Pushing information over acoustic channels

We propose a unidirectional communication system capable of pushing information from audio speakers to nearby audience via acoustic channels. Though constrained by short transmission distances and low data throughput of sound waves, information push services based on acoustic channels can be regarded as a cost-free message delivery scheme since music playback systems and handheld devices equipped with recording capabilities have become ubiquitous in our life. Furthermore, the proposed approach can provide better non-intrusiveness and more convenient user access than other auxiliary information delivery approaches like 2-D barcodes or watermarking schemes based on visual contents. To the best of our knowledge, our system is the first one that can effectively push information to receivers at feasible transmission throughput/robustness/distance within common noisy environments. Various interesting applications and new business models can be facilitated with the proposed scheme.