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posted by janrinok on Friday November 11 2016, @10:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the sounds-good dept.

Low tech sometimes succeeds where high tech fails – as one ingenious company is proving.

Chirp sends data over sound, a burst of audio that usually sounds like a bird's tweet. It doesn't transmit much data – 50 bytes – but it turns out you don't need much bandwidth to bridge the gaps between the real world and the digital world.

Chirp has already been put to use, and unusually for a small company, boasts hundreds of millions of users. Spun out of research at UCL, Chirp first stepped into the public eye four years ago with a consumer app. But it recently switched to a B2B model – licensing the technology for use in all kinds of cases via a software development kit.

...

Sound has obvious disadvantages. One is that it needs to deal with noise interference, which is everywhere. And in the open, the range is short: 10 to 20 feet. But the big advantage is easy to miss: the audio bursts are a one-to-many, multidirectional transmission. So Chirps can be used as a signal – say a trigger, or a wake up call – for millions of digital devices at once. It can be played at a stadium, for example.


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  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday November 11 2016, @08:59PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday November 11 2016, @08:59PM (#425819)

    Do you mean "Hello Google"?

    Um I hate to say it -- but this tracking via sound you speak of -- not to mention the "customer" facing aspect I just mentioned -- has been around for a few years now... look it up.

    However, the bulk of that technology has been utilizing frequencies outside of our hearing range--phones in pockets are a problem, but you know, hardly anyone keeps the phone in their pocket to answer it or make a call since it requires active manipulation in most cases to use.

    I will spell out some of the stuff that is done:

    TVs send these signals. The phones with the advertising back end, which is baked into several common black box sort packages on many consumer phones, are listening. So do those devices people buy to spy on them so they can talk to a robotic voice to order stuff or change the channel or launch a game.

    The TV sends the signals in question during ads, and during shows. The phones, preferably ones (tablets, the devices I mentioned before, etc) are all listening for that, and report to their appropriate clouds that you A) were watching the commercial at such and such a time on such and such a channel, B) possibly the vendor code detail so it's also capturing how nice of a TV you have, and C) how many devices in the same room/coming from same network etc can be correlated as being near each other geographically, to perhaps add even greater personal value to the ads you'll be getting -- on your smart TV -- based on the individual habits already recorded for the users of the *unique* devices, like phones.

    Tablets and amazons and weaves or whatevers, that are more generic and general for family use, might be tuning in as well.

    If you have enough smart tvs, and enough devices, you can get commercials streamed just for you depending on where you happen to be in your house; the tv will know that you did something on your phone (or less relevantly, the PC, since those are less and less consumer tools for consumption) and show an ad.

    Did you go to the mall? The TV will know this and perhaps show you ads for stores you were in or lingered near, or even just whatever happened to be sponsored, based on your previous bluetooth mac address being recorded (or ibeacon details, or both).

      Yahoo's plans to show ads based on the car type and phone mac addresses and IMEI and stuff via billboards watching you and so on -- that's just the next phase, it's not anything new. Malls and city streets and restaurants are already getting lined up with the stuff, especially the ibeacons under chairs and tables; you can be confidently identified down to hundredths of a second of the time of day, which restaurant you were at, what table you sat at, what seat you were in, what you bought while there, how long you sat there, and the places you visited before and afterwards, what you drove, how long it took to get home, etc.

    Then your TV is able to trigger various events to see ads for the stores in the mall and stuff related to your travels online and offline.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday November 12 2016, @02:52AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday November 12 2016, @02:52AM (#425902) Journal

    Yadda yadda, bunch of stuff that actually does NOT exist, bla bla...

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday November 12 2016, @04:45AM

      by butthurt (6141) on Saturday November 12 2016, @04:45AM (#425925) Journal

      Privacy advocates are warning federal authorities of a new threat that uses inaudible, high-frequency sounds to surreptitiously track a person's online behavior across a range of devices, including phones, TVs, tablets, and computers.

      The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser.

      http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/ [arstechnica.com]

      Silverpush Stops Using Sneaky, Inaudible TV Audio Tracking Beacons After FTC Warning

      -- https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160318/09445033954/silverpush-stops-using-sneaky-inaudible-tv-audio-tracking-beacons-after-ftc-warning.shtml [techdirt.com]

      • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:54PM

        by Hyperturtle (2824) on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:54PM (#426976)

        I guess this means that they're just the only one lately that was brought to task about it? This must be the yadda yadda regarding how no one is doing it, right?

        I expect that the new administration will provide a more business friendly experience for this sort of interactive marketing process. It is not like the previous one was unfriendly towards personalized tracking. If consumers wanted to vote about this, I guess they can with their dollars... but the marketing is so good, it's practically personalized! I doubt there will be too many complaints, but there will be more shrugging.

        I don't know why some people get angry about the message, though. It's not like I am making the stuff up.

        • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:17PM

          by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:17PM (#427121) Journal

          I was just offering corroboration for part of what you wrote. The response from frojack did seem to be that you were making it up.