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AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

What is a 'Chirp'?

Chirping is the new way to share information using smartphones. But how does it work?

BIRDS AREN’T THE only ones making sweet sounds – not since the introduction of Chirp, a new way to send information between smartphones.

Chirp enables information to be shared using sound, with iPhones ‘singing’ information to each other.

RTÉ radio show Morning Ireland played the first terrestrial radio broadcast of a Chirp this week, transmitting a photograph and a link to its website.

The company that designed Chirp is Animal Systems from University College London. The company’s CEO, Patrick Bergel, spoke to Morning Ireland and said that Chirp “is a way to share information from your phone to other phones around you that are using the application”.

To use, you must download the application from an app store – and sorry Android users, but so far it is just available for iPhones and iPads.

Bergel said the company believes the app could be used to transmit a voucher or coupon, in gaming, and could even be potentially used to Chirp money.

“People seem to really like the idea,” said Bergel. The app is currently number one in the app charts.

Here are the technicalities of how chirping works:

The system listens out for a couple of dozen notes played rapidly in a certain order, within a certain range, at a certain speed. The audio engine tries to decode the sequence of notes into a sequence of letters which our server understands. The server then returns a link to the user so they can go wherever the short code points: to a webpage, say. This decode all happens in realtime on your phone. Here’s a brief technical introduction

It’s not just a phone that can be used to transmit a chirp – a radio, record or TV could even be used. Once phones can hear the sound, the information can be shared.

It is free to download the app, but in the future the company aims to take a cut of downloads that occur after information is passed on through Chirp.

They also have even bigger plans, according to their website:

We want to enable anything that carries sound to carry data. That means: doorbells, saxophones, ATMs, car horns, barbershop choirs, and so on.

Read: New app will rescue you from bad dates>

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11 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Damocles
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    Jul 26th 2012, 1:24 PM

    So it’s a more ear friendly version of that awful wailing associated with tape drives and early home computers?

    15
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    Mute Tim Dowling
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    Jul 26th 2012, 4:18 PM

    App is only available for iPhone and iPad, rte posts first chirp on their website with adobe flash player…. >Face palm<

    14
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    Mute True Blue
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    Jul 26th 2012, 1:29 PM

    This is really amazing. Was even more amazing when it was reported 2 days ago. Can the journal try to get some current up to date stories for a change?

    13
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    Mute Liam Concubhair
    Favourite Liam Concubhair
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    Jul 26th 2012, 4:53 PM

    wow i used to use this years ago… back then it was called a modem:-)

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    Mute Dean McDonnell
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    Jul 26th 2012, 1:57 PM

    It sounds like wonka vision!

    10
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    Mute Dhakina's Sword
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    Jul 27th 2012, 2:10 AM

    I can hear the swallows, the starlings, the sparrows, the finches, and swifts all chirping, tweeting and twittering, and even the sarcastic laugh of the crow has joined in. Let me think. What’s the next flavour of the month bird like analogy?. Could it be a flutter?, as in having a flutter on the mutts, or nags?. Never mind. Let’s have a flutter.

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    Mute Conor Power
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    Jul 26th 2012, 2:44 PM

    You can blame the brids for sending you to a dodgy site.

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    Mute Conor Power
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    Jul 26th 2012, 2:44 PM

    *birds

    2
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