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RFID Music Player

Posted by timothy on from the reuse dept.

frazzydee writes "I know what you're thinking, RFID tags used to play music? Well, it turns out that we don't need to take out our tinfoil hats this time, because it turns out that are some constructive uses for the same RFID tags that we have all come to loathe. Since RFID tags can hold 1 kilobyte of data, somebody who goes by dividuum found that (s)he could use the tags combined with a reader to store and play back music. Dividuum used SID files- the same format used on Commodore 64s- and programmed everything in C. Pictures of the RFID device are available here."

32 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Speak for yourself by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the same RFID tags that we have all come to loathe

    I don't subscribe to slashdot groupthink.

    I don't loathe any technology, only those that abuse it.

    --
    Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
    1. Re:Speak for yourself by nmoog · · Score: 5, Funny

      The singing bass is just a technology too. Some things deserved to be loathed.

    2. Re:Speak for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      you think that you're AC?

      I've got an RFID tag up your ass!

    3. Re:Speak for yourself by strider44 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sometimes I'm just dumbfounded as to whether someone is being serious or not.

      Just in case you are, the grandparent is talking about a type of artificial fish.

  2. I don't loathe RFID tags by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only some of the potential uses.

    I used an RFID card to get in and out of a city admin building all last week on site, it was much better than having to fumble for a different key for the umpteen different doors.

    Technophobic dorks. Invasion of privacy, and all the other paranoias you have are all social problems, not technical ones.

    Don't bitch about the tech, bitch about the people who would misuse it.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:I don't loathe RFID tags by Morlark · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well said, this is exactly the sort of thing that we need to be hearing more of. People talk of their privacy being invaded, and their freedoms and rights being breached, but this isn't the fault of the technology, it's the fault of the people that use it.

      --
      Santa's suicide mission go!
  3. Nobody Really Loathes RFID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Outside of the slashdot tin-foil hat crowd, I don't think anybody is getting really worked up over glorified barcodes.

    It's just a technology like just about everything else. It doesn't automatically make it evil just because some bad guys might use it or there is "potential" for abuse.

    Seriously, the RFID is evil meme is dead. Learn to deal with it.

  4. 1 kb by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 3, Funny

    1 Kb doesn't seem like a lot of music. 1 Mb/min is the usal rate for at least decent encodings. That means that 1Kb would play ... 1/1024 min or approx .05 seconds. Ouch

    --

    Philosophy.
    1. Re:1 kb by rbarreira · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you really think the Commodores had a wav or mp3 format, or the capability to play it?

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    2. Re:1 kb by Stevyn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Think Fourier transforms. Many techniques can be used to encode music such that the quality is reasonable and the file size small.

    3. Re:1 kb by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Funny
      You'll be amazed by the compression rates achieved by some Indian math guy...

      (I sense a potential new meme)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:1 kb by NoGuffCheck · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your not taking into account the time-space-continueum (stupid). Try listening to Celine Dion, its so bad that 0.05 seconds would sound like a waste of hours.

      --
      serenity now!
    5. Re:1 kb by back_pages · · Score: 2, Interesting
      1 Kb doesn't seem like a lot of music. 1 Mb/min is the usal rate for at least decent encodings. That means that 1Kb would play ... 1/1024 min or approx .05 seconds. Ouch

      Greetings!

      This is what a Commodore-64 is!
      Commodore 64

      Judging from your high UID and your apparent inexperience with the computers of 1982, I feel fully justified in blazenly assuming that 1 Kb of YOUR music is MORE than enough. 0.058 seconds of "Dad won't buy me a car, homework sucks" is exactly the right amount.





      (Take it easy - I'm from 1980 myself and employing ironic humor - being an ass to mock the young kids (and I'm justified in mocking the Commodore-64 because I grew up on a Vic-20, thanks for asking.))

  5. A name! by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    At least they credit someone named "Dividuum" rather than calling him "RFID software guy".

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  6. AFDB by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 4, Funny
    we don't need to take out our tinfoil hats this time

    Ha! You won't fool me! You're just trying to get me to take off my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie! Well, it won't work! I've had voices in my head a lot louder than you try! So if you think that you'll---

    What? OK, Mom. I'll go take my meds now.

    --

    "Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."

    1. Re:AFDB by flyingsquid · · Score: 2, Funny
      Ha! You won't fool me! You're just trying to get me to take off my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie! Well, it won't work!

      RFIDs can be made paper-thin and less than a centimeter square, so now they (you know who!) have put them inside every square foot of aluminum foil.

      For a good tinfoil hat, you need to get aluminum foil which is at least twenty years old. I suggest going to the dump and digging down a few feet- dig until you get to the really ripe stuff, then it's just about five more feet! The dates of magazines and newspapers will help you make sure you're deep enough. You could try melting down aluminum foil and then hammering it out into sheets, but then they (you know who!) will notice that some of the RFIDs no longer transmit, and that will arouse suspicions and increase surveillance intensity, so it's not a good idea.

  7. Tinfoil hat? by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know folks tin foil and aluminum foil are VERY different things.

    I amazed that a site so full of educated geeks has never pointed this out.

    1. Re:Tinfoil hat? by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Funny

      "But megabits are sometimes used, so making a distinction between Mb and MB is neccessary."

      In casual conversation? I don't think so. Would you really correct somebody talking about a 640mb CD-ROM? Would YOU really like to be corrected for not being unnecessarily specific?

      Do you (syrix Slashdot user 10649) really think (i.e. do you have neurons in your brain firing in a specific pattern that results in the idea that people need to be extremely specific when they type a comment on Slashdot.org located at the IP address 66.35.250.150) that it is really all that important (the theme of any given post severly risks mass mis-comprehension) that every technical (the more specific, the better because otherwise the literal definition of what is stated has a number of ways it can be misconstrued) detail must be painstakingly (i.e. thoroughly researched from places like Google.com or any textbooks you may have nearby.) defined in order to avoid needless (i.e. the world will not suddenly stop rotating or revolving) (rotating around the Earth's axis and revolving around the sun) nitpicking (i.e. corrections made in a condescending tone)?

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  8. In other news! by angedinoir · · Score: 2, Funny

    Apple comes out with 40 gb iPod.........

    Okay, someone used an RFID reader/writer to put 1k of music on, it, big whoop. Next week I'm planning on putting some MP3s on my usb flash drive, isn't that great... :P

  9. Exactly... by spoco2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I do hate it when someone takes it on themselves to speak for everyone... why they couldn't have said 'which many have come to loathe' or 'which many have privacy concerns over' etc.

    Personally I think they're kinda cool... and coming from a data and human interaction focused business such as I am in, the things they can do to the betterment of people's experiences of things is supurb.

    1. Re:Exactly... by famebait · · Score: 4, Funny

      I do hate it when someone takes it on themselves to speak for everyone

      We all do.

      --
      sudo ergo sum
  10. Avant Garde by Embedded+Geek · · Score: 4, Funny
    I just have to wonder what kind of weird/random noise the thing would make if you took it into a store that has embraced RFID:

    And now WWRD's Avante Garde corner features Herr Gerder VonStiffle's latest composition, "Fast Walk Through Walmart's Sporting Goods Section, #7"

    --

    "Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."

  11. Commdore 64 music by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If I'm not wrong, the average .sid file for the C64 takes up about 2K of memory. The sids must have been pretty small to fit on the RFID.

    Some interesting Commodore 64 music links:-
    The HVSID Collection - Which is the main site for the collection of thousands upon thousands of Commodore 64 sid files.
    Remix.kwed.org Remixes of Commodore 64 tunes with real and modern synthesized instruments.

    (Don't hammer their servers!)

    I'm off to play "Lazy Jones" (aka ZombieNation)

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
  12. Finally... by Arjuna+Theban · · Score: 2, Funny

    I get my own theme music!

  13. To save time, I will sum up fully 1/2 of posts by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Q: Why?

    A: Because.

    Q: But that's not enough of a reason.

    A: Yes, it is.

    Q: But it's so useless.

    A: Shut the fuck up and go play Pokemon, would you?

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  14. Resistance by lgbarker · · Score: 3, Funny
    I don't subscribe to slashdot groupthink.

    Resistance is futile, etc, etc.

  15. Like everyone else at the time.... by greppy · · Score: 4, Funny
    ..they probably used LPs and magnetic tapes.

    http://www.soultracks.com/commodores.htm

  16. An actual usefull use by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know this is slightly off topic, but it occurred to me that RFID tags could actually be useful in terms of music.

    The value of music (or video, or software, or any other intellectual property) isn't so much in the media it's stored on, but in owning the license to legally play it. As it stands, when somebody purchases music, be it on a CD or in mp3 format, maintaining the license to the work can be a pain.

    CDs can break or be scratched to the point of being unplayable. Hard drives can be erased accidentally. Owners of the copy write do their best to prevent users to copy media because despite many users otherwise benign intent to transfer media to a different format or to archive owned media, there is no guarantee that they aren't copying the work for a more nefarious purpose.

    Enter RFIDs. They're cheap, there portable and they can be owned. A person simply purchases the RFID for a work, and then that RFID is scanned any player in any format before the work can be played.

    Taking your mp3 player filled with music you own on vacation? Simply wave it over your box of RFID tags, and viola! The player knows you are legally entitled to play the songs you copied onto it.

    You could make as many perfect digital copies as you like of your CDs or even DVDs and it wouldn't matter. As long as the player is able to check the RFID tag for ownership, the media will play.

    Granted there are some problems. As they are small, RFID tags would be easy to lose, and all sorts of issues come up when you consider online purchase of media where physical objects like RFIDs can't be used. But it's an idea, nonetheless.

    --
    The Internet is generally stupid
    1. Re:An actual usefull use by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It wasn't meant to be funny, but it was partially inspired by Irish beer. I suppose if you really thought about it, it's an absurd idea. But contemplating unusually complex solutions using technology to solve pointless problems, solutions that if anything would probably be more of a hindrance then a help is a hallmark of the Slashdot community.

      Now, if I had suggested that RFIDs should be incorporated into Lego bricks with a blue tooth interface for license rights, and that the end user could build a Star Wars inspired spaceship model out of those legos to store the digital rights to their entire media collection, (perhaps even a Beowulf cluster of RFID enabled Lego bricks which could compress and decompress ogg music files) that would be more in line with Slashdot, and that would be funny.

      --
      The Internet is generally stupid
  17. RFID Readers & Tags by Tony.Tang · · Score: 2, Informative
    RFID readers and tags are here, and they're here to stay -- mainly because they are -oh- so cheap. People often ask, "how can I build one of these things?" And, while I appreciate the coolness of building something like this, the real cool bit about RFID readers & tags is that we can build things with them very very easily.

    Phidgets is a company that sells these RFID readers and tags in an "off the shelf" manner. For a mere $90 CDN (almost nothing in USD), you can get a reader plus a whole set of tags (and of course the software to program against it with).

  18. Huh? by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Since RFID Tags can hold 1Kb of Data?"

    Not all tags are that small, my company makes a series of tags that hold a *considerably* larger data package.

    128K and up...

  19. Suffering Christ in a thorn bonnet... by absurdist · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...are there ANY real hackers out there?

    And no, I'm not talking about 1337 case modders or overclockers. I'm talking about real hackers like this one. Doing hardware and software hacks that are done just for the sheer joy of doing them, and can be done because they CAN.

    Mod me down as flamebait if you will. This is something very cool. Who the hell cares if it's practical. Neither is a machine that can turn ordinary dog biscuits into india ink. But the hack value is enormous.

    (tip o' the pin to Bill Griffith... thanks, Griffy!)