-supported version that is limited to five colours. It may be good enough to show to a child or use for games like Pictionary. But a premium version, which you can purchase through an in-app arrangement allows for infinite colours and a few more features.

A use case that was called out in the article was to improve a family Pictionary game that the article’s author played during their family’s Thanksgiving celebrations. Here, they had a Chromecast connected to their family home’s TV and used their Android smartphone to draw out the word ideas as part of gameplay.

But the app has other use cases such as conference facilities, classrooms and the like that are kitted out with a large-screen TV or video projector. Here, the CastPad app may work as a better approach to illustrating concepts in a basic manner and showing them to a larger audience as part of your presentation effort.

Apple could easily answer this app with something that runs on an iPhone or iPad and uses AirPlay to stream the canvas to an Apple TV. Or the app developers could simply port it to iOS to take advantage of that platform’s user base.

Similarly, there could be the ability to have you draw the graphic on the smartphone or tablet then project it through the Chromecast, which can be useful if you are preparing that diagram for a class. This can also be augmented with the ability to insert printed text in a range of font sizes, something that would appeal to “blackboard diagrammers”.

Apps like CastPad can exploit “screencasting” setups like AirPlay or Chromecast to turn the largest screen in the house or business in to an electronic whiteboard and the touchscreen of your device in to a “canvas”.

Article

The Amazon Echo and similar devices will create new applications for audio content

2019 will see the end of baked-in, generic podcast ads | Mumbrella

My Comments

Previously there were the radio shows which were a packaged item of audio content that was broadcast by one or more stations at one or more known times. These effectively drove radio along before television came to the fore but still exist mainly in an informative manner.

This can happen in the form of talk shows primarily run on stations that run informative content to music documentaries and Top-40 countdown shows run on the commercial music stations. In some cases, scripted radio drama still exists, especially with the BBC or some community radio stations who syndicate drama series. This is in conjunction with some radio stations doing book readings, mostly for vision-impaired people but also appealing to other users like drivers.

Often what would happen if other stations are interested in the same radio show is that they would “syndicate” the show by buying rights to broadcast the show themselves. In most cases, each episode of the show would be delivered as a recording that would be played at a scheduled time that is part of the agreement. A live show prepared by an originating station may simply be streamed out to local stations who are syndicating it thanks to satellite or similar communications technologies.

But this concept is still being pushed onwards in the form of the podcast which is today’s equivalent of these radio shows. Here, these shows are available for download and can be followed using a podcast manager that you run on your regular computer or mobile device. The podcast manager, typically part of a media management program, would check for and download the latest podcasts on to your equipment and, in some cases, synchronise them to MP3 players or similar devices.

Increasingly, streaming-audio-content services like Internet-radio or music-on-demand services are becoming podcast-delivery platforms themselves. Here, the content is streamed out via the service rather than being made available for download to your computer’s local storage, but the service may offer a download option for offline listening.

Infact the podcast is being valued by radio stations in a few different ways. For example, a radio station who runs a regular radio show will offer past and current episodes of this show for download as a podcast. This can come in handy for people new to a show, who have missed episodes of that show or like to hear it at their own time and pace.

Similarly, radio stations may syndicate a podcast that their network or someone else has created. This may be used to fill a programming void that may exist while one or more of the regular shows is on hiatus.

An issue that is affecting podcasts today is how they can work with an advertising context especially if people are moving away from advertising-driven radio. Typically the podcaster who wanted to sell advertising time would have to run the same approach as a syndicated radio show that is sponsored by one or more companies.  Here, the sponsored show will have “baked in” advertising offered by the show’s sponsors that is recorded as part of the show, which is different from the “spot” approach with ads that are inserted by the broadcaster airing the show.

This arrangement will lead to situations where advertising isn’t relevant to the listener due to such factors as the advertiser not in the listener’s location. The fact that an advertisement “baked in” to a podcast can be listened to ant any time can affect material that is time-sensitive due to campaign or jurisdiction issues.

What is being looked at now with various podcast infrastructures like Spotify, Apple or Google is the ability to provide dynamically-inserted content for podcasts. This will initially be investigated with news and current-affairs shows that have up-to-date content, including the idea of using local up-to-date newsbreaks. For advertising, this can also be about the introduction of localised spot advertising in to podcasts just like what a local radio broadcaster does to a syndicated show when they air it.

Listening to podcasts will be a similar experience to listening to syndicated radio shows

The problem I see with this kind of setup as far as how podcasters are paid is that it will follow the same rules as the syndicated content aired on commercial radio and TV. If the show has sponsorship with the “baked-in” advertising, the show’s producers and talent will be paid while the localised “spot” advertising simply pays the broadcaster. They may pay the show’s producers a “cut” of that advertising revenue as part of the syndication agreement.

But with this application, it will lead to an emphasis towards addressable advertising focused on narrow factors such as age, gender or detailed location like one’s neighbourhood. There will also be some influence based on the kind of podcasts or audiobooks you play through the podcast platform.

Here, it may require podcast formats to support the addition of standard metadata in order to identify logical breaks where advertising or other content can be inserted. Then the various podcast apps and platforms that run their own ad platforms will end up inserting the localised content in to the break. This may affect approaches like downloading for offline use, where it may be about downloading a collection of files that are joined by a podcast-specific playlist or creating a single concatenated audio file representing the main and supplementary content.

The above-mentioned logical breaks will also be of importance to the radio station who wants to syndicate that podcast. This may be to allow them to fulfil their obligations whether just to call the time and identify themselves on air, or to insert other content like news flashes, advertising / sponsorship and the like.

It will also apply to how you can listen to podcast content so you can, for example, recap parts of these shows that you were distracted from. This will be of importance for those of us who listen to podcasts in areas where we can be distracted easily like in the home or office in the same manner as listening to radio there.

There is also the idea of taking audio content further. For example, BBC and Amazon tried out the idea of an old-time radio play that works in a similar manner to a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. This is with you talking to Alexa to steer yourself through the adventure very much in a similar form to interacting with those text-based computer adventure games on an old home computer.

Other ideas being looked at include driving or walking tours with rich audio commentary that plays when you are approach each point of interest.  This would be augmented through the use of GPS or similar navigation technology in order to play audio content relevant to the location. Similarly, you would be able to use the navigation software to lead you towards other waypoints that are part of the tour.

There are also the possibility of creating games that are augmented with the various pieces of audio content. This application would be driven by voice-driven assistants, perhaps in conjunction with sensors for various board and card games. It is a similar practice to some “Name That Tune” and similar board games which are based on a regular audio CD that has audio content essential to game play.

What is happening now is audio-focused content is gaining a stronger role in our lives and there are efforts to introduce flexibility in to how this content is presented. This is more so as we listen to this kind of content on many different device types.