In a bold, technologically retrograde move that will strike fear into anyone who surfed the internet before the advent of DSL and cable, Microsoft Research has devised an acoustic file transfer protocol for mobile devices. That's acoustic, as in, the same way that your 56k modem connected to the internet via a stream of modulated bleeps and screeches. This technique, called peer-to-peer acoustic NFC, allows any two mobile devices to transfer files as long as they have a speaker and a microphone -- no special hardware, such as NFC, WiFi, or Bluetooth is required.