One of the Google Research teams has been working on a system that uses a computer microphone to scan the audio in a room, determine which TV shows are being watched, and offer additional information on the the computer that is pertinent to the show. Supplemental information includes contextual search, services, and shopping related to what's on TV. Four categories discussed for the application of this tool are:
- Personalized information layers Here’s what
Tom Cruise is wearing in the show you are watching and here’s
where you can buy the same clothes in your zip code. - Ad hoc social peer communities If you would like to chat about this show, ten of your college friends are watching it right now as well.
- Real-time popularity ratings Nielsen requires
hardware and the results aren’t available in real-time. You might
want to know if there is a spike in viewers watching the show on
channel 9 right now. Advertisers might want to know that too. - TV- based bookmarks Click to save a show or clip into your video library and there will be more than just a few shows available for watching later.
Technorati Tags: google, audio recognition, Google Research, ambient sound, personalized, search
