The brain works in mysterious ways

[sylvia_rachel]

So the other day my boss sent me and my colleague R this weird PowerPoint thing she'd found somewhere (no idea where -- maybe one of her kids sent it to her), which was about how arabic numerals came to be (turns out, it's all about the angles). I didn't realize it at first, but it had a soundtrack. R sent me an e-mail the next day going, what on

Comments

[green_knight]

As far as I'm aware, iPods have a recognition function. Don't quote me on it, it's not something I would use, but it's the sort of thing that they *would* include.

[green_knight]

See, I thought that too, and I downloaded the Shazam app ages ago for my iPod Touch ... But it doesn't work unless you attach an external mic. Preumably on the iPhone this role is played by the bit you talk into.

It's the future, but I persist on not owning a mobile phone, so it's all my own fault if I have to rely on my brainfor these things ;)

[sylvia_rachel]

Yeah, that was me. Posting from my iPod without logging in. :P

[kiwano]

But it occurred to me, not for the first time, that what the world needs is Google for earworms. It's the future, you guys! Where's my giant online interactive Barlow & Morgenstern?

I'm passing along the address for this post to someone with whom I did some work on developing just such a beast (I don't know how far it ended up getting though).

[sylvia_rachel]

Cool!

See, I knew I couldn't be the first person to have this idea.

[kiwano]

Well I heard back and the prototype is still up, though being a prototype, its library/index is relatively limited. (Also, it completely lacks the ability to handle atonal music, microtonal music, or really any music not based on something close to 12-TET).

From what I was just told, it's not currently under active development, and my friend is looking for a (large-ish) company to buy it from him.