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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @10:07AM
Does anyone else remember loading games from a tape recorder on their ZX Spectrum? Took about 5 minutes to load 32k, if it didn't crap out midway through. Them were the days we had to walk to school uphill in both directions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @10:52AM
In my experience, ZX Spectrum loading was extremely robust (unlike ZX81 loading). Of course, games sometimes implemented their own loading mechanism (I guess mainly to get a higher data rate), which could be less reliable.
But then, it might just have been the quality of the recorder (it took quite some effort to find one that worked halfway reliably with the ZX81; of course that was then the same one I also used with the ZX Spectrum).
But yes, I still recall that characteristic sound pattern (that the ZX Spectrum also put on its speaker during loading). From that I also know that some games used their own method: The sound was distinguishably different (and at a higher pitch, thus my assumption that they did it for a higher data rate).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 11 2016, @01:17PM
In my experience, "X" loading was extremely robust (unlike "Y" loading).
In the late 70s to mid 80s home computer boom this was true for all values of X and Y. Lot of mythology and such.
Some systems did categorically beat others, IIRC the TRS-80 model 1 was both slower AND less reliable than the model 3, somehow.
Back in the old days things were simpler... 1 bit A/D "zero crossing detector" input circuitry meant an audio channel wide enough and quiet enough to fit 10 or so parallel 28.8K telephone modem signals barely worked at 600 baud, sometimes, for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @02:35PM
When I wrote "extremely robust" I meant not just "much more robust than the ZX81", I meant "so robust that I don't remember it failing even a single time (for content that used the built-in method)."
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday November 11 2016, @09:47PM
The VIC-20. Oh lord the VIC-20, I loved my VIC but good lord did it take ages to load!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday November 11 2016, @12:49PM
I recall the tape drive being quite solid, more came down to tape- and player quality. Also what you used to make the copies and at what speed you copied the tapes. The Microdrive on the other hand what a nightmare that was - it was "fast" but so unreliable and it broke quite often - also it was quite expensive.
Overall the C64 and similar systems at the time had similar problems and issues with their tape drives. I seem to recall having more issues with the C64 tapeplayer then I had with the one for the ZX. But the 1541 sure did solve most of those issues as once you went floppy you just never got back to using tape again.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 11 2016, @01:53PM
I paid more for my digital cassette player than a new 128GB flash drive costs.
How many lifetimes would it take to transfer 128GB on cassette tape?
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @06:53AM
I remember paying more for my first harddrive then I did for the computer I just bought my mother.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:58AM
The 88kbyte floppy drives were ~$450 in 1982, IIRC. You can get a decent new laptop for that now.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by marknmel on Friday November 11 2016, @10:45AM
Reminds me somehow the book Snowcrash by Neil Stephenson. The one to many signal in the book was a virus that affect machines and humans.
There is nothing that can't be solved with one more layer of indirection.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Friday November 11 2016, @01:05PM
People will shut it off on their phones and tablets because its mostly going to be used for spam.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday November 11 2016, @05:44PM
Siri, Alexa and Cortana laugh at your idea that average people will actually have control over their microphones, or care that they are always being listened to.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 11 2016, @06:59PM
The disembodied voices may be laughing, but nobody is listening.
Almost nobody uses Siri [businessinsider.com] except for jokes. And even among those that do nobody uses it in public. [fortune.com]
And so many people rushed to shut off Cortana that Microsoft had to hide the ability [howtogeek.com] to do so in their Anniversary update.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 11 2016, @07:09PM
You don't have to use it for it to listen to you.
The always-on was oddly touted as a feature, because people are told they're too lazy to even push a button when they have a question for their toy.
The end goal is to know everything about you, 24/7. It doesn't matter whether you are requesting something in return, ignoring it or fighting it. Like a good Telescreen, it's always listening/watching/aware.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday November 12 2016, @03:09AM
always-on was oddly touted as a feature
Except that you have control over that. [google.com]
You won't mistake it being on or off, because the battery draw is way WAY higher when its on, especially when it is enabled for any screen, and it says the words "Say OK Google" right next to the mic symbol.
Same for "Hey Siri". [osxdaily.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 14 2016, @08:14PM
You're posting on SN. You're therefore probably not one of the vast majority who bitches about single-day battery life of modern phones, while leaving all the apps enabled and using defaults, not knowing what's actually running. The microphone listening in doesn't take much power in itself, and speech-processing DSPs are getting better every generation. Courtesy of QWERTY legacy, telling people to always enable voice rather than type on a a designed-for slow keyboard will get us to that happy dystopia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @01:24AM
I heard someone talking with Siri in a public library, once.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rts008 on Friday November 11 2016, @11:12AM
Let's see here:
airgaps, faraday cages, and now a what? Cone of Silence for my devices? Good thing I still have my lil' red wagon, just so I can haul around my newly shielded devices.
No, this will NEVER be mis-used, abused, or become intrusive.
It's bad enough now with all the beeps, boops, bells, buzzers, etc. around the public spaces, now we have to put up with chirps too. Time to put away the hearing aids, and get out the earplugs soon.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday November 11 2016, @03:59PM
Heck, the basic technique is *already* being abused in the form of ultrasonic chirps being used by facebook, etc. to "silently" catalog nearby devices.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @11:13AM
Someone grew up without a modem and has never head a fax machine, but they must have really been a fan of R2D2. Using this for payments and authorizations? WTF? Well, it has the cheapest hardware costs, but every app-capable cell phone already has faster transmission methods. I wonder how many patents they have on it.
I welcome our always on audio listening, data mining overloads.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 11 2016, @01:11PM
I wonder how many patents they have on it.
Meanwhile, literally decades ago when PSK-31 was a new modulation method, ham radio guys would take their late 1990s laptops to demonstrations and they'd use the laptop and speaker and built in mic to demonstrate the bullet proof reliability of PSK-31 by talking across the room. Its mildly entertaining the first couple times.
With multimode software you can send SSTV pictures across the room, do TCP style error corrected packet communications, all manner of crazy stuff.
Note that PSK-31 sends very slowly but is very narrowband and bulletproof so "transmitting" at 20+ KHz would be quite inaudible to everyone but young little kids and dogs. From reading some papers on trying to do SONAR with laptop hardware, the sound card might be capable of it but speakers and amps roll off above audible range pretty quick so its a tradeoff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @05:40PM
inaudible to everyone but young little kids and dogs
Finally, a use for millennials!
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday November 11 2016, @12:32PM
A reference to a scientific paper would be most welcome. Could not see anything at first glance. Thanks in advance.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @03:35PM
Solution in search of problems. And a solution that is still dependent on installing someone else's app to manage, with annoying sound to boot! If I need to install something to make contact work, why would you not use Bluetooth or similar wireless (and noiseless) protocols?
Now, they get both Android and iPhone to bake in the Chirp generation and recognition into the OS..... then you'll have something that will sell. Maybe.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Friday November 11 2016, @05:02PM
I can't find the link right now, but I distinctly remember watching a video of an 1980's UK based computer show, where at the end, they played an audio datastream, which contained a program. You were supposed to put your tape recorder close to the TV speaker to get a good transfer. You could then load the program into your computer.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nethead on Friday November 11 2016, @05:34PM
Kansas City Standard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_standard [wikipedia.org]
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 1) by marknmel on Friday November 11 2016, @05:47PM
Your done before has been done before. In fact it was the Germans in WW2. They had the Hellschreiber. More or less a fax machine over radio communications such as short wave. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellschreiber/ [wikipedia.org]
There is nothing that can't be solved with one more layer of indirection.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 12 2016, @09:04AM
Fixed and "de-mobilized" link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellschreiber [wikipedia.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @07:59PM
That is, essentially, what we used to do in the 80s with using a cassette tape recorder to save and load programs to offline storage. The data stream was very audible, and in the case of the TRS-80 series (with its own 'special' tape recorder that wasn't special,) you were expected to set the volume to 2-3 for the computer to "hear" the data without low volume data drop-outs or high volume overload distortion. Sometimes I'd play back the data tape with the earphone jack pulled out and just listen to the stream. This is Model 200 audio, which is *very* different from what we heard on the Model III. [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday November 11 2016, @08:24PM
Not the same as a cassette recorder, because in the cassette version you needed a really good connection...I ALWAYS used the line-out direct to the computer. I suppose you *could* have played the recorder into a mic, but the signal degradation would have been somewhere north of 10%, even with quite good equipment. And remember, those were analog signals, so you couldn't use commodity gear to sharpen the signal. Even with (much later) high quality VHS tape players you got a minimum of 10% degradation with every generation. The studios could get below 10%, but they couldn't reduce it to unnoticeable.
This is a signal that's intended to be recorded direct from the air, and to be digital from the word go. It's more akin to WWII sonar or radar than to the functionally more similar audio cassette to computer. It's even more similar to someone using a bullhorn in an auditorium. And much more similar to a blind man walking by echo-location (which only works if you've got good ears, have practice, and aren't in a noisy area ... knowing the area also helps a LOT, which is comparable to limitations on expected message format).
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Saturday November 12 2016, @11:00PM
I definitely remember that. Could never get the damned thing to work on my VIC-20, but cheap tapes might have been the culprit there.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 11 2016, @07:34PM
What possible good can come of this? More advertising, more tracking, and more spyware?
Unless it is baked into smartphones, nobody but the most ardent social groupies will install it willingly.
I predict two things:
It will become two way, demanding that your phone reply one way or another, and
Government, Google, and Apple will move to make it mandatory on "security" grounds.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday November 11 2016, @08:59PM
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.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday November 12 2016, @02:52AM
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
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
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
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.