How does it work?

[The Big Train]

Alright guys we have a question of the day thread, but I feel like it's more speculation.  This thread is for the cold hard facts.  How does it work?  ITT we pose questions and look for the proven facts on why, how, and what makes something work.

First question:

I have used music recognition software for years to determine what a song is.  I just used it for a song at the end of a movie and it took less than 2 seconds to identify the song.  How does music recognition software work?  What algorithm is used to search an index of millions(billions?) of songs and return the correct result so fast?  I'm interesting in the engineering to allow this to happen so quickly, how are they caching for quicker access?  Do they index songs based on cable provider program guides to know what songs to look for at a certain time?  What kind of machine learning are they using to have predictive search patterns?

[SkinnyBenny]

Great thread. Have also wondered so much about how Shazam and the like work. Don't know anything about it but just wanted to tell you that this is a great thread, TBT. Are you a Shazam guy, or do you use a different app?

[The Big Train]

You know I have never used Shazam, I use SoundHound.  When I first started using it I liked it and decided to draw a line in the sand right then and there and stick with my original choice.  I know they probably work in the same fashion, just using whatever proprietary algorithm each company respectively uses. 

[CHONGS]

Machine learning, probably neural networks.

[The Big Train]

Machine learning, probably neural networks.

Yeah that was in my original question.  I know they use it, but how is it used in a more specific manner.  Links welcome.

[CHONGS]

http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf

But something more sophisticated now

[CHONGS]

http://soundhound.com/hound-third-party

[The Big Train]

Oh man

Gonna dig into this stuff tomorrow!

[pissclams]

the usb ports on my monitor, will they work for my printer?

[star seed 7]

Yup

[CHONGS]

Yup

But now print screen will go directly to the printer.

[star seed 7]

 

[Tobias]

paging @hemmy

[Phil Titola]

Alright guys we have a question of the day thread, but I feel like it's more speculation.  This thread is for the cold hard facts.  How does it work?  ITT we pose questions and look for the proven facts on why, how, and what makes something work.

First question:

I have used music recognition software for years to determine what a song is.  I just used it for a song at the end of a movie and it took less than 2 seconds to identify the song.  How does music recognition software work?  What algorithm is used to search an index of millions(billions?) of songs and return the correct result so fast?  I'm interesting in the engineering to allow this to happen so quickly, how are they caching for quicker access?  Do they index songs based on cable provider program guides to know what songs to look for at a certain time?  What kind of machine learning are they using to have predictive search patterns?

Young Phil worked for a company that had this technology around the country...back then we had PCs in all markets to listen to the radio, back then we thought we were good to name that song by the time the next song started.

[puniraptor]

Magnets?