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

Sounds like Slashdot!

[tsangc]

this is a case of the media printing something becuase it sounds (pun intended) cool

Doesn't that sound like Slashdot? :)

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.

O.M.P.Q.

[labratuk]

OBSTETRICIAN: Yes. More apparatus, please, nurse: the E.E.G., the B.P. monitor, and the A.V.V.

NURSE #1: Yes. Certainly, Doctor.

DOCTOR SPENSER: And, uh, get the machine that goes 'ping'.

Another Dreary Post

[RobertTaylor]

The last three main stories:

"I'm convinced that there's nothing here that couldn't be done with a suitably clever piece of software"

"Interesting story, no real information though"

"It's not a very substantive piece, but a good discussion starter"

I would hate to see the submitted storys that are rejected!

Re:This is Stupid

[Chexum]

there is no frequency beside on and off.

Perhaps, but ever tried something like this?

ping 192.168.60.254|sed 's/ttl/ttl^G/g'

^G is ctrl-g, possibly ctrl-q,ctrl-g or ctrl-v,ctrl-g depending on your shell. It's really easy to "hear" a few ten ms differences between individual packets, and obviously you don't need a display to hear connections failing..

eureka

[prell]

"wa#$tson, co@(me h@#ere! I nee#(d y@($u!!" Ping done. Reliability: 1

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*

Quake Shows Internet Connection Quality

[Saint Aardvark]

Playing Quake in multi-player mode can show the strength and quality of an Internet connection, says Barry Straub, network system administrator for the University of Leith. By tracking the number of times a player is "fragged", or killed by an opposing player, he's able to track the latency in a given path over the Internet -- and this will be of great use for virtual surgeons of the future.

"It's pretty simple, really," says Straub. "We just set up a couple standard gaming stations: one in the operating theatre with the patient, and one by the chief surgeon. They play against each other and report whenever they've been fragged. By tracking the frag rate, we can get a surprisingly accurate picture of the quality of the connection."

Because the gaming and surgical computers use entirely different protocols, there is no way for the two signals to get confused.

Straub admits that there is one thing that needs to be overcome before his method sees widespread use. "We've had a couple complaints from the surgeons about distractions from the gamer. And I can see their point. When you're chest-deep in someone half a continent away, you don't really want someone yelling '34t h0t l34d, suxx0rZ!' in your ear."

"But we're thinking of maybe removing the larynx of gamers for this. It's probably the simplest solution."

Open-source figurehead and programming guru Richard Stallman was unavailable for comment at press time. "He's having a gall-bladder operation right now," said a source close to the FSF founder. "He's going to be a few weeks recovering from the plasma burns."

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.

webserver monitoring

[Zayin]

How about transforming each http request to the webserver to sound? It would be something like this:

ping........ping........ping....[slashdot story posted]....ping..ping...ping.ping..ping..ping.ping .
ping.pingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpi ngp ing
pipipipipipipipiipiipipipipipiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ii [blue smoke from webserver] piiiiiiiiiHONK... HONK[fire alarm going off]