What Song Is That? Shazam Will Tell You

Shazam, a mobile music discovery company, announced a partnership with Samsung today that embeds the Shazam service into the new Samsung Beat b (M3510) and Beat s (M3200) handsets. This service isn’t quite what you might expect, though.

Here’s how it works: according to a joint statement between the two companies, the Shazam application on Samsung’s new phones lets fans discover music by holding their handsets to the tune—in other words, music that’s already playing nearby—for just a few seconds and then go on to buy identified tracks through a carrier’s dedicated over-the-air music store. Shazam currently claims a database of more than six million tracks, along with 20 million users spanning 60 countries. Pretty cool, if it works.

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