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High Fidelity Launches API for Its Spatial 3D Audio — But Where’s the World?

Philip Rosedale High Fidelity spatial audio

High Fidelity just launched the Alpha program for its API to deliver 3D spatial real time audio to many people in the same virtual space, with an SDK for Unity and iOS coming soon. (Speaking of which, the company's hiring an iOS developer.) The roadmap is pretty exciting:

Planned for Development:

  • Increasing the capacity of a single space to handle more than 120 concurrent connections
  • Privacy zones with audio occlusion, i.e. rectangular regions akin to rooms, through which sound cannot pass into the rest of the space
  • One-on-one private audio connections
  • Blocking (and re-enabling) selected audio sources
  • Video capabilities: individuals in a space may choose to be on camera and be seen by others in the same space

Considering for Later:

  • Video: broadcasting/streaming for an audience in the space
  • Audio occlusion maps that create realistic audio reflections and attenuation
  • Optional text captioning
  • Voice modifiers/morphing
  • Voice obfuscation–rendering a specific audio source audible yet unintelligible
  • Audio broadcast support for thousands of listeners
  • Unreal support
  • C++ support

One thing conspicuously absent from the road map: Where's the, you know, metaverse that High Fidelity was originally launched to build? Or is that no longer in the plans?

Update on that (hopefully) soon.

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One response to “High Fidelity Launches API for Its Spatial 3D Audio — But Where’s the World?”

  1. seph Avatar
    seph

    I think their goal is to get acquired by some company that can make use of them at this point.
    High Fidelity was on Series D funding 2-3 years ago. Few startups make it to a Series D without having first folded. And a Series E is nigh unheard of, especially hitched to a pivot like returning back to a 3D virtual world.
    High Fidelity’s already raised 70 million or so dollars against a valuation barely much more than that, and it’s probably significantly lower now that it’s simplified to an audio API company and has a few failed products behind it.
    More than likely Philip is spending through what money is left from earlier funding rounds and what he got from the Linden Lab sale. He probably looked at Vivox’s acquisition from Unity, and hopes a company like Epic maybe will divorce from Vivox and choose High Fidelity as a replacement when its good enough, or that Zoom might acquire High Fidelity which is maybe when he’s been talking about Zoom so much.
    Vivox was the biggest company like this in the world though, heck Linden Lab pays them for Second Life’s voice. Vivox is also in Fortnite, PUBG, other huge games and experiences, and even they ended up acquired. To believe High Fidelity, in a much worse financial situation can find a different fate than folding or acquisition is super optimistic.
    Good luck to Philip though I’m a huge fan and wish him much success and I hope he can get back to his true aspirations if High Fidelity’s current possibly forced pivot isn’t it.

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