Now music can relay messages to your phone

Researchers at Disney are working on a cool new technology that hides data within songs. In a new study, they explain how the next concert or movie you go to could broadcast content to your phone through sound. Disney published a concept for the technology back in 2013 that focussed on beaming information to smartphones during movies and you can do something similar with tools like Coagula.

But the study, presented earlier this month at a conference in Austria, gives us a little more information about how it works. It doesn’t need any network infrastructure whatsoever—no Wi-Fi, no radio frequencies. All you need to receive it is a phone. Disney might be developing the tech for movie theatres and concerts, but the team clearly has its eye on far broader applications.

“In many parts of the world, a dedicated network infrastructure is not practical or popular. Yet smartphones are popular and prevalent,” the authors write in their conclusion.