A Chatham audio company has been tasked with helping a California sound company co-founded by Steven Spielberg research machine learning, a component of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Design Sound Productions (DSP) has inked a licencing agreement with Digital Theatre Systems (DTS) to use DSP's audio drama and spoken word dialogue to evolve DTS's research.
DSP President David Farquhar said his audio dramas and spoken word content produced by Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre will now be crucial for the cutting-edge developments in AI that DTS and Xperi currently have underway.
Farquhar said his company was approached by the Vice President of Research and Development at Xperi, a subsidiary of DTS, and a Silicon Valley tech giant after he listened to one of their podcasts.
"It just came out of the blue. I got this email in my inbox and I took a look at it and thought 'what is this?'" said Farquhar. "It was really neat when you think about it. Who would think a tech company in Silicon Valley connecting with somebody who does audio theatre in Chatham, Ontario? That part I find unbelievable."
Farquhar said he still can't believe a little company in Chatham would be such a wanted commodity.
Farquhar said children's titles are really popular right now and his children's audio tracks really interested DTS because of their unique voices and delivery.
Farquhar said the terms of the deal are confidential and the work to be done can't be disclosed because it's proprietary.