Patent ID: 8059828
Filing Date: 2011-11-15
Classification: H04R

Abstract:
1. An audio privacy system comprising: a signal sampling module which operates to receive and sample a combined sound signal comprising the voice of a user of the system over a series of sampling time intervals and which operates to generate a sequence of sampled audio objects, wherein each sampled audio object represents the combined sound signal for sampling time interval for the sampled audio object; a signal interfering module for emitting an interfering sound signal positioned in a direction to emit the interfering sound signal destructively with the voice of the user; and a signal processing module comprising an audio filter, operatively connected to receive the sampled audio objects from the signal sampling module and to generate and transmit a sequence of interfering audio objects based on a sequence of sampled audio objects it receives to the signal interfering module, wherein for each sampled audio object, the signal processing module computes a recovered audio object which represents an approximation of the combined sound signal by subtracting the sound represented by the audio filter from the sound represented by the sampled audio object, wherein the interfering audio objects comprise an inversion of the recovered audio objects and the audio filter is an audio object approximating the interfering sound signal emitted by the signal interfering module such that the interfering sound signal destructively interferes with the voice of the user.