2 comments

  • elric 1 hour ago
    Neat, finally an easy way of transferring files between devices that doesn't rely on online services -- no clue why we didn't solve that ages ago.

    Adding encryption shouldn't be hard, as long as you can communicate the keys out of band.

    Could probably achieve the same result using audio instead of video, but maybe that would be too annoying?

    • bigiain 57 minutes ago
      I had a Timex Data Watch over 30 years ago.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink

      It'd transfer phone numbers and calendar entries to the watch by blinking the screen of your computer. Kinda a 1 pixel version of this.

      (I wonder where that ended up? From memory I threw it in a drawer when I finished the Windows 95 project I'd been working on, and switched to Mac. There was no Mac software to talk to it.)

      • atoav 40 minutes ago
        I have seen digital audio gear that solved firmware transfer like that. You basically go to a website on your phone and it flickers the screen and you hold it in front of a photosensitive bit of the device that needs to be updated for 20 seconds and done.

        If your firmware is small enough to fit that model, it isn't a bad variant. Beats downloading a file, transferring it to a USB drive, sticking that in,...

    • kooi 1 hour ago
      As someone who has implemented acoustic modems (underwater comms)... yes, yes very annoying. It's like a demonic dolphin.

      Bringing it into the ultra sonic band would help.

    • ErroneousBosh 38 minutes ago
      You can do PSK31 across a room with just audio, but it is a kind of annoying noise after a while.

      It's interesting that you learn to recognise patterns in the burbling tones after a while. "CQ CQ CQ" is very distinctive and after a while you can hear your own callsign in it. I guess it's not that different to very fast Morse.

  • kooi 1 hour ago
    Fountain codes are so lit