OFF: BBC News | Dial up to name that tune

[Karen Kusic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1681000/1681395.stm

Thursday, 29 November, 2001, 08:34 GMT

Dial up to name that tune

Your mobile could be able to name that tune
Ever heard a great song on the radio but failed to catch the name of the
tune or artist? Then scientists at
Philips' research labs have come up with a solution.

Just hold your mobile phone near the radio for a few seconds and within
minutes you'll receive a text
message telling you the name of the song.

The message will even give you the option of buying a CD of the music.

The system, developed by scientists at the Dutch consumer giant's
research centre in Eindhoven, works
using a process called hashing.

Unique codes

Hashing is a cryptographic technique used by computers to check they
have safely received a message.

It works by comparing chunks of data and then creating codes unique to
that message.

The codes from the sent and received messages are checked to make sure
they are identical.

Philips researchers have adapted the technique to create a unique code
for each song.

Central store

On hearing the song, you would dial a service provider and hold your
mobile phone by the speaker for a
few seconds.

The computer system at the other end would then "hash" the music and
compare the code generated with
its database of tracks.

Once it has found a match, a text message would be sent with the song
title and artist.

Philips is aiming to set up a central database of hash codes, covering
100,000 commercially available
songs.

The research is reported in New Scientist.