The new way of sharing data between devices
Chirp is the new way of sharing data between smartphones from the developers Animal Systems. Chirp basically plays a two-second long robotic bird noise, that when it’s heard by other devices it triggers a download.
It’s free to use but at the moment users are limited to sending pictures, website links or 140-character length text messages, all of which appears as a feed similar Facebook’s timeline.
The best thing about Chirp is that it has the advantage of quickly sending data to multiple devices at once without the need of pairing devices or having a wireless connection which means the devices will remember the ‘chirp’ sound and download the associated content later.
The firm’s chief executive, Patrick Bergel says,
“The Chirp’s distinctive sound allows it to work at low volumes in relatively noisy locations such as pubs, clubs or busy streets. It can also work over public address systems or radio transmissions – potentially allowing broadcasters a way to send up-to-date pictures or links to background information; or an advertiser to send coupons or snippets of a song or promotional video.”
However, Animal System subscribes to a ‘blacklist’ to prevent users transmitting known pornographic or illegal-content website links. This works by uploading a user’s material to the firm’s servers and the data is identified with a 50-bit address space: one of trillions of available identifiers.
Chirp is now only available on the iPhone as an app but will soon be coming to Android.
