New iPhone App Uses Sound to Transmit Photos, URLs from One Phone to Another

There is a new iPhone app called Chirp that will soon make tidal waves in the way we communicate through our smartphones.

No, technology is not going to the birds if you are also thinking of Twitter. It just so happens that the app’s name is Chirp because it uses a robotic bird sound to transmit data to other phones. Yes, Chirp can transmit URL’s, pictures, and words from one phone to another.

Little birdy reviews and critics are now lauding this app as not just another extension or entertainment application. It has the potential to take wings and fly away if marketed properly.

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Okay, okay, enough of the intended puns. Chirp was created by a company called Animal Systems (no pun intended, this IS the name of the company), many of its members coming from the Computer Science Department at the University College London. At present, the app is available only for iOS but, a version for Android is in the making.


Here’s how it works:

1 Simply open your Chirp app and ask the recipient/s to open their app as well. The recipient can be one up to 500 persons, even more.

2 The app then gives you a yellow button. Just press it and you will hear a two-second chirping sound that sends your picture, text, or URL to anyone within earshot. A second or two after, whatever you sent pops up on the recipient’s phone screen.

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Chirp isn’t really transmitted by sound. The app basically uploads the content to the cloud, creates a code for the content, then converts the code into sound. The sound is sent and received, with the receiver’s app decoding the sound. Though it needs an internet connection, it can be sent offline. When the receiver connects later, the app is received.

It even works in noisy environments. The app is optimized to receive only the chirping tone generated by the app.

The future of Chirp is very promising because Animal Systems has the ability to incorporate the technology into other products. It has the potential to be so revolutionary that companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter (obviously), Google, and Apple will want to incorporate it with their offerings. Its radical process of sharing content is what makes it stand out from other pairing devices like Blue-tooth, Wi-Fi, and texting, which are all just pairing devices.

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Here are a couple of examples of the apps potential. A TV show could tell people watching to open their apps. When the show Chirp’s content, people receive the content because the sound is clear on the TV’s speakers. Or, imagine that you are giving a presentation to a large audience, you can Chirp the visual presentation to them.

It has been tested and works pretty well on videos, podcasts, and radio shows.

Download: Chirp [iTunes link]

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