NoiseTube is a free downloadable software application that records the sounds picked up by a phone’s microphone and downloads them to a central server, where they are tagged with the location and converted into a format that can be used with Google Earth.

The recordings are also cross-referenced with local weather information – any that may have been affected by high winds, for example, are rejected. Aggregated recordings can then be downloaded from the NoiseTube website and displayed using Google Earth to give a detailed picture of urban noise levels.

The software was developed by a team led by Nicolas Maisonneuve of the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. At present the number of compatible smartphones is relatively small, but the team is working on a method for automatically calibrating microphones from different brands.

February 2010