Karlheinz Brandenburg, one of the inventors of the MP3 format, has been showing this week new audio technology called 'Iosono' that he hopes will revolutionize audio, creating superrealistic sound for theaters, theme parks and eventually even living rooms.
He and his team are touting their new product as true "three dimensional" audio, which can give the impression of, for example, a horse galloping through the center aisle of a movie theater, or pinpoint a noise so that it sounds exactly like a person shouting from outside theater walls. The best existing surround sound speakers can approximate this only for a small "sweet spot," perhaps a few feet wide, while the Iosono system would create the same realistic illusion for everyone in the room.