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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!"

62 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. 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 MaineCoon · · Score: 4, Funny

      How could you buy it on iTunes or Napster, unless you know the name?

      Now, will their system overload if you try to get it to recognize Death Metal?

      --
      Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
    2. Re:Good idea, too much money. by jrj102 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not if you don't know the name of it...

      OK, fair enough... but we're talking relative value here: if the song itself is worth a dollar then how much is the NAME of the song worth? It just doesn't seem like a good value for my money.

      What they need to do is offer 100 songs for $10 or something, or add it as a flat-fee monthly addition to your service. (or, dare I say, a free value-add to distinguish their cell phone service from others!) Obviously, nobody at AT&T has read Seth Godin's Free Prize Inside.

      --
      jrjBlog
    3. Re:Good idea, too much money. by Torgo's+Pizza · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It would be better if they bundled the pricing with an option to purchase the song as well. Chances are that if I want to know the name of the song, I would buy it as well. A buck for the name of the song and buying it becomes a value to me.

    4. Re:Good idea, too much money. by 110010001000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One thing tech people aren't good at is deciding how much to charge for a product. Most tech people will charge way to low for a product. I used to be that way, until I found out how much a house costs and how much a lawyer and doctors charge.

    5. 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

    6. 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.

    7. Re:Good idea, too much money. by adamgeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the "next call is free" policy, i would assume, is implemented to discourage people from abusing the system.. with music they KNOW the system can't identify. i.e. they still have to pay for a call to get their freebie.. if every call it misses on is instantly free, i am sure some drunken frat boys would be calling all night farting into the phone just to giggle at the results. or maybe not.

    8. Re:Good idea, too much money. by afidel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They ARE going to bundle the ability to buy the song, the album, or the ring tone of a song eventually. THAT is where the real revenue will come for them. As other people have noted a buck for the ID is expensive, but if they can get the people with the disposable income to use further services then they probably have a good revenue stream. Personally I would carry the cost of the ID service and do all the bundling, kind of use the ID feature as a loss leader to bring people into the ad stream for all the other services.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    9. 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.

    10. Re:Good idea, too much money. by Chiasmus_ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How could you buy it on iTunes or Napster, unless you know the name?

      You know, I was thinking about this, and the real solution here is for AT&T to partner up with iTunes and/or Napster in this regard.

      It'd be pretty cool to be able to tell iTunes, "I'd like to be able to buy this song..." (holding cell phone up to the radio), pay the standard $0.99, and then let iTunes pass off a nickel or so to AT&T.

      But, yeah, doubling the price to hold up your phone to the radio rather than type a lyric fragment into Google is a little.. steep.

      --
      "Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
    11. Re:Good idea, too much money. by sydb · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please tell us more about the 1% of songs you want names for, but you don't know the songs. I am interested in surrealism.

      --
      Yours Sincerely, Michael.
    12. Re:Good idea, too much money. by cheezit · · Score: 4, Funny

      Let's see...ultra-mechanical rhythms, very repetitive, cookie-monster vocals, no dynamics....I bet death metal would be easy. Plus, if it misidentified a song, who would know?

      --
      Premature optimization is the root of all evil
    13. Re:Good idea, too much money. by Derg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Plus, if it misidentified a song, who would know?


      Bastard. Soda out the nose hurts. I want my dollar back. That was too funny.

      --
      I'm a little tea pot.
    14. Re:Good idea, too much money. by gilrain · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's a cool idea, but let me expand it a little. I'm not usually listening to the radio when I'm on my computer -- I'm listening to my iTunes library. I listen to the radio (sometimes) in the car.

      I think it would be more useful if you could have AT&T identify the song, and then something like "Press one to cue this song for purchase in the iTunes Music Store." When you press one, AT&T sends the information to your iTunes account (you've opted into this by linking phone numbers to your iTunes account via they're account management page).

      That way, you could review the songs when you got home, and place the order if you still wanted them.

    15. Re:Good idea, too much money. by adamgeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

      rather than quantifying exactly how it is abusing the system, let's assume that somehow in 100% of cases, it isn't.

      but, now let's also pretend i suddenly own AT&T. i now own a giant corporation, and although i don't have my MBA, i have to assume it's standard business practice when owning a giant conglomerate to attempt to close every loophole where someone might attempt to use any of your resources to get anything for free, even if it's in the form of idle entertainment from calling and monkeying around with your musicID service.

      anyway, that was my reasoning, and thus my assumption for making the next call free. discourages people from calling simply to make calls they know would instantly be free, and if repition makes people even slightly more comfortable with using a new service (and thus more likely to pay for it in the future), providing you a second free call might have an added side benifit.

      i like candy.

      actually, in retrospect, if it was my company (which it wouldnt be, because i'm not a shrewd business person haha), i would let people have free calls in order to encourage more use of the service.. but my guess is the uptight suits at ma-bell don't feel the same way.

  3. mwahaha by Aggrazel · · Score: 2, Funny

    Turn this on next to will hung and watch a phone kill itself.

    1. Re:mwahaha by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah... it'd just report

      Error: Music was not input...

  4. Does anyone know this song? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny


    la-la-la-lalala-la-la-la?

    Thanks.

    1. Re:Does anyone know this song? by Uber+Banker · · Score: 2, Funny

      Is it the cover of Anathema's Sleepless by Cradle of Filth?

    2. Re:Does anyone know this song? by Atomizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think it's S.O.S.

  5. 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...

  6. 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!
  7. 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.

    2. Re:Google is my savior by Henk+Postma · · Score: 2, Insightful
      That works pretty well, of course

      ....

      unless you also have a liking for the finer shades of techno

      ....

      and you can forget about humming the tune in the record store :)

      ....

      "It goes a little like this Boom DaDaDa Boom, Boom DaDaDa Boom, Boom DaDaDa Boom, Boom DaDaDa BoomBoom"

  8. I remember something like this.. by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

    having been in use here some time ago, maybe a year ago, or two?

    can any other Finnish people confirm?

    I thought it to be just a cool gimmick, not something that real people would use.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:I remember something like this.. by jc42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      an any other Finnish people confirm?

      Funny; I was thinking of testing it out with some Finnish folks songs that I've heard but don't have names for. And some Bulgarian, Nigerian, Peruvian, and Chinese songs, for that matter. Also, I probably wouldn't be playing a radio for them; I'd be playing my fiddle or flute or accordion or Yamaha keyboard or some such, because I don't have recordings of them.

      Think this would work?

      I wasn't too impressed by their tests. They failed to identify Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Of course, I wouldn't need them to identify that one for me, since I know it. But there are some less-known sonatas, by lesser-known composers, and if they can't even handle Ludwig's Moonlight Sonata, what are the chances they'd recognize the others?

      This isn't a trivial concern. There's a growing threat to musicians who accidentally perform copyrighted works without first getting a license. We've had stories of music industry guys showing up at sessions at bars and such, and hitting the proprietor up for a fine because the motley gang of fiddle, flute and accordion players played a copyrighted tune. It's a followup to the story a few years ago when they sued the Girl Scouts for singing copyrighted songs around the campfire. (And note that the Girl Scouts lost that one. Or rather, they caved and are paying the protection money.)

      This is getting to be a serious problem for amateur musicians. You remember a tune and play it, and like George Harrison, you get sued for copyright infringement. But there's nowhere you can look up a tune and get the name and email address of the owner. If you want to do a proper search for permission, it'll cost you years of your life and millions of dollars. All you can really do is play it, and see if anyone sues you.

      You could buy an annual license from every agency in the world. That would only cost tens of thousands of $$ per year. Yeah, right. That may work for a handful of top professionals whose albums are selling well. For the rest of us, especially us amateurs, it's far more money than we'll make playing music in our lifetime.

      So what's the hope for a service that will correctly identify an old Finnish or Bulgarian or Mongolian folk song, or warn us that the tune is modern and under copyright?

      (Actually, I could build such a site. I've been in several discussions of how to do it. But of course, it would be illegal, and I'd be sued out of business by all the copyright owners. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  9. 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."

  10. The Last DJ. by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see

    How much you'll pay for what you used to get for free

    And there goes the last DJ

    Who plays what he wants to play

    And says what he wants to say

    Hey, hey, hey

    And there goes your freedom of choice

    There goes the last human voice

    And there goes the last DJ

    Tom Petty

    1. Re:The Last DJ. by IntelliTubbie · · Score: 4, Funny

      And there goes the last DJ

      And there goes the last DJ

      Damn, if only I knew the title of that song...

      Cheers,
      IT

      --

      Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

  11. 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.

  12. this can't possibly work for the stuff i listen to by aberant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously this has to cater to the top 40 kinda crap that's be marketed as actual music to everyone today. what would really impress is being able to hold it up to some obscure jazz/electronic album and having the phone identify it. if you listen to any top 40 station for an hour, you can just as easily identify one of these songs as this phone can

  13. probably leverages govt. R & D by SethJohnson · · Score: 2, Interesting


    This probably uses existing R & D from voice identification technology they developed for the US govt. For instance, Pablo Escobar was captured after he made a phone call. He didn't call a traced number or from a traced number. His voice simply popped up on the phone lines. Bam! They identified his voice and captured him. And that was more than 10 years ago. Obviously, this is an example of how this technology has improved.
    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
  14. 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.

    --
    Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
  15. Missing feature: by El_Smack · · Score: 5, Funny

    [Digital Operator type voice]
    I'm sorry, the song you are trying to ID is by... Brittany ... Spears. Please hang up, and listen to something good.
    [/Digital Operator type voice]

    --


    There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
  16. but... by ambienceman · · Score: 5, Funny

    AT&T still sucks...

    I'd like to see when they introduce the new feature that allows me to actually make a call...and maybe a new feature that allows me to promptly speak with a customer rep.
    --
    MY SECRET DIARIES
    1. Re:but... by fo0bar · · Score: 3, Funny
      I'd like to see when they introduce the new feature that allows me to actually make a call...

      I'm not sure what you mean... My "outdated" AT&T TDMA phone is great. All of the other providers and technologies have phased out making calls, while introducing "features" such as surround sound ringtones, stamp-sized streaming pornography, camera, and The Mobile ARPAnet(TM).

      Call me old fashioned, but I like the antiquated style of punching in a phone number, taking into a microphone, and listening for a response.

  17. 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.

  18. Probably never. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2, Interesting

    More useless services from cellphone companies.

    Like personalized ring tones and bust-your-thumbs instant messaging? B-)

    They're TELEPHONE companies, dude!

    They learned a long time ago that millions of customers dribbling in a buck here-and-there for "value added" services add up to BIG BUCKS! They COULD have provided this for free, as a convenient side-effect of the computers they used to cut the cost of their switching equipment. It's just a bunch of software hacks. But why give it away when they can CHARGE for it, and people are willing to PAY?

    When will they get to lowering rates and giving cheap internet access? Hmm?

    Cheap? Probably never. Or when they're going broke due to competition from other companies that ARE providing such a service cheaply. Even then they're probably price it at "all the traffic will bear" and count on their broad coverage to get them customers despite cheaper competition.

    They WILL roll out non-cheap portable internet services - eventually. But don't hold your breath. Expect it to be folded into some other upgrade to their cell systems (like the upcoming move to QoS-enabled-IP based voice transport) rather than a standalone upgrade.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  19. singing in the shower by hardaker · · Score: 2, Funny

    so I wonder what it'll tell me about my rendition of "rubber ducky" while I take a shower?
    it'd probably come back with "don't quit your day job" by "at&t".

    --
    The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
  20. 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.

  21. Good for contests by good-n-nappy · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only real use for this is to win those contests on the radio where they play a 2 second snippet from a song and you have to guess what song it is.

    I have to say though, that I pity anyway who actually participates in these contests.

    --
    Never underestimate the power of fiber.
  22. 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.
  23. 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).

  24. 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

    2. Re:Does this tell you anything? by Polymath+Crowbane · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'd be willing to bet the service has a minimal amount of classical music in their database. Of course, it could simply be they don't have room for such an obscure piece of music as the "Moonlight Sonata."

      The sad part is that there are many times I hear a piece of classical music on the radio and would gladly pay $0.99 to find out what it is, especially when I'm on the road and likely to be out of range of the station before it's finished. I suspect there are other classical listeners in the same boat, and with disposable income for such a service.

    3. Re:Does this tell you anything? by Polymath+Crowbane · · Score: 2, Funny
      It was a joke, yes. Unfortuantely, there is no HTML for "tongue-firmly-imbedded-in-cheek."

      Of course, this being /., I suspect the majority of people reading this would need to use the service to identify Beethoven's Piano Sonata in c#.

  25. so glad you could make it, now you really made it by rokzy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    >Now you can finally figure out the name of that song on the radio that you've been dying to know!

    er, been doing that for years in UK with Shazzam Song Recognition thank you.

  26. Is a computer really IDing it? by ism · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just figure they'd outsource it to India and have Indians ID the songs. Just have each Indian listen to one genre of music, weighted by popularity and likelyhood to come up. You can probably attach 3 people to each ID session -- pop/rock, country, and hip-hop and if they can't ID it, pass it on to the next tier of IDers. It would probably still be cheaper than audio fingerprinting, considering how distorted the music must be.

  27. Best part by empaler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wanna bet they're making the record companies pay as well?

  28. Cellular add-ons by huie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's stuff like this (value added services?), Cingular's comics and instant messaging that are turning cell phones into more than just a handset you talk into.

    I like it, but I fear that it'll get to the point where it's too hard to figure out how to access a given extra feature. Obviously they'll have to work on the UI to select from all these (marginally) useful features.

    That said, I'm still just using my phone as a phone, so maybe they already have that solved, but I wouldn't know.

  29. Missing something by Paladin144 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think many of you are missing something, but it's also possible that you don't listen to a lot of obscure music. Sure, I listen to all the latest rock music, but I also like to listen to our local classical music channel here in MN, 99.5 FM.

    I love classical, but it's a real bitch figuring out the song names. Hell, most of the time it's something like: "Concerto No. 432, Op. 5341: Andante con margarine" or something equally lame. If this service could help me out with that, it would be worth a buck to me.

    I've listened to brilliant classical works, and then the announcer comes on and says (in his heavily-tranquilized drawl) a bunch of words I've never freaking heard before. No doubt it's the name of some obscure foreign composer and the foreign conductor and the foreign symphony that played the tune, which has a name derived from latin. Great. That fucking helps me a bunch.

    Oh, and that's another thing; the songs can go on forever. If he plays 3 or 4 movements it can easily be a half hour. Don't get me wrong; I love the station (no commercials!), and I love classical music, but can this service really tell the difference between Handel and Mozart? And for that matter, can it tell me which movement, and who is conducting? Please excuse my skepticism, but I seriously fucking doubt it. The idea is great, and it's useful to me since my tastes range from pop to ultra-obscure, but does it work?

    --
    Electric Monkey Pants
  30. Re:Jesus Christ... just do what normal people do.. by Mindwurkz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What if you're listening to songs in a foreign language? or Opera? I doubt the service can identify them properly right now, but I once spent hours trying to identify Pagliacci's "Vesti La Giubba".

  31. Fails by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 2, Funny

    Every time I try to ID this one song, it fails.

    I can remember what its called, just that its by a guy named John Cage - and is about 4 and a half minutes long...

  32. 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.

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

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

  34. 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...