Systems and Methods for Sound-Enhanced Meeting Platforms

Patent Status

Brief Description

Computer-based, internet-connected, audio/video meeting platforms have become pervasive worldwide, especially since the 2020 emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. These meeting platforms include Cisco Webex, Google Meet, GoTo, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. However, those popular platforms are optimized for meetings in which all the participants are attending the meeting online, individually. Accordingly, those platforms have shortcomings when used for hybrid meetings in which some participants are attending together in-person and others attending online. Also, the existing platforms are problematic for large meetings in big rooms (e.g. classrooms) in which most or all of the participants are in-person.

To address those suboptimal meet platform situations, researchers at UC Berkeley conceived systems, methods, algorithms and other software for a meeting platform that's optimized for hybrid meetings and large in-person meetings.

The Berkeley meeting platform offers a user experience that's familiar to users of the conventional meeting platforms. Also, the Berkeley platform doesn't require any specialized participant hardware or specialized physical room infrastructure (beyond standard internet connectivity).

Suggested uses

• Hybrid meetings in which there are in-person and online participants.
• Large meetings in big rooms

Advantages

Automatic, intelligent audio volume leveling, audio delay management, and audio enhancement that are customized for each participant.

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