Using Sound To Test Internet Connections

sifi writes "An article in the New Scientist claims that by converting the frequencies of a 'ping' to sound it is possible to hear the reliability and strength of an internet connection. They then go on to claim that all this is going to make telesurgery safe. I quite frankly think that this is a case of the media printing something becuase it sounds (pun intended) cool. I'm convinced that there's nothing here that couldn't be done with a suitably clever piece of software - unless I'm missing something."

Comments

Well..

[djupedal]

The difference, in this case is, that sound will relate a linear interpretation, end-to-end, where software will simply return a snap shot of any given element.

Re:This is Stupid

[Zocalo]

Heh. I'd pretty much though of doing the same thing, but added dropping the frequency of the ping based on the percentage of pings dropped; high pitched rapid beeps for a decent high speed link and steady dull drone for all packets lost. I suppose you could do something with the volume as well to indicate hopcount by getting quieter as you move further away...

The ear is very sensitive...

[YE]

The human ear (and the corresponding piece of driver code in the brain) is very sensitive to regularities and irregularities in sounds. If you convert something to sound and get used to it, you can very easily spot how it "sounds wrong" when something changes.

Seismographists used to convert earthquake vibration patterns to human-audible sounds; this way it became very easy for a trained ear to distinguish between natural quakes and Soviet nuclear tests. On a screen, both looked like a jumble of lines.

Of course, a clever piece of software can do this too - but you already have this clever piece of software installed for free in your brain.
(Unfortunately it is free-beer, as the source is not available. Hmmmm, I guess rms should target God as the largest producer of closed-source software in the Universe?)

Re:The ear is very sensitive...

[scoove]

The human ear (and the corresponding piece of driver code in the brain) is very sensitive to regularities and irregularities in sounds.

Two additional thoughts/perspectives on this (from a symphony french horn player now broadband guy):

- sound, in learning theory, is very powerful and when combined with other learning mediums (e.g. visual or conceptual) can be a good reinforcer.

Incidentally, if you ever wish to learn morse code, some of the most effective ways to learn it well and quickly are to learn it as sound - not patterns - because of how the brain processes things faster there.

People that try to think of code as "dah - dit - dah" - long/short/long - are crippling themselves and engineering future speed problems. I've actually seen people draw out lines and dots when hearing code, then going back to visually review it all and convert to letters. Audiatory --> Visual --> Conceptual. Ugh!

Instead, by learning it as a language based on sound - they'll be able to reach 30 wpm and greater because of how our brains are designed for optimized processing of language/sound. They'll begin hearing letters without even thinking of dahs and dits, or dashes and periods.

- sound for network testing: Using sound isn't that crazy. We already use Winamp and a 160 Kb shoutcast stream for lots of testing - you can be working on a circuit and immediately recognize you've got a problem when the audio drops, and the loading is nice when you're dealing with broadband residential service. Sure, there are special software tools for this, but none as pleasant to work with as a shoutcast of digitalgunfire.com

*scoove*

Re:Good idea & novel approach

[Ed Avis]

Checking current ping times is not much use for an important application where low latencies are needed. If the network is nice and fast before you begin the surgery, how do you know the ping times will still be as low three hours from now?

What's needed is some way to reserve bandwidth in advance, some kind of ICMP packet that says 'I want to be able to send packets quickly to the following address during the next three hours'. The router will reply with 'okay' or 'no, I can't guarantee that'. If the router has given you a guarantee then it can prioritize your packets during the timeslot you reserved. There would be an extra charge from your ISP for such reservations of course - and the ISP would pass some of this charge on to its peers. Indeed, the routers might be able to negotiate prices among themselves.