Two articles, one readable, the other more technical, describe a "break through" technique for visualizing sound which they claim will have a vast impact on several technologies:

"“The applications are immense, and can be used in most fields of science and
technology,” Magnasco says. And those applications aren’t limited to sound,
either. It can be used for any kind of data in which a series of time points are
juxtaposed with discrete frequencies that are important to pick up. Radar and
sonar both depend on this kind of time-frequency analysis, as does speech-recognition
software.
Medical tests such as electroencephalograms (EEGs), which measure multiple,
discrete brainwaves use it, too. "