How many times have you had a tune running through your head and you couldn't think of the tune's name? Or even worse, you realized that you never really knew the name of the tune but you really like it and wanted to get it. So there you are at the music store, desperately trying to hum a few bars to the sales associate behind the counter.

"Do you have the song that goes like this? La de la la dah, tum te dah de dum la dah?" I pity the poor salesperson who probably gets a lot of these types of requests. Then again, maybe it's part of their training to not clamp their hands over their ears, screaming towards the back door exit. But how else can you find the name of that relentless tune that's playing over and over again in your mind? But if you can't find a trained professional to help you find the name of that tune, there has to be some way of finding out what it is. In this day and age, computer technology should be able to provide an answer to this problem, right? Well actually, it does. In fact, this just happened to me just the other day as I struggled to think a the tune's name that had invaded my brain. Evidently the Internet gods must have been listening to that very same song because they thankfully pointed me to the Nayio Media website.

Nayio.com is a brand new website that offers an amazing piece of technological legerdemain. If you can believe this, the website asks you to merely hum a few bars of the song you hear in your head and after a bit of searching, it comes back with not only the name of the song but the name of the artist that performed it. And when you find it, you can even download the song from the Napster music store! Now how slick is that?

Pattern recognition is a highly specialized area within the science of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It turns out that so many of the things we do and take for granted such as recognizing someone's face or even the simple act of reading is actually very difficult for a computer to do, let alone do it with any degree of accuracy. How do you teach a computer to recognize anything? If you think about it a bit, you'll begin to realize how difficult it truly is. But pattern recognition is getting better and better as the years pass. Having more powerful processors that can crunch more and more numbers in lesser time is certainly a big help. And more sophisticated algorithms are always being developed to help make our machines more intelligent. Still it's an ongoing battle to get computers to do some of the things that even the smallest of babies can do.

So when I learned about Nayio's website, I had to check it out as it sounded too good to be true. But it works and it works surprisingly well. Basically, you just go to the website using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Right now, that's the only supported browser as it uses ActiveX to do it's thing. It also requires Windows and does not work on the Mac. The Nayio spokesperson said they are working on expanding the website's compatibility. Once there, you simply click on the record button and hum in a few bars of the melody you wish to identify. When you're done, click on the Search button. Nayio creates a musical "fingerprint" of what you just hummed and tries to compare it to the digital fingerprints of literally thousands of songs in the Napster collection of music. If something matches or is a close match, Nayio will present you with a list of possible hits.

You can then click on the link and listen to the song from the Napster website as a confirmation. If you hear a match, then you're all set. If you decide to purchase the song, you can download it right then and there. No fuss, no muss.

Using the humming search feature on Nayio is free. To download the tunes you find, you have to register for the service. Your first three song downloads are free and then you pay on a per song downloaded basis. Check the website for pricing information.

I have to say that this is something wonderful. Too many times I'll be searching for a song on iTunes or something comparable and just not find it. I may know part of the lyrics but too often that just doesn't help. But with Nayio, if I can hum it, I can most likely find it. It brings a whole new methodology to how I can search for a song. Granted you really have to minimally be able to carry a tune.

The tone deaf or those who can't carry a tune to save their life need not apply. You'll just have to keep searching the old fashioned way. Or you can always try humming to the person behind the sales counter.