Transferring bitcoins by sound?

[kristoffernolgren]

Well, maybe there are few phones today without wifi/bluetooth that could also decipher a audical bitcoin-adress, however, they could be built. A blutooth cirquit is a lot more expensive than a speaker/microphone. The bitcoin model has huge potential in areas where the financial services are not that well developed yet.

[1714876543]

1714876543

[1714876543]

1714876543

[1714876543]

1714876543

[1714876543]

1714876543

[Sandoz]

The idea is great, however sound should only be the vector for a message following the standard bitcoin URI https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/URI_Scheme

This way we always have the same kind of message in QR codes, audio messages, smoke transmissions.

I guess for sound there would need to be a lot of redundancy and error correction in the transmission. However I love the idea, it's how podcasts could hide their donation requests, radio could do so too..

[Gabi]

I read somewhere on these forums (or an article) that Bitcoins could even be sent via smoke signal. All they are is a code, so in theory one could transfer that code in a million creative ways =)

Only bitcoins?

Ahem... everything digital can be sent via smoke signal and is a code.

A binary code, 0 or 1.

Every computer work with 0 and 1, that's the fundamental point of the digital signal theory  So you could make a computer what work via smoke signal if you want... sure it will be a bit slow... 

[haploid23]

sure you can transfer BTC by sound. just yell really loud: I NEED MOARRR COINZ!!! 

[spruce]

The idea is nice, but I think it's simply not practical for old cell-phones to use Bitcoin in any way.

Sure it is. SMS is already used extensively for micropayments. See this report about its use in the Philippines for an example. I agree the end-user wth a prepaid mobile isn't personally going to be running a bitcoin wallet on his phone, but a bitcoin interface could get incorporated into the system by the carrier in order to facilitate transactions throughout a wider sphere than currently available. Just give those developers a bit of time. . . .

[triforcelink]

It could seem like a good idea, however when you consider that the devices would both need Internet access, then I wonder what is the point?

They would need access to some sort of network once in a while. I'm sure the technical side could be figured out if there was some real interest in this.

[cloon]

This will not be possible, beacause there are to many disturbing frequencies.
imagine: your in a supermarket and there's the piip from the cash register, people talking, baby crying, the videocamere who makes piiip all the time, and some advertisement, ...

there are so many possibilities who can be emmittet in the frequence of the signal, that the transaction via sound will not function really good.

-> possyble it functions if you take high frequencies, low are easier disturbable. best will be, that it is so high, humans cant hear it.
(ooh but dogs can hear and bite)

[Xephan]

This will not be possible, beacause there are to many disturbing frequencies.
imagine: your in a supermarket and there's the piip from the cash register, people talking, baby crying, the videocamere who makes piiip all the time, and some advertisement, ...

there are so many possibilities who can be emmittet in the frequence of the signal, that the transaction via sound will not function really good.

-> possyble it functions if you take high frequencies, low are easier disturbable. best will be, that it is so high, humans cant hear it.
(ooh but dogs can hear and bite)

Not possible on most phones if I'm not wrong. The speakers in there are intended only for human vocal range so they don't do very low or very high audio frequencies very well. It's probably easier to do high than low due to the physical size, but not likely so high humans can't hear it.

As for interference, I believe there are established signal processing methods for dealing with those as long as they don't completely drown out the signal. Shouldn't be a problem if the two devices are close together and directed at each other specifically.

What gets me is that thinking deeper, there might not be a practical situation where such a transfer could be authenticated anyway.

[triforcelink]

This will not be possible, beacause there are to many disturbing frequencies.

That's strange, voice search on my phone works flawlessly. Anyway, the only thing that really determines whether something is possible or not is the will of the developers and the people influencing the developers. Just like the faith of bitcoin will be determined by its community.

[triforcelink]

What gets me is that thinking deeper, there might not be a practical situation where such a transfer could be authenticated anyway.

The carriers could implement their own system to allow instantaneous transfers. All the bitcoins could be sitting in a single account at the carrier, and all the transactions within their network could simply be entries in a database. Again, all that we need is a will, and the way will show up.

[tymothy]

Isn't this like a digital fax over telephone lines? You have a bunch of binary data converted to analog tones and sent over cheap and low quality cable to be reinterpreted on the other end with good accuracy?  A wallet could be converted to an image through Paperbak, sent over lines or by speakers using something similar to fax specifications, the image then reinterpreted and converted back to a file by Paperbak on the receiving terminal. The file itself could easily be encrypted and made redundant to ensure secure and reliable transfers. Since you're sending a wallet, the receiving party, upon opening the wallet could immediately transfer the received wallet to their personal wallet, thereby preventing double spending. I'm sure there's a much better way to send the data than Paperbak...or sound for that matter, just saying it's doable.