Chirp app nominated for design award

The Chirp app, which enables easy sharing of information between smart-phones via sound, has been nominated for a "Design of the Year" award by the Design Museum in London. Chirp has been nominated in the "Digital" section. Other nominees include the Rasberry Pi computer, the UK Government's website and Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 operating system.

Chirp is a free app developed by Animal Systems, a spin-off business from University College London (UCL) led by Anthony Steed. It uses sound from a smart-phone's speaker to trigger transfers of photos, web pages and contacts. The phones receiving the sound then transfer the data via the company's servers.

Existing systems share data via WiFi or Bluetooth but these require some time and effort to set up "pairing" arrangements between devices. Chirp avoids this and also enables data to be shared with multiple recipients. The sound used has been carefully chosen to enable the app to work in noisy environments such as pubs and busy streets