Google Tone allows users to share URLs by sound

Google engineers have devised a way for computers to share data through their speakers.

Dubbed Tone, the Chrome app broadcasts the URL of the current tab to any machine within earshot that had the Tone extension, according to interaction researcher Alex Kauffmann and software engineer Boris Smus.

"Tone grew out of the idea that while digital communication methods like email and chat have made it infinitely easier, cheaper, and faster to share things with people across the globe, they've actually made it more complicated to share things with the people standing right next to you. Tone aims to make sharing digital things with nearby people as easy as talking to them," Kauffman and Smus said in a blog post.

They added, the first version was built in an afternoon for fun, however it was increasingly used to share documents with everyone in a meeting quickly.

It also came to be used to exchange design files back and forth even while collaborating on UI design and to contribute relevant links without interrupting conversations.

They further added Tone "provides an easy-to-understand broadcast mechanism that behaves like the human voice - it doesn't pass through walls like radio or require pairing or addressing."

Users would need to be logged into their Google account to use Google Tone and they would need to have their microphone turned on when the extension was on.

Google Tone does not have any mobile versions, and users would need to use the desktop versions of Google Tone.