As digital devices have multiplied, so has the complexity of coordinating them and moving stuff between them. Tone grew out of the idea that while digital communication methods like email and chat have made it infinitely easier, cheaper, and faster to share things with people across the globe, they've actually made it more complicated to share things with the people standing right next to you. Tone aims to make sharing digital things with nearby people as easy as talking to them.
[…] Tone provides an easy-to-understand broadcast mechanism that behaves like the human voice — it doesn't pass through walls like radio or require pairing or addressing. … Because it's audio based, Tone behaves like speech in interesting ways. The orientation of laptops relative to each other, the acoustic characteristics of the space, the particular speaker volume and mic sensitivity, and even where you're standing will all affect Tone's reliability. Not every nearby machine will always receive every broadcast, just like not everyone will always hear every word someone says. But resending is painless and debugging generally just requires raising the volume.
[…] To get started, first install the Tone extension for Chrome. Then simply open a tab with the URL you want to share, make sure your volume is on, and press the Tone button. Your machine will then emit a short sequence of beeps. Nearby machines receive a clickable notification that will open the same tab. Getting everyone on the same page has never been so easy!"
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday May 26 2015, @07:59PM
For a couple decades now one way to learn ham radio digital modes has been run the software on two laptops and send PSK31 or SSTV to each other just using speaker and mic. Its a lot of fun and you can send CW to each other or RTTY or whatever your software supports. Be sure to try modern stuff like Olivia and the meteor scatter modes too. Just in case you'd like to try alternative modulation schemes. I'd suggest starting with PSK31 its the stereotypical example and works pretty well.
Interesting idea to actually hook it up to something like the address bar of a browser. Thats pretty cool, as long as the marketing droids don't figure it out and start blasting stuff thru PA systems or drive trucks with loudspeakers around neighborhoods.
(Score: 3, Funny) by dmbasso on Tuesday May 26 2015, @07:59PM
Expect goatse being broadcast everywhere. Tell me when the Android app hit the store.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @09:24PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @12:35AM
I've heard about that prank, anyone know if a link still exists that does that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:25PM
On the few computers I use that must have flash installed, I make sure to disable the microphone in it and mute it everywhere else -- especially on a laptop. I've taken the effort of disabling the microphone in the bios of some laptops.
I know of no desktop or laptop that will flash a light to say that the microphone is recording me, and know of no service Google uses that doesn't somehow incorporate their taking of personal data.
Saying "OK, Google" is creepy enough, knowing that it is listening but only actually providing user recognizable feedback when those words are spoken. What is to stop the microphone from receiving input so that these broadcasts are not abused unexpectedly (as opposed to the expected abuse from advertising)?
"open a tab with the URL you want to share, make sure your volume is on, and 0wn the others by redirecting them to malware against the will of the owners when you use a sound above human hearing to machines automatically configured via a Chrome update to be vulnerable to this" is what I am reading.
I hope it is not any more useful to marketing or hackers as infrared file transfer was between palm pilots and other PDAs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:39PM
There's no against their will in the design.
First they have to install and activate the Tone extension.
Second, they have to accept a tone link suggestion after it is received.
Really, this was all covered in the summary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @11:37PM
I will concede that point, but I think the primary question I would ask then is Why?
It is already difficult enough to get people to not open infected email attachments. Even if they were not expecting a delivery, or an invoice, or what have you--they click it anyway.
And many people simply do what their computer tells them to. If the http proxy hijack on the guest wifi at the coffee shop says to agree to this installation, people will do it. Then whatever the hipster is playing on his laptop with his fake or stolen google account can play whatever and essentially do the QR code menace all over again.
A college near me had a rash of viruses and whatnot due to people leaving flyers on peoples car windshields, with a QR code for a link to a website where there was a rave or dance party or something. People took a picture, went to the link, got infected, and the website said it was down.
It used to be that people were trained to not go to weird or shady looking URLs; now, many people do not even know what a URL is and the http/https is often hidden because protocols and domains are hard.
Eternal autumn indeed. I hope the tone it plays is pleasant, for I fear if this catches on, it will be frequently broadcast. TVs will play it and people will be prompted to enable the app to receive the special offer! Or something will come out to leave it on permanently, and watching TV can end up with a smart TV hearing itself transmit the Tone plugin instructions, and then download the payload for next command for attacking the network it is on or DDoSing something else or whatever.
At least it is limited to people that are logged into Google. I imagine many smart TVs are for youtube and such, so we'll see how well the internet of things helps secure things that can be owned simply by changing channels on TV.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday May 26 2015, @08:46PM
Exactly who wanted this?
You've got two or more computers connected to the net, right?
So how hard would it be to get a URL from on to the other?
I suspect there are far more BAD uses for such software than good, especially if any part of it continues to be beyond the range of human hearing, and plugins are available for mobile devices.
Audio could affect every device within ear/micshot. All developers have to do is sneak this technology into some popular app or browser.
A network based hack at least requires some penetration of the network and getting the target to connect to your network.
I guess the next demand people will want is an indicator to know when their mic is being used.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Placenta on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:16PM
It gets rid of a cable. That makes it valuable.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:50PM
Why would there be a cable involved just to send a url between computers that are already connected to the net?
And if they weren't connected to the net why would they need to send a url?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:49PM
Could be useful for when bluetooth isn't working right.. so basically for Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1.1, Windows 10, Windows 8 talking to Windows 7...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:51PM
But they are both on the net.....!
Why else would you need to sent them a url?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Wednesday May 27 2015, @02:46AM
You missed Vista. Missing Vista is like skipping over Windows ME. I won't go as far as to say that this is a bad thing, though. It is probably best that you missed it. (Actually, post SP1, it was not AS bad.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday May 27 2015, @02:29AM
Google says that you want this. What with their algorithms and projections, they know what you want even if you don't yet know it.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday May 26 2015, @09:41PM
On its face this seems to be the efforts of someone who recently discovered the wonders of an acoustic coupler and decided that the best use of it would be a replacement for QR codes. In other words, combine a technology that is obsolete to the point of being abandoned, decide that it's now "retro", and use it to re-implement a pointless feature that I never adopted due to concerns over security issues.
I think that this is when I realize that as a Gen-Xer there really is a generation gap between me and the millennials.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @10:29PM
Yeah, well, what I've been wondering for a while now is whether those little credit card readers that you stick in the headphone spigot of a tablet or phone speak the Kansas City standard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2015, @11:23PM
Don't trust anyone over 10.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday May 27 2015, @02:33AM
Naw...you're still just a young probby. This from a pre-baby boomer.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @05:59AM
Na, is just hipsters being hipsters and making the world a better (yeah, right) place.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday May 27 2015, @06:18AM
Does this mean I'll be able to tape pirate copies of video games again? Doesitdoesit? :D
(Score: 3, Informative) by romlok on Wednesday May 27 2015, @02:59PM
From the extension download page:
Which supports what I saw mentioned in The Register's article [theregister.co.uk], but which appears to have been purged from any official descriptions:
So my guess is that it doesn't send the URL itself as the audio signal, just an identifier which you can ask Google to look up.