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AT&T Wireless Announces Music ID Service

mindless4210 writes "AT&T Wireless announced today the release of their new Music ID Service from Musicphone. AT&T customers can identify songs by dialing '#ID' and holding their phones next to the music source. Daily Wireless did a full review of the new service, testing it in several environments against different genres of music. Now you can finally figure out the name of that song on the radio that you've been dying to know!"

20 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Is this a cool idea? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes

    1. Re:Is this a cool idea? by Neil+Blender · · Score: 2, Informative

      What does that site do? All I see is a drop down box where I can choose a US state, several empty ones without captions and one which says "null"...

      Pick a city, it gives you a list of radio stations in that city. You can then pick a time and it will tell you the song and artist playing at that time. It also provides a way to jump to amazon or ebay to find and buy the cd if you want. Looks to be add free so I would guess they must get referal payments or something.

  2. Google is my savior by talaper · · Score: 5, Informative

    whenever I want to find out the name of a song that I heard on the radio, I just go to google and type in a lyric or 2 that I remember, and the word 'lyrics'.

    it hasn't failed me yet!

    1. Re:Google is my savior by utahjazz · · Score: 3, Informative

      What's that song that goes, like, A# G# F F F and then an A7 chord?

      Behold Classical Music Search

      I'm afraid there is no classical song that goes A# G# F F F, followed by anything from A7.

  3. Re:Shazam by Mose250 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, yes it does... As the article clearly states: "The service is provided by Musicphone in cooperation with UK-based Shazam Entertainment. Shazam claims that their pattern recognition technology can identify recorded audio even under noisy conditions. Their music information database is Europe's largest, holding over 1,600,000 music tracks."

  4. Been done in the UK for a year now. by hoofie · · Score: 2, Informative

    Its called Shazam and its been available for at least a year now. From what I've tried of the service, it works quite well.

    Cost is 59pence per call (which must be about 35 cents or something in US of A money).

    1. Re:Been done in the UK for a year now. by hoofie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry, you are 100% correct - I got the approximate conversion the wrong way round - what a muppet..

      Anyway, if its $1.05 in the UK, it just proves that the UK is ALWAYS more expensive than the States.

  5. Radio "RDS" Service by Rkane · · Score: 2, Informative

    The radio data system that is in a large chunk of new stereo's should make this service fairly ineffective. Most major radio stations now broadcast the song title and artist along with the music, and many new stereo's can do this. Why pay a buck for each song when you can buy a decent stereo and get the same thing for EVERY song. An example of a stereo with RDS can be found here. Not to mention satellite radio. If you look up a song every few days, you'd be able to pay your satellite radio bill instead.

  6. Re:this can't possibly work for the stuff i listen by electrichamster · · Score: 4, Informative

    No seriously, I've tried this on some really random music and it generally gets it right.
    For example, I tried it on a bit of music in the film "The Shawshank Redemption", and it correctly named it as being composed *for* the film - and named it too (it was something like "Shawshank prison music").

    It made me go "ooooh", big time.

  7. Re:Good idea, too much money. by MisterFancypants · · Score: 5, Informative
    The question, however, is this: is it good enough to correctly identify the song if I hum a few bars?

    No. These audio fingerprinting services work by comparing audio samples of the songs (as recorded). They won't work if you hum a few bars into the phone. Hell, they wouldn't work if you played the tune almost perfectly on a piano, for that matter.

  8. AT&T sell it, not make it by Albanach · · Score: 3, Informative

    As some others have said, this technology has been around for a while now. Shazam were (iirc) the first to offer it in the UK. They charge 59p or about the same 99 cents. The Shazam service was covered in Scientific American in June 2003 and has been mentioned on /. a few times in the last year.

  9. Jesus Christ... just do what normal people do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    1) Remember a few words of the lyrics.

    2) Get song title by searing for above lyrics on Google, add "lyrics" to end of search string.

    3) Load iTunes to sample song and check other songs by Artist.

    4) Download song on favorite P2P network (see www.zeropaid.com for many).

  10. Re:Good idea, too much money. by amembleton · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've done extensive development work in the area of audio watermarking and audio fingerprinting, and I'm amazed that AT&T can make this happen, given the reduced fidelity of a wireless phone connection.

    Then prepare to be amazed!

    I've been using the same tech here in the UK for the past year and it really does work. Most of the stuff I listen to is not chart stuff, I didn't believe it would be all that good but, yes it really is.

    When you'd kill for the name of the song and your mates don't know it, then its great to just dial 2580 and direct your phone's mic towards the nearest speaker. Shazam then sends you a text of the name of the song and you can access a list of all your songs on the Shazam website. It costs 59p here which is ~99c.

    For those suggesting that you should be able to get a song with your purchase; Shazam let you get a ringtone (mono or polyphonic) just after you get the name of the track. I haven't used this yet so can't commment on it.

    As for its accuracy I've only once had a problem with it and that was because I was in a club with very bad audio and decided to basically 'test' Shazam out. There was a part of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Sprirt that didn't sound anything like it should - just a lot of high pitch noise. Shazam couldn't work it out, so I got my next song name or 'tag' for just 9p.

    You will be suprised by this service.

  11. The Neuros MP3 player.. by bishiraver · · Score: 4, Informative

    has had this functionality since it comes out. You can press a button on it, and it will record a 30 second clip from the radio, line in, or mic. The next time you sync with your organization utility on your PC, it copies the 30 second clip over and uses a technology like this to identify the clip. It works pretty well, too.

  12. Just tried it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I just tried it with:
    PJ Harvey / Stories from the City / Track 7 / This Mess We're In

    And it failed. This was in a quite room and I held the phone ~4" from the speaker.

    The first time you try the service it is free and if it fails you it's free the next time you use it as well... I can't see people spending 99 cents for the service, but I can't see people spending 3 cents a KB for data service or 10 cents for a fscking text message either...

  13. Licencing technology from shazam? by Wolflord · · Score: 2, Informative

    I wonder if AT&T have licenced technology from shazam. More about their technology here.

  14. I don't listen to radio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I don't listen to radio you insensitive clod! As neat as the idea is, I find it unlikely I'll have any use for it deciphering underground music sources

  15. Re:this can't possibly work for the stuff i listen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    we tried it with some obscure punk rock here (germany) and it worked. i think they have more than 250.000 songs, and of course keep extending it.

    just wait a bit and check it for yourself. you won't be able to resist testing that technology anyway...

  16. Re:Someone's been reading... by ozbon · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe so, but it's been available here in the UK for about a year or 18 months now. Dial 2580 (conveniently, the middle column of numbers on most mobile keypads), hold phone to speaker, and it identifies the music. I've used it even in nightclubs etc., and it's pretty much spot on.

    --
    I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
  17. Re:Good idea, too much money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hmm, I think you're confusing trance with techno. Trance is much more dynamic, with a lot more melody. Techno is just very bangin' and mechanical. But what someone said, death metal is really dynamic, there's multiple tempo changes and different riffs. It's much more dynamic than most of the rock music out on the market (come on... punk? Same variation on 2 chords in every song since the Ramones) Hardcore is what you call the slow paced music with the dog barking cookie monster vocals, and I agree, that stuff is really dull.