IT House April 20 news, according to Windows Latest, during the hybrid office event, Microsoft announced new features for Windows 11, including file explorer tabs and new ways to improve the speech clarity of apps like Microsoft Teams or Skype. This feature, known as Voice Clarity, is currently only available on some PC devices, but is expected to be rolled out on more hardware in the coming months.
One of the most striking new features of Microsoft Teams is its noise reduction feature. Teams uses its AI and ML-driven noise cancellation capabilities to block the sounds of the world around them, so users can easily focus on meetings.
Microsoft wants to add a similar feature to Windows 11 with speech intelligibility. Unlike noise reduction embedded in teams applications, Microsoft's new speech intelligibility feature is available at the operating system level and is designed to capture the entire spectrum of audio at higher bandwidths.
It also uses advanced echo controls to reduce background noise, so people in Teams or Skype can hear each other clearly. Speech intelligibility also relies on hardware to integrate signals from multiple microphones.
During the event, Microsoft said that speech intelligibility was only available for Surface Laptop Studio. However, this advanced processing power may also be suitable for more PC devices.
Currently, it only works with Surface Laptop Studio and is coming out in the latest firmware update.
Unlike other conference-centric features announced during the event, speech intelligibility does not require a neural processing unit (NPU). Surface Laptop Studio doesn't have an NPU, so it's safe to say that speech intelligibility will appear on more non-NPU devices, but we don't know when it will appear on non-Surface products.
Microsoft notes in its support documentation that "speech intelligibility is unique to Windows 11 and* is currently available on Surface Laptop Studio." ”
Of course, users need updated hardware to take full advantage of speech intelligibility features.
Other features announced at the event, such as tabbed file explorer, contextual suggestions, and a better focus assistant, also don't require any changes to the existing configuration.
However, support for features such as eye correction, background blur, and auto-viewfinder will require NPU and will only be available on modern devices like Lenovo ThinkPad.