Music detection project Bop Spotter sets aim on "catching vibes"

Project creator Riley Waltz has recently launched a "cultural surveillance" project to uncover the music preferences of one of San Francisco's most historic neighborhoods, the Mission District. Reportedly hidden up high on a pole, the project uses an old Android phone; Waltz does not mention which one, a solar panel, and a mic pointed towards the street to gather information on music playing in the phone's immediate surroundings. The music identification is done using the tried and true Shazam app, and once the song is IDed, the information is posted to the live updating Bop Spotter website. The site, which uses a lovely classic Gameboy-inspired theme, has cataloged over 100 tracks since coming online a few days ago. Users of the site will also notice that each song identified receives a pixel art rendering of the album's cover art and links to the track on Spotify and Apple Music. Additionally, the site features a battery life indicator for the phone at the heart of Bop Spotter, currently at 100 percent, signifying good health for the project and that more tunes are on the way.

Waltz mentions that  Bop Spotter was largely inspired by ShotSpotter, a network of computers with microphones that uses AI to analyze sound when a gunshot is detected. However, many have questioned the effectiveness of such a system, and Bop Spotter concedes this as a point of similarity. Fortunately, Bop Spotter is not concerned with catching criminals and is only focused on being "a constant feed of what's popping off in real-time."