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Google Tone — Exchange URLs with nearby computers (using sound)
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Francois Mathieu
Google's video has been taken down because of a copyright infringment... on YouTube! Get your shit together Google ;)
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Hunter
"Google Tone turns on your computer's microphone (while the extension is on) and uses your computer's speakers to exchange URLs with nearby computers connected to the Internet. You can use Google Tone to send the URL for any web page, including news stories, pictures, documents, blog posts, products, YouTube videos, recipes—even search results."
Just as Chirp has made huge updates to its iOS app (including sending 6 second Vine-style videos through audio in addition to links, text, photos, etc.), Google now lets us share links with audio on Chrome. The Piu-piu extension has allowed educators and students to send links from Chrome to mobile devices but not TO Chrome. This is really nice for education.
Hunter
Incidentally, Chirp for Chrome was released today (http://chirp.io/chirp-chrome), and it lets you send data from Chrome to the mobile apps. The next version will listen to mobile devices. Again, for education, I can't stress enough how easy this makes it for everyone on every device to get on the same page. Sharing pics, text, and short video clips is great for collaboration across devices. 😎
this is basically a tech demo for chromecast right? that way your phone & chromecast don't need to be on the same wifi network.
Chirp Founder here. Google Tone is a somewhat inferior take on my app Chirp launched a while back, as previous posters have mentioned. Ask me anything!
worked for us at maybe 15 feet apart, even with someone in-between us intentionally playing dial-tones from their computer to see if it would interfere (or take us to a random website)
@avizuber
Clever, but not incredibly useful right now. Also, I could see companies abusing this in the future, if it's ever ubiquitous, by playing the sound of their websites loudly. Ads just got 100x more annoying.
Is it going to have same destiny as QR codes or be actually useful? It feels like it could be the latter, when built-in background mobile support comes as then it wouldn't need any action from the user, ie similar to already always-on Google Now on some Androids (like Moto X).
Could bring lots of uses for sharing materials, wifi passwords, emails, contacts, additional content etc.
Especially for educators, company meetings, conferences, marketing (hopefully not abused), entertainment etc.
I see some applications in the evil world of advertising... Blippar (https://blippar.com/en/) is a good example of interesting/novelty tech that turned into just an advertising platform (although they're trying to innovate into something else).
Brands could hide speakers that emit instructions to find the next speaker, until eventually the last hidden "google tone emittor" directs you to a chest full of gold (or skittles, or a key to a new toyota, *insertgiveaway*). yuck.
@sandersaar
@chrisgeorgiev It mostly worked between two rMBPs in our office yesterday. Even a few feet apart across the table from each other, we had consistent success with volume around 75%. Below that was pretty mixed for us.
If only airdrop was more reliable this wouldn't be necessary, for people on OS X.
I wonder if in the video it's just being done with an audible sound for the demos sake. Would be cool if they used high frequency sounds that humans can't hear. May make it confusing for users in that case though.
@benwtnb It uses both ultrasounds and audible sounds http://googleresearch.blogspot.c...
@benwtnb I have mixed feelings about the point about confusion. I work for a startup that does data-over-audio using ultrasonic sound waves (http://www.lisnr.com/). Most people think it's kind of cool that they can't hear it, but it can also be frustrating when you're testing and things aren't working, then you realize your volume is turned way down. Though Google didn't say it, I think that's a secondary reason for why they added audible.
@kicksopenminds @benwtnb I think on audible as a value perception strategy. Something like "wow, it goes thru the sound"
@rodrigoprior @benwtnb There are quite a few in the data-over-audio space, mostly inaudible. Some with the goal of displacing BLE in the IoT space. Others trying to do interactions like payments and logins over sound.
@kicksopenminds I'm feeling dumb, didn't even think about that fact that even though we can't hear it the sound does still need to be on. Could definitely see that being an issue. I like your/Lisnr's idea to integrate into broadcast TV, very cool. I cofounded a startup in the iBeacon/BLE space in Japan http://mytenten.com, and not a fan of the high-frequence audio in stores to be honest, haven't seen it work very well. Love your idea for broadcast TV and concerts though!
@rodrigoprior Definitely agree with you that it's much more remarkable with sound and makes the idea/product more transferable.
@alfongj Thanks for the link! I probably should have thought to google a Google product before asking ;)
I love the idea of establishing contact through subjecting listeners to a unique environment. This is super cool. 👍
That's exciting to see things moving in that field.
There's been something posted here a while ago (can't retrieve it) that was about unlocking laptop using its mic to receive an auth key as low volume stream.
I can't help but think of the old days when programs were recorded on tape and loaded for hours in commodore64 and alike. I wonder, with all the compression algorithms we have now, how long it would take to transfer a picture using sound.
@oelmekki Are you thinking of SlickLogin? (Google acquired them somewhat recently.)
@kicksopenminds Sounds very similar from what I see from press coverage! I can't find them on PH, though (pretty much sure I saw it here).
Even more interesting if there are actually several companies researching in that field :)
Faxes and dial up modems used sound to transmit data - there's a reason they're both obsolete.
@tonytanevski We know sending all of your data over audio can be slow, but sending small bits like a short ID that is translated into a URL on the server side is a pretty different use case to me.
@kicksopenminds yes different use case, but nevertheless there's better more reliable methods where you don't have to keep quiet.
Yeah sorry, Airdrop is better and can send more than just URL's - no need to shush everybody to be quiet while you send URL's, and can send faster and over larger distances.
Interesting concept though, but not practical. I'm surprised it's the top trending hunt.
