Whismur

The spark that turned into Whismur!

Sound is the first network that mankind has established, but, in some ways, it is the most neglected network. We felt that sound, which is so ubiquitously available, is not being used it to its full potential. Just think about it: What is the one medium we are most comfortable using, be it a desert or a mall or just our house? --- Sound. Our devices don't talk like us! We wanted to get the devices talk like us. We decided to hack sound, and connect the world's devices together with just sound waves.

From a spark to a potentially disruptive idea

Whismur tries to build an "Internet Of Sound" where every device that can emit sound can communicate to every other device in a truly unimaginable way.

Mobile <---> Mobile, Laptops, Tablets (Integrate all electronic devices)
Mobile <---> Car, AC, Fridge, Doorbell (Complete Home IOT)
Ambulances to Mobiles: Request for blood group as it passes by the vehicles.
Retail Stores/Theaters to Mobiles: Send offer notifications to customers when they cross their shops.
A person on stage can send a tone across the hall for everyone to download slides.
Automate all kinds of payments by sending a small piece of audio
Radio stations, Podcasts, videos can now send additional data!
Proximity location-aware notifications -- The Speaker becomes a Sensor!
Creating a more efficient, personal security layer
Analytics like never before -- analyze user-user interactions to get rich audience data.
Complete automobile integration
More vast compared to NFC: Compatible with all audio-enabled devices!
For the first time, IOT with no extra hardware!

How does it work?

For a proof of concept, we have built two apps --- a mobile and a desktop app and these can:

encode any data into a sound wave and transmit it,
hear the sound wave and can decode it

This basic architecture can be used to communicate any form of data between two devices via sound!

It's not that simple!

We are trying to solve a problem of the hardest kind --- a universal problem, whose solution should work anywhere in the world, from villages who do not even have a good cellular connection to a well-connected metropolis.
We are doing it with Zero extra hardware. Anybody can start using Whismur by just downloading the app!

The above features demand a few really advanced techniques, which to implement from scratch on our own, would take much more time. Listed below are a few challenges and our alternative solutions to show a "Proof of concept" for this hackathon.

Challenges we ran into

Sound is extremely susceptible to noise --- it needs really powerful error-checking algorithms
Audible range noise --- can be eliminated instantly after solving the above problem.

How we worked around the challenges

We have implemented a near replica of the final product, but for now, it works in moderately silent environments.
We thought that we can implement error-checking using Reed Solomon algorithm and get it all ready. Due to time constraints, we had to use an API to do the error-checking mechanism for us. We plan to move the error-checking to our side to ensure we use ZERO data connections.
We can trasmit at ultrasound frequencies to get rid of the annoying noise, immediately after we move the error checking mechanism to our side.

What's next for Whismur

Today, we have introduced a concept "Where's there's sound, there can be data". We want to develop on this prototype and build a complete product which brings countless devices together, in ways we could have never imagined. Further, since we feel that this field is one which requires huge innovation, we would also make it open-source and let the developers worldwide innovate.