Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize 2017

Smartphones can do almost everything you want, but their poor voice quality is still a vexing issue. Fraunhofer researchers have helped develop a new codec to banish this problem. Their solution raises voice quality to an unprecedented level – making it sound as natural as if the person you’re calling is standing right next to you. That’s because, for the first time, the entire audible frequency spectrum is transmitted.

One of this year’s Joseph von Fraunhofer Prizes went to Dipl.-Ing. Markus Multrus, Dr. Guillaume Fuchs and Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Döhla for the development of the EVS codec. They accepted the prize on behalf of the 50-strong team of researchers and engineers who worked on this project. The jury’s decision was based among other things on “the codec’s worldwide user base and its potential to generate substantial license-fee revenues.”