{"id":41270,"date":"2020-08-26T10:41:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=e08522e37c4d068131ff50b1556c00d6"},"modified":"2020-08-26T10:41:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:41:03","slug":"cisco-webex-tackles-background-noise-with-babblelabs-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/cisco-webex-tackles-background-noise-with-babblelabs-acquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"Cisco Webex tackles background noise with BabbleLabs acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field-name-field-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden\"><br \/>\n      <span class=\"field-item even\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudpro.co.uk\/authors\/keumars-afifi-sabet\">Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n  <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-published-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><span class=\"date-display-single\">26 Aug, 2020<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"short-teaser\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudpro.co.uk\/\" title=\"\" class=\"combined-link\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body\">\n<p><span>Cisco is planning to integrate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/ai-news\/what-is-ai\"  class=\"polaris__link\">artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a>\u00a0technology from BabbleLabs into its collaboration division to improve the audio quality of participants in Cisco Webex meetings and remove background noise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>BabbleLabs specialises in developing AI that can detect speech, distinguish this from background noise,\u00a0and use speech enhancement tech to improve the quality and clarity of speech.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"polaris__related-links\">\n<p><span>Cisco plans to integrate BabbleLabs\u2019 engineers into its Collaboration portfolio, and will begin by adding\u00a0this enhanced audio experience to Webex Meetings, which should work regardless of the device being used to connect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This processing will be implemented on the client-side, too, meaning audio will be suppressed and enhanced before transmitted to meeting participants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;A great meeting experience starts with great audio,&#8221; said Jeetu Patel, senior vice president and general manager with Cisco\u2019s security and applications unit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;We&#8217;re thrilled to welcome BabbleLabs&#8217; team of highly skilled engineers. Their technology is going to provide our customers with yet another important innovation \u2013 automatically removing unwanted noise \u2013\u00a0to continue enabling exceptional Webex meeting experiences.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"polaris__newsletter -light\">\n<form action=\"https:\/\/dennis.slgnt.eu\/optiext\/optiextension.dll?ID=MofMeN7jyuGShLcNaQZjt2R0PrNwdl85y9epNKwQKD67qFo2wdgsw249hZyuiJDnRzk5WqgEIoBCgWhEqf&amp;BRANDS_NEWSLETTERIDS=CHP_STD,CLP_STD,ITP_USA,ITP_T20,ITP_TBB&amp;NEWSLETTER_ID=ITP_STD&amp;SUBSCRIBE_SOURCE=web0003itp&amp;BRAND_CODE=ITP\"  method=\"post\" class=\"polaris__form\">\n<div class=\"polaris__newsletter--form\">\n<div class=\"polaris__newsletter--headings\" data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen-13282986_53=\"1598438292001\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-13282986_53=\"1598438292001\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-13282986_53=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-13282986_53=\"1\">\n<div class=\"polaris__simple-grid--main\">\n<p><span>Background noise suppression is a feature that\u2019s already embedded in a number of\u00a0video conferencing services owned by rival providers, including Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Zoom has featured a form of background noise suppression for some time, although a\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/software\/video-conferencing\/356702\/zoom-introduces-filters-and-reactions-to-make-meetings-more-fun\" class=\"polaris__link\">recent update aims to improve the standard of this feature<\/a><span>, which has been temperamental in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"polaris__simple-grid--aside\">\n<div class=\"polaris__ad -sidebar-ad -rendered-ad-slot\">\n<div class=\"polaris__ad--inner\">\n<p><span>Like many other video conferencing providers, Cisco Webex has enjoyed a surge in users following to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/flexible-working\/355731\/how-to-work-from-home-like-a-boss\"  class=\"polaris__link\">rise of remote working<\/a>. In March, the platform\u00a0<\/span><span>registered a record\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.cisco.com\/news\/easing-the-everyday-challenges-of-sheltering-in-place\"  class=\"polaris__link -is-external\" rel=\"noopener\">324 million total\u00a0users<\/a>\u00a0for the month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Microsoft, by way of comparison, boasted 75 million daily active users for its Teams platform as of 30 April. Zoom, meanwhile, said it reached 300 million daily active users during the height of the pandemic, although\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/marketing-comms\/communications\/355498\/zoom-quietly-corrects-misleading-claims-of-over-300-million\" class=\"polaris__link\">later clarified this to suggest it meant meeting participants<\/a><span>\u00a0as opposed to daily active users.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When the BabbleLabs acquisition closes, its team will join Cisco\u2019s Collaboration Group, led by senior vice president and general manager Javed Khan. The collaboration division is part of the Security and Applications Business, led by Patel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The integration also forms part of Cisco\u2019s plan to improve the audio experience before, during and after a meeting. While the AI processing will apply in real-time during a meeting, Webex will also automatically send meeting notes and action items afterwards, while improving the \u2018waiting room\u2019 experience before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"polaris__tags\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>      Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/p>\n<p>        26 Aug, 2020    <\/p>\n<p>      Cisco is planning to integrate\u00a0artificial intelligence (AI)\u00a0technology from BabbleLabs into its collaboration division to improve the audio quality of participants in Cisco Webex meetings&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41271,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41270\/revisions\/41271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}