The Universal Whistling Machine (U.W.M.) is a human-computer interface based on whistling. Developed by artists Marc Böhlen and JT Rinker, the system extracts the sound of a human whistle, conducts a time-frequency analysis, and then answers with its own call.
Whistling is much closer to the phoneme-less signal primitives compatible with digital machinery than the messy domain of spoken language. As opposed to pushing machines into engaging humans in spoken language, U.W.M. suggests we meet on a middle ground. Whistling occurs across all languages and cultures. All people have the capacity to whistle, though many do not whistle well. Lacking phonemes, whistling is a pre-language language, a candidate for a limited Esperanto of human-machine communication.
Link (via Near, Near Future)
