Project creator Riley Waltz has recently initiated a "cultural surveillance" project aimed at discovering the music tastes of one of San Francisco's iconic neighborhoods, the Mission District. The project cleverly utilizes an old Android phone, although Waltz has not specified the model, along with a solar panel and a microphone positioned towards the street to collect data on the music playing nearby. Music identification is achieved through the well-known Shazam app, and once a song is identified, the details are uploaded to the live Bop Spotter website. This site, featuring a charming classic Gameboy-inspired design, has already cataloged over 100 tracks since its launch a few days ago. Visitors to the site can also see that each identified song comes with a pixel art version of the album cover and links to listen on Spotify and Apple Music. Moreover, the site includes a battery life indicator for the phone powering Bop Spotter, currently at 100 percent, indicating the project is in good shape and ready for more music discoveries.
Inspiration Behind Bop Spotter
Waltz notes that Bop Spotter was primarily inspired by ShotSpotter, a system of computers equipped with microphones that utilize AI to analyze sounds when a gunshot occurs. However, there have been doubts regarding the effectiveness of such technology, and Bop Spotter acknowledges this similarity. Thankfully, the focus of Bop Spotter is not on identifying criminals but rather on providing "a constant feed of what's popping off in real-time."
