Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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!"

7 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Good idea, too much money. by jrj102 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. Music fingerprinting technology is a smaller (and more approachable) problem domain than open-ended speech recognition, but still this is quite an achievement.

    I congratulate them on the technical achievement, but I think that $0.99 (which is the price quoted in the review) is way too high a price for this service-- for that I could actually buy the song on iTunes or Napster. Unless they drop the price, I don't think this service will be terribly successful.

    On an interesting note, it is not clear from their TOS whether or not you still have to pay for a song recognition even if the service is unable to accurately provide you with the song title.

    Cool idea, but not for a buck.

    --- JRJ

    --
    jrjBlog
    1. Re:Good idea, too much money. by phatsharpie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On an interesting note, it is not clear from their TOS whether or not you still have to pay for a song recognition even if the service is unable to accurately provide you with the song title.

      From the article:

      AT&T will let you test the service for free your first call, but everytime after that it costs $.99 cents, plus standard airtime charges. If it can't guess the song, then your next call is free.

      Not fan of the "next call is free" policy. I'd rather have the current call to be free. Who knows when will I try to use it again.

      -B

  2. Hello, ClearChannel? by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know, it used to be the responsibility of the DJ to make sure listeners knew the name and artist of the tracks they played. They didn't have to say it every song, but they should do so before or after any new song that might not be familiar to the listeners yet.

    Of course, that was before Clear Channel laid all the local DJs off in most markets. Now, the same network DJ banter can be heard before different songs in some cases...

  3. My radio tells me the song name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Now you can finally figure out the name of that song on the radio that you've been dying to know!
    The radio in my car (a 2000 model) has a little button labeled "Info." If I press it, on many stations the name of the song will scroll across the display. This is just the factory standard Chevy radio that came with the car. I don't need my cellphone for this, you insensitive clod!
  4. Indie and other non-mainstream? by RobertB-DC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting service, but how well will it work with independent, non-mainstream artists?

    Susan Gibson wrote and originally recorded the song "Wide Open Spaces" It became a hit for the Dixie Chicks. What happens if I put the phone to the radio while a station that knows the difference is playing the original version?

    Would an artist like Slaid Cleaves or Mark David Manders, which you won't hear on your local corporate country channel, even be identified?

    I suspect the music library won't be broad enough to support the people who actually care about the music enough to use the service.

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  5. Does this tell you anything? by David+Hume · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does the following tell you anything? (I'll leave it to the reader to decide "about what"... if anything.)

    Trial 1
    Artist:Red Hot Chilli Peppers
    Song Title: By the Way
    Quality: CD
    Environment: Office
    Record Time: 22 seconds
    Response Time: 14 seconds
    Verdict: Correct

    Trial 2
    Artist: Ludacris
    Song Title: What's Your Fantasy
    Quality: CD
    Environment: Office
    Record Time: 18 seconds
    Response Time: 16 seconds
    Verdict: Correct

    Trial 3
    Artist: AC/DC
    Song Title: You Shook Me All Night Long
    Quality: Radio
    Environment: Car
    Record Time: 25 seconds
    Response Time: 15 seconds
    Verdict: Correct

    Trial 4
    Artist: Mary Wells
    Song Title: My Guy
    Quality: Radio
    Environment: Car
    Record Time: 17 seconds
    Response Time: 18 seconds
    Verdict: Correct

    Trial 5
    Artist: Beethoven
    Song Title: Moonlight Sonata
    Quality: CD
    Environment: Office
    Record Time: 24 Seconds
    Response Time: About 3 Minutes
    Verdict: STUMPED


    Let's see. Red Hot Chilli Peppers, yep. Ludacris, of course. AC/DC (even on the radio), check. Mary Wells (also on the radio), good to go.

    Beethoven? Who the hell? "Moonlight Sonata???" Sure it was CD quality, but... Beethoven?

    --
    Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
    1. Re:Does this tell you anything? by Soporific · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'd bet it had trouble differentiating it from the 8 zillion different recordings of Moonlight Sonata. It is still interesting though.

      ~S