IFA 2010: Music at your Fingertips and the Best Pictures with a few Clicks

Audanika GmbH is the name of Fraunhofer IDMT’s latest spin-off that introduces itself to the public with a digital music instrument called “SoundPrism” for the first time at this year’s IFA. “SoundPrism” turns your iPhone or iPad into a musical instrument. You do not need any kind of knowledge in the field of playing or composing music to create harmonic sounds intuitively.

It translates music theory into geometric forms that can be manipulated using a touchpad. No matter whether you are learning or composing – with the Audanika SoundPrism complex music theory becomes understandable. Since August it is available for iPad at the iTunes Store.

With Songs2See learning an instrument is a breeze. It advances the concepts of popular music based video games like Sing Star, Guitar Hero or Rock Band by using real musical instruments like recorder or glockenspiel instead of game controllers to play along. Any song of the personal music collection can be used as exercise material. This motivates and trains musical knowledge and skills rather than memorizing button actions.

A room full of speakers and still enough space? No problem with the new generation of Fraunhofer IDMT’s planar speakers. This year, a 5.1 setup of the slim speakers offers a perfect home cinema experience. Whether in or on the wall, as well as integrated in a piece of furniture – an outstanding sound is guaranteed. At a housing depth of only 2.4 centimeters the Fraunhofer planar speakers can be designed freely and integrated into nearly any surroundings – whether living room, conference room or heritage-protected building.

A gorgeous vacation is over, leaving a vast number of digital photographs on the memory card. We've all seen situations like this. But who takes the effort and time to select the best shots for the family album or to create an entertaining slide show? With Photo Summary, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT has developed a technology to simplify this selection process. Only a few clicks, and the software automatically gathers a representative selection of the best shots. At IFA 2010 in Berlin, the developers from Ilmenau present their highly innovative method.

For the first time at IFA, the Oldenburg project group “Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology” presents a telecommunication system that allows people with hearing difficulties to use voice communication via phone or Internet without any restriction. The system analyzes the speech intelligibility in real-time and removes ambient noises. Fur-thermore, the signal is adapted to the individual hearing loss. By this, the user can now communicate via phone again without utilizing his hearing aid and with increased speech intelligibility.

Visit us at IFA 2010 in hall 8.1, booth 4 and experience exciting Fraunhofer innovation.

Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau conducts applied research in the field of digital media and works on leading projects and topics in the field of audio visual applications. Besides sound solutions for home- and professional users (e.g. IOSONO® Wave Field Synthesis technology) software technologies for analysis and characterization of multimedia content as well as audio-visual applications for medical engineering are being developed. Furthermore interactive AV applications for entertainment and knowledge management and the design of architectures for digital online-distribution are in the institute’s research focus. The Fraunhofer IDMT realizes innovative scientific results through prototypes and applicable solutions which come up to customer and market requirements in close cooperation with partners in economy, culture and science. Since 2008, Fraunhofer IDMT has two new branch labs. The department Children’s Media, based in Erfurt, works on the development of innovative computer based program and edutainment formats for children and adolescents. The new project group Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology, based in Oldenburg, researches topics of audio system technology, concerning the fields of health, transportation, multimedia and telecommunication.