Google is experimenting with a new way to send website URLs to nearby computers—using only sound.

Forget copy and paste, and stop searching for email addresses or chat handles. Instead, install the Google Tone Chrome extension(Opens in a new window) and start sharing.

The service broadcasts the URL of a current tab to any machine within earshot that also uses the extension (including those on a phone or Hangout). So you will need to partner with colleagues and friends to ensure everyone is connected.

But once installed, the process is simple: Open the appropriate website, make sure the volume is on, and tap the Tone button (a megaphone-like icon) in the browser bar.

Then, listen for a short sequence of beeps as the computer sends nearby devices a clickable notification, which opens the same site.

“Tone in an experiment that we’ve enjoyed and found useful, and we think you may as well,” Google researcher Alex Kauffmann and software engineer Boris Smus wrote in a blog post(Opens in a new window).

Built in an afternoon “for fun,” the service became increasingly important to in-house Googlers who were sharing documents in meetings, exchanging files while collaborating, and contributing relevant links without interrupting conversation.

“Tone grew out of the idea that while digital communication methods like email and chat have made it infinitely easier, cheaper, and faster to share things with people across the globe, they’ve actually made it more complicated to share things with the people standing right next to you,” Kauffmann and Smus wrote. “Tone aims to make sharing digital things with nearby people as easy as talking to them.”

Now available to the public, the audio-based experiment operates much like the human voice. It does not pass through walls like radio, or require pairing or addressing. Tone is, however, subject to blunders—much like humans.

According to Google, little details like the orientation of laptops, acoustics, speaker volume, and mic sensitivity, and even where you’re standing can affect Tone’s reliability.

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“Not every machine will always receive every broadcast, just like not everyone will always hear every word someone says,” Kauffmann and Smus wrote.

But simple repetition should fix the problem; just re-send the URL or raise the computer’s volume.

“Many groups at Google have found … the tradeoffs between ease and reliability worthwhile,” the company said. “It is our hope that small teams, students in classrooms, and families with multiple computers will, too.”

Google did not discuss the security issues surrounding Tone, but it’s probably best that you share documents in this way privately rather than in a public coffee shop, for example.