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AT&T Wireless Announces Music ID Service

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the hum-me-a-few-bars dept.

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!"

9 of 333 comments (clear)

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

    Yes

  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. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.