[Shish2k]

I wonder if this could be auto-calibrated, like prompt the user with "sit in a quiet place and say '1,2,3'" then brute-force the audio offsets to get the highest peak signal; and from then on you could have the mic focus follow the user's head as they move it by constantly trying slightly different offsets and jumping to a new offset if one sounds stronger?

[throwaway7767]

If this becomes popular, I could see laptop manufacturers putting information about the microphone position relative to the screen/camera somewhere (in the ACPI tables?). Then there would be less need for calibration.

Of course, we'll have the same problems as all the other information in there, that some cheap equipment will have bogus values as someone just copied the ACPI tables from the previous hardware without verifying the information...

[microcolonel]

Better yet, you could listen for breathing sounds if they're not speaking, and use those to find speakers. ;-)