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Mobile Sharing: "Bezos Beep" Vs. Smartphone Bump
theodp writes "GeekWire wonders if the 'Bezos Beep' could replace the smartphone bump for mobile content sharing. A newly-published patent application listing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as sole inventor describes the use of audio signals to share content and communicate between devices, eliminating the need for NFC chips and facilitating the simultaneous sharing of content with multiple people via a remote server. From the patent application: 'For example, a first device can emit an encoded audio signal that can be received by any capable device within audio range of the device. Any device receiving the signal can decode the information included in the signal and obtain a location to access the content from that information.'"
Doesn't sound like a software based dialup modem at all...
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
...marketers won't use this to hijack my phone anywhere they can get hold of a speaker.
Jeff just patented the 300 baud modem.
I wonder how susceptible these would be to excess "similar" sounds around them. Old school television remotes didn't use infrared, they used higher pitched audio generated from something similar to tiny tuning forks. The problem was, a ring of keys jingling could mess with them completely.
Would these be using ultra or sonic frequencies? The latter would be cost prohibitive (speakers, etc..), the former probably the same for both the speakers and the microphones (read transmitters receivers).
Audio version of QR Codes....
Yet another failure brought to you by people targeting people unwilling to type in a URL.
"The needs of the stupid outweigh the needs of the smart, or the sane"
-Doctor Speck, Start Wreck
R2-D2 communicates with other devices (C-3PO) using beeps, ... and he can store and play back content in form of holographic messages.
Besides, R2-D2 was made a long long time ago... Definitely prior art.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I just finally got the sound of a connecting modem out of my head...
Well, how jolly good and innovative this is : Instead of electromagnetical waves (bluetooth and the like anyone ?) or light (anyone remembers IRDA ?) they propose to use sound as a carrier, and thereby claim a new patent. Not obvious at all, nosirree !
Someone already mentioned 54 Kbps modems. I want to add ultrasonic remote (TV) controls to it.
I remember recording various bzzts, pings, bwrrps and the like from the radio onto tape which were Commodore 64 programs.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I don't see why people are complaining, this is brilliant. Just imagine, since we already have phones that can carry audio these modulated tones could be broadcast over that network. This would be a simple and cheap method of sending data to and from any residence.
Hopefully someone will one day implement this vision.
I hope he isn't just relying on the fact that most people have forgotten about those horrible buzz boxes.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Came to my mind the noises of my old TRS-80's cassete tapes.
...listing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as sole inventor...
With a Billionaire CEO's hectic 24/7 schedule and he still found time to invent this all by himself.
Amazing!
'For example, a first device can emit an encoded audio signal that can be received by any capable device within audio range of the device. Any device receiving the signal can decode the information'
It's also called speech.
So it's basically like all other radio-based protocols, but at lower frequencies?
Yup; definitely worthy of a patent.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
http://www.wimp.com/connectsinternet/
Yeah, most people are beating the shit out of this, prior art, IR, bluetooth, QR codes, whatever...Thay have a point. Transmitting data via audio is new? Nope.
But glanced at the patent app, it's actually a *little* more clever than that; the sound would just send a link to download content from a remote server, (presumably owned by Amazon), so you would not go mad while your kid's phone whistled and crackled it's way through transferring a lolcats jpeg.
Superficially quite smart, since as they point out, not all phones have bluetooth or whatever ability.
But to implement it, you'd presumably need a smartish phone, and they all have ways of doing this kind of data-transfer already. So I'll give this a fail.
Could be fun, though, imagine "could you just humm that URL for me again, please?"
A follow-up patent application describes the use of audio signals to communicate between devices and their peripherals, eliminating the need for Bluetooth chips. From the patent application: 'Look at what we can do with a speaker and a microphone. Isn't it neat?"
This app has been around for a year or so:
http://chirp.io
Might be considered prior art?
Didn't Digital Convergence Corporation (of ::Cue::Cat infamy) have an audio que that could be transmitted over television?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My understanding of the way that NFC works is that two devices are bumped together which then kicks off local encrypted radio communication between the two devices where data is exchanged. The Data exchange is local, secure, and between two trusted devices.
My understanding of the article is that the patented invention is to us a tone to send data between two local devices. Data is then uploaded (or pre-uploaded) to a third party server and download using the URL from the data stream embedded in the sound. The data that you stored on the third party device is now subject to being accessible by the third party, being accessible by law enforcement who only have to serve the third party, and subject to hacking.
Yeah.... this is better and is going to replace NFC.... I don't think so, Tim...
This would work for sharing books. For example, I like a book, I share the book URL with your device, your device downloads it for reading later. But I certainly wouldn't choose this over NFC.
This sounds almost identical to Chirp: http://chirp.io/
'cause you know, everything has to go through the cloud. Even when we're standing right next to each other. Gotta use that data plan and allow for big brother monitoring in every case.
The old Zenith TV remotes used ultrasonic signals to activate TV functions. There's nothing new here other than "on a computer."
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
...of the patent interpretation...
It will eventually be an infringement to tell someone a website location over a microphone, into a speaker. You know, like a phone call. You'll have to go there, set it up, and then "beep" it to them. Beep that.
So, data transfer using modulated signals. From a prior art point of view, it shouldn't matter what the frequency of the signal is (i.e. is it audible or not), everything working along the ideas of a modem or radio signal should count as prior art. There are a lot of miserable patents which only differ from prior stuff because they are implemented in/on a mobile device, and this sounds (pun intended) no different.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
As described this sounds like the worst idea ever.
WHY:
First off, how is an encrypted audio transmission any different from a higher frequency wireless transmission?
HOW:
How is this better than a wireless transmission?
WHEN:
On earth would I want my smart phone listening to everything around it, including stuff I can't here and acting on those signals without further interaction on my part.
WHAT:
the F*
The only advantage here is some sort of multicasting, but again, why would I want this?
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Its called an acoustic coupling. Its not April1 yet.
So it's like traditional wireless such as bluetooth except more susceptible to interference, it has a shorter range, it's easier to intercept, it relies on top quality speakers for a broadcast source (and top quality mics) to receive data correctly, and it's able to be perceived by humans. Wow, what a step in the wrong direction.
Anyone with a web browser in their portable device probably has a camera in there too
A lot of 7" tablets, such as the Nexus 7, have no rear-facing camera.
SFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2ghcYF_R-0
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
For one thing, the Berne Convention covers copyrights, not patents.
For another, if an invention was disclosed to the public in a 1977 film, then the inventor was whoever wrote that film's script.
I want the Bezos phone accessories to include an acoustic coupler dock and case.
I will walk around with Skrillex blaring on my smartphone. Some phone will eventually respond with a handshake.
...or you're violating patent
...that was used by Digital Convergence. They would have TV commercials use an audio burst that would be interpreted as a code to launch your PC to a specific URL (generally an Ad, so who wanted that...). So using an audio burst to send send you to a content location would seem to be prior art here. I don't know if Jovan Philyaw and/or Tandy/RadioShack hold a patent on that, there's probably patents somewhere for the CueCat stuff.
Chirp is a smartphone app that sends references to resources via audio. This sounds like exactly the same thing.
http://chirp.io
Can you imagine having a room full of people with smartphones like that, and blasting out a magic tone over the PA system. Sending all the phones to pull content from a malicious site with some interesting 0-day exploits?
I've being trying to think up app ideas for a while, and this was something I thought of. Not as any kind of killer app, admittedly, more as an interesting science project with few practical applications. Damn you Bezos!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm curious what kind of throughput you could expect to get between two phones.
The way this is explained, you wouldn't need much to pass 512 bytes or less for even a long URL, but I'm kind of curious how much throughput you could expect with 'modern' phones that may have high resolution audio or if you connected the phones directly with a cable with a mini-stereo plug at both ends.
I'd imagine that the way it would actually be deployed would involved a lot of redundancy and error checking since it would be presumed there would be some kind of background noise to deal with, cutting the kind of throughput you could get, but even so the technique of using phone audio to transmit data might be something interesting for other applications that need to pass small quantities of data (contacts, low-res pictures, etc).
This is what it sounds like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0
That is how I communicate, I hope I don't get sued!
Phone 1: Hello, how do you do?
Phone 2: How do you do.
Phone 1: Shake?
Phone 2: Shake.
Phone 1: Let's get down to business.
Phone 2: Give it to me.
Phone 1: I just sent you an email, can you please check it?
Phone 2: Ah, got it. Wow, it's 10MB.
Phone 1: Yep.
Phone 2: Thanks, see you.
No bandwidth necessary. You can do it with text to voice and voice recognition and still fit 10MB in 20 seconds.
http://sudarmuthu.com/blog/transferring-data-from-android-using-audio
Sounds like something that was mildly hot in Japan 6 years ago:
http://www.nttdocomo.com/technologies/future/audio/index.html
For a moment I thought it was novel too, then I thought about Shazam links in commercials. Those commercials on TV that have a popup that says use Shazam on this commercial to be taken to our website, a coupon, free samples, etc. This is almost exactly the same as what the patent is claiming however Shazam links are on a bit broader scale.
"could replace the smartphone bump for mobile content sharing"
Does anyone actually do that? I mean, other than in a couple of crappy TV ads? For that matter, has anyone ever used device-to-device file sharing more than once to see that it works? Outside of a couple novelty applications I never actually saw the Palm Pilot's beaming used for anything, or (god help us) Zune's squirting.
I guess if Bezos wants to patent an existing technology in a "novel" new application that nobody wants to use anyway, it's his money to throw away...
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
No, I'm thinking about it as a pure data transport path, not the Bezos described way where information is sent about a data transfer that has/will/can happen over the more typical data transmission paths.
It could be a system based on bits of Bezos' terrifying laugh.
...I agree this is a BS patent, but the application will be for Google Glasses, etc. to take you instantly somewhere, without the messiness of waiting for a lockup on a QR code.
Credit card shaped devices that emit sounds to send information (handy over telephone or the like too) have been in existence
for at least 9 or 10 years; I saw them that long ago. Prior art indeed. Such a medium allows also sending one time numbers,
or numbers for multiple accts etc. also, and there have been mikes available on many PCs for ages now.
http://chirp.io
They did it long before him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18927928 ...yawn...
Regards, Phil
I worked at a computer-telephony company on a super-secret new protocol called ADSI to combine voice and data simultaneously on a phone call. A little analog filtering, a bit of digital signal processing. Typical chicken-and-egg problem - we had a great pizza-ordering demo for the combined voice and data (much more fun than the financial demo Marketing originally thought of), but no store (or industry!) wanted to buy a server since no customers had the phones yet, and nobody was buying phones because there was no such service and the phones cost $200 to $300. Then the Internet and smarthphones made the whole concept ludicrously obsolete anyway.
A previous poster noted that Chirp for Android and Iphone does exactly that - passes a link via little audio chirps. Anybody running Chirp can pickup the link and follow it, like an audio QR code.
Bezos's idea sounds like sort of a combination of Bump and Chirp - using audio chirps to set up an internet connection (via the cloud) between the phones instead of using sensor data from the bumps to set up that same connection.
Neat, but pretty damn obvious (you've already got two companies doing almost the same thing) so I don't see how it's patent worthy.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I wonder, could you call the various 1970's standards that stored data and programs on cassettes as a series of audio tones would qualify as 'prior art', invalidating his claim of novelty?
Ken
Why not simply display a QR code on the sending device, have the receiving device simply decode it & download the data?
Ken
Actually this seems more like a telegraph or at least Edison's repeating telegraph.to me
Encoded information sent through the audible clacking of the Telegraph
"eliminating the need for NFC"
THERE IS NO FUCKING NEED FOR ANOTHER NFC PROTOCOL BESIDES BLUETOOTH!
Smartphone penetration will never be high enough, nor will they be so guaranteed to never run out of juice, crash, or get hacked, that NFC payment systems and similar gimmickry will reach the level of penetration so that one never needs to carry magnetic swipe cards as well.
NFC is there so you can feel hip (but look like a fanny pack geeky fuck) at the Starbucks when you wave your stupid phone around by the register. It's not an actual technology that will reach high penetration. It's more akin to all those laptops that had IRDA - nice in theory but really just a waste.
It's also there as a bullet point on a list so various phone companies can say "Hah, our enormous bullet point list has NFC and Apple doesn't! Take that Apple with your inferior, less bullet point laden phone!"
Wake up you idiots.
I'm willing to stipulate that there are many many actual valid patents on things like cell phones, computers, electronics, etc. A new design for laying out microphones for noise cancellation--patent it! A new physical structure leading to better battery life--patent it! A synthetic material that is tough and scratch-resistant--patent it!
What I don't think should be valid are obvious extensions to existing technology. Like this one. It's an interesting idea...but not so original that it deserves a patent.
I also think that if someone files for a patent on something and someone else independently invents it before the patent is granted, then the patent should be void.
Crista Lopes was working on this at PARC in 2001. See her web page on Digital Voices -- http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lopes/dv/dv.html
From Wikipedia:
"Messages in the EAS are composed of four parts: a digitally encoded SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) header, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and a digitally encoded end-of-message marker.
The SAME header (helpÂinfo) is the most critical part of the EAS design. It contains information about who originated the alert (the President, state or local authorities, the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS), or the broadcaster), a short, general description of the event (tornado, flood, severe thunderstorm), the areas affected (up to 32 counties or states), the expected duration of the event (in minutes), the date and time it was issued (in UTC), and an identification of the originating station. (See SAME for a complete breakdown of the header.)"
So, we already have a system, implemented in 1997, that openly broadcasts information over an audio channel for any receiving device to decode and then act upon accordingly. I'd call that significant prior art...
Pretty close to the firmware update function found in some universal remote controls.
wbr
Once again the hams have been doing this for ever.
Imagine a radio class where people are earning Morse Code. Copying data sent as audio from a buzzer.
Or all the umpteen sound card communication applications like PSK31.
A standard source of fun at Ham meets is to have a PSK31 "scramble" where a bunch of people use their laptops to communicate simultaneously via PSK31 and audio.
And a hundred other examples I could think of.
They started adding "second screen" content to tv ads asking viewers to use shazam on the audio of TV adds to get more info about the advertisement. So this is cross device information transmission from TVs to Phones/computers.
Nice try Bezos.
The neatest QR code I've seen mentioned is the sundial based one that works to get more customers at noon. http://beqrious.com/sun-based-qr-code-a-cool-gimmick-in-south-korea/
As to this beep I can't wait for the first television or radio commercial to include this. Or in store muzak while shopping at wally world to start having little beeps for 'flash sales'. The techy equivalent of blue light specials.
What about the noise if I want to share something on the bus or a subway?