By embedding MAW documents, which might include dynamic effects, alongside voicemail, we tag each utterance as a spatial channel. MAW is designed to exploit innate localization abilities, our perception of spatial attributes, and our intuitive notions of how to select and manipulate objects distributed in 2-space. Everything in the system is manifest, and objects and actions can be understood in terms of their effect on the displays. Precise auditory localization is difficult, but informal experiments indicate that MAW's visual and acoustic displays complement each other, a glance at the map disambiguating auditory cues. As sound technology matures, and more and more audio and multimedia messages and sessions are sent and logged, the testimony of sound may come to rival that of the written word.
Audio windows are a way of organizing and controlling sound.
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