Scientists in Zurich, Switzerland have developed technology that can secretly send data using soundwaves. This data is stored in musical notes which are imperceptible to the human ear, but can be received and interpreted by a smartphone. Theoretically speaking, this technology will allow small amounts of simple information, such as Wi-Fi passwords, to be embedded into a regular piece of music and sent to a device without the listener even noticing. While existing wireless communication technology already exists in the form of Bluetooth, it uses radio waves instead of sound waves to send data, and it requires two devices to be paired together deliberately. This can make Bluetooth frustrating and unreliable. However, all cell phones already have an in-built microphone which can receive data through music. To enable your phone to decode and interpret this data could just be a straightforward matter of downloading an app that can do this. Transmitting data through sound waves has been in the experimental stage with a number of companies since 2009, but the research team in Zurich are the first to attempt embedding data into a piece of music without changing the original melody. They use very high frequency notes, which are inaudible to humans, to prompt the decoder to “listen” for data. Then,they embed both high and low frequency notes at a much lower volume than the melody, and these carry the relevant data. Thus far, the highest data transfer rate they’ve achieved is about 400 bits per second, so while it is useful for sending small chunks of data, it’s still a long way from being used to transmit large volumes of information.
