audience

Next-gen iPhones to spurn Audience noise-canceling tech

Audience, a company that has delivered noise-canceling technology to Apple's iPhones since 2008, thinks it might be left out of the fun in the iPhone 5.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview published last night, the company's CEO Peter Santos said that "the normal course of business led us to believe that our technology is not likely to be enabled in Apple's next-generation mobile phone." Santos didn't say what the "course of business" was. He also broke the news to the company's shareholders.

Apple and Audience's partnership was revealed earlier … Read more

Startup promises to cut the noise on feature phones

Startup Audience currently specializes in improving audio quality for higher-end phones--the iPhone 4 and 4S, most notably--but now it's going down market.

The company sells small chips that process phones' microphone signals with technology it calls EarSmart designed to identify the person speaking and filter out everything else. It's good for voice calls, obviously, but also for newer uses, such as issuing voice commands to a phone, videoconferencing, or capturing the soundtrack for a video.

Audiences's technology reproduces audio signal processing that humans use--processing that relies on our having two ears and therefore that works on … Read more

Why Apple's A5 is so big--and iPhone 4 won't get Siri

Apple's A5 processor includes noise-reduction circuitry licensed from a start-up called Audience, and a chip analyst believes that fact resolves an iPhone 4S mystery and explains why the iPhone 4 lacks the Siri voice-control system.

Audience revealed details of its Apple partnership in January, when it filed paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Teardown work from iFixit and Chipworks revealed a dedicated Audience chip in the iPhone 4, but the iPhone 4S integrates Audience's "EarSmart" technology directly into the A5 processor, the company's S-1 filing said.

The details answered a question that … Read more

Most people OK buying goods via mobile devices

A significant number of people are comfortable shopping and paying for items through their mobile devices, according to a new report from mobile media firm JiWire.

JiWire's latest Mobile Audience Insights Report (PDF) found that 79 percent of 5,000 people surveyed are OK paying online via their cell phones or tablets.

Though most of those polled are still making relatively small purchases (less than $100), 50 percent said they're comfortable spending more than $100 using a cell phone, while almost 20 percent said they're OK buying things worth more than $500.

Beyond paying for items, more consumers are also researching products via their mobile devices. JiWire found that 71 percent of those polled had researched future purchases on their phone or tablet before buying the item. Among those, 31 percent later bought the item in a store, 40 percent bought it online through a PC, and 20 percent bought it directly from their mobile device.… Read more

Sandberg: Facebook can build your business, and now we can prove it

Pretty much everyone in the audience at Sheryl Sandberg's talk on Tuesday morning as part of New York Advertising Week understood the meaning of the slide she displayed that read "Nielsen and Facebook are in a relationship." A nod to announcements on Facebook's homepage "news feed," the "in a relationship" phrase is now a recognizable slice of Internet culture--much as social network Facebook itself has become ubiquitous.

And Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, hopes it will be just as ubiquitous in the advertising world. Her goal on Tuesday was to formally … Read more

Is that your final answer?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Lite is a free, six-question preview of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a game based on the current U.S. version of the world-famous TV game show. The game faithfully recreates the look and feel of the show, from the live video clip of Meredith Viera kicking off each game ("Let's play Millionaire!") to the music, sound effects, graphics, and question format and categories. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire even gives you the game's signature "lifelines": Ask the Audience, Double Dip, Phone a Friend (with canned … Read more

Mobui Audience Chat: Socialize while watching TV

If you're a couch potato, there's now a way for you to exercise your brain and socialize, a little bit, while watching TV.

Mobui, a mobile-application developer that acquired Action Engine awhile back, announced Thursday the launch of Mobui Audience Chat.

Basically, this is a mobile app that television broadcasters and studios could utilize to engage audiences' participation in their shows in real time via their mobile phones. Think of this as how you've been voting for an American Idol, only that you now can engage in much more interactive conversations, rather than just send in your … Read more

LinkedIn announces 'Audience Network' for ads

LinkedIn has long insisted that it's exempt from the common wisdom that social-network ads will never make much money: its affluent user base of networking-happy business professionals can rake in more high-end advertisers and charge more for impressions.

To that end, the company announced on Monday the debut of an ad network, the "LinkedIn Audience Network," that enables other sites to run LinkedIn's ads.

TechCrunch wrote that this will be in partnership with a third-party company, Collective Media, which powers advertising networks for clients.

Like most social-network advertising plans, the LinkedIn Audience Network focuses on targeting. … Read more

The 404 126: Where we're going to miss George Carlin (except Wilson)

Today we celebrate the life of George Carlin, whose controversial brand of comedy paved the way for future acts like the 404. We promise to continue pushing the envelope, sir! On today's show, we give it up to Weezer, say bye-bye to Bill Gates, spout out some serious Bakalisms, pimp the greatest Web site on the Internet, and dish out our best advice to our teenage listeners. We also make plans to build a giant pool full of gold coins. The 404: Whoo-ooh! EPISODE 126 Download today's podcast