PhoneEar: Interactions for Mobile Devices that Hear High-Frequency Sound-Encoded Data

Nittala, A. S., Yang, X.D., Bateman, S., Sharlin, E. and Greenberg, S. (2015)
PhoneEar: Interactions for Mobile Devices that Hear High-Frequency Sound-Encoded Data. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems - EICS'15. (Duisburg, Germany), ACM Press, 6 pages, June 23-26. Short Paper / Late Breaking Result.

View Publication and Related Materials

PDF PaperPDF Paper (2015-PhoneEar.EICS.pdf)
Video FileVideo File (2015-PhoneEar.EICS.mp4)

Abstract

We present PhoneEar, a new approach that enables mobile devices to understand the broadcasted audio and sounds that we hear every day using existing infrastructure. PhoneEar audio streams are embedded with sound-encoded data using nearly inaudible high frequencies. Mobile devices then listen for messages in the sounds around us, taking actions to ensure we don't t miss any important info. In this paper, we detail our implementation of PhoneEar, describe a study demonstrating that mobile devices can effectively receive sound-based data, and describe the results of a user study that shows that embedding data in sounds is not detrimental to sound quality. We also exemplify the space of new interactions, through four PhoneEar-enabled applications. Finally, we discuss the challenges to deploying apps that can hear and react to the sounds around us.

Keywords

Mobile interactions, sound-encoded data

Bibtex entry

@INPROCEEDINGS { 2015-PhoneEar.EICS,
CLASS = { SHORT },
AUTHOR = { Nittala, A. S. and Yang, X.D. and Bateman, S. and Sharlin, E. and Greenberg, S. },
TITLE = { PhoneEar: Interactions for Mobile Devices that Hear High-Frequency Sound-Encoded Data },
BOOKTITLE = { Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems - EICS'15 },
YEAR = { 2015 },
MONTH = { June 23-26 },
PAGES = { 6 pages },
PUBLISHER = { ACM Press },
ADDRESS = { Duisburg, Germany },
KEYWORDS = { Mobile interactions, sound-encoded data },
NOTE = { Short Paper / Late Breaking Result },
}