The shutdown of international travel due to COVID-19 has meant that most international conferences have been cancelled, delayed, or they have transitioned to e-conferences. Here is a list of upcoming conferences related to acoustics and vibrations:

• Internoise 2020 : 23 – 26 August 2020, virtual conference.
• Audio Engineering Society aeseurope.com : virtual conference 2 – 5 June 2020.
• Acoustics 2020 New Zealand – delayed until 31 Oct – 2 Nov 2022 Acoustics 2022.
• ICSV27 – delayed until July 2021.
• Acoustical Society of America May meeting Illinois, rescheduled for 8 – 12 December 2020.
• Noisecon 2020 – New Orleans, rescheduled to 16 – 18 November 2020.
• COMADEM 2020 Lulea Sweden, rescheduled to 25 – 27 May 2021.
• ISMA 2020 , USD2020 : 7 – 9 September 2020, virtual conference (updated 2020-05-21).
• ICUA 2020 International Conference on Underwater Acoustics Southampton UK, 6 -12 July 2020, postponed.
• Quiet Drones 2020, virtual conference, 19 – 21 October 2020.
• Forum Acusticum 2020 , Lyon, France, postponed to 7 – 11 December 2020.

An additional siren, which emits low-frequency noise, has been fitted to several Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service vehicles. The Whelen Howler, is a big speaker inside an enclosure for protection. The operators report that everyone takes notice when the siren is used. The siren emits deep tones that penetrate other vehicles, alerting drivers and pedestrians of the approaching vehicle.

Read the article on SirenNet.

A report titled “UK Acoustics: Sound Economics”, by the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London, calculate that UK’s acoustics industry has a turn-over of £4.6 billion annually. This is generated by around 750 companies, and over 200 active research grants in over 47 UK universities.

The founder of Head Acoustics, Klaus Genuit, said that
“A soup might be delicious or not, but you can’t answer this by knowing the temperature of the soup. It is the same with restaurant soundscapes—you need a lot more information than just noise level.”

At the 177th Acoustical Society of America conference in May 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Genuit will present an application of the standard ISO 12913-3, Acoustics — Soundscape, which is still under development.

The new standard requires the use of binaural recording equipment, which Head Acoustics happens to make and sell.

Read the conference abstract on the Acoustical Society America web site.

Fujitsu in Japan has developed a device called Ontenna, that converts sound into light and vibration, that provides an aid for deaf people. Fujitsu plans to distribute the device for free to 30 schools for the deaf in Japan.

Read the news article on the web site nippon.com.

Read about some of the best sounding concert halls, and how they are designed, on the web site Interesting Engineering.

Zoom, who make portable audio recorders, have released the Zoom H3-VR recorder that has 4 microphones arranged in a tetrahedron to enable recording of ambisonic spatial audio.

Engineers at PCB have published an interesting article at audioxpress.com on how microphones are calibrated.

I can see this recent article as a contender for an Ig Nobel prize

“Acoustical performance of samples prepared with cigarette butts”

Spanish researchers from Departamento de Física Aplicada, Escuela Politécnica, Universidad de Extremadura, measured the sound absorbing properties of cigarette butts.  Given the enormous number of cigarette butts that get thrown away, which don’t decompose very well, it is great that someone tried to find a use for waste.