scott wrote:

> Actually I have a phone book entry on my phone, which you can call, hold 
> your phone up to some random speaker (be it in your car, on the TV, etc) 
> for 10 seconds, then a few seconds later it texts you back the artist 
> and song name.  It's pretty neat and has worked every time I've tried it.

Heh. Well that's one way to find out what tune that is on that YouTube 
video... ;-)

What does it do if you play something that isn't in the database? (I.e., 
you pick up an instrument and play something yourself.)

> Maybe it works in the frequency domain, so takes the fourier transform 
> of the sample, then uses some fuzzy matching algorithm to see what it 
> matches up with?

See my other reply. Statistical summaries of the frequency spectrum (not 
forgetting temporal information too) plus fuzzy matching.

>> (But then, so should identifying a CD by it's serial number, and 
>> apparently that is a "solved problem".)
> 
> What do you mean? Isn't the whole idea of a *serial* number that you can 
> identify which one it is?

Yes - but if you aren't the manufacturer, it's just a useless number to 
you. The only reason this is usable is that somebody sat down and 
somehow built a giant database containing all the serial numbers and the 
matching metadata; AFAIK, the manufacturers didn't hand this data over, 
some poor sod collected it.

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