Big Brother is listening to you...

[kneeshooter]

Researchers at Google have been talking up work on linking search engines with audio information. This might, for example, involve your PC listening on a TV programme being watched, identifying it and then presenting tailored search results such as the IMDB entry of a film or the website of the star currently on screen.

Analysts aren't convinced this technology will result in a finished commercial product but the idea that a PC knows what point you are in a film and offering the car or even domestic appliance that features in that scene for sale is either incredibly interesting or quite scary depending on your viewpoint.

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?class=countries&subclass=0&id=1741

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

I have considered writing an application which allows you to read partial plot summaries keyed by time into the film - so if you tune into a movie but missed the first 20 minutes, you can read up on what you've missed.

[kneeshooter]

Nice idea.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

This would be because Google's real problem is the immutable laws of thermodynamics and they need to shift into a different market sharpish.

[kneeshooter]

Nah - it would be because they employ geeks and encourage them to spend some of their time working up silly ideas.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

That billion they spent at MySpace had to come from somewhere, and had to have been spent for a reason.

[crm.livejournal.com]

i often thought about context based audio serches, foir example, hum a few lines from a song into a mike and the serch will bring back the full title, artis, lyrics and mp3. it poors right into the 'killer app' modell for mobile devices however short of employing a sack load of people with an encyclopeadeic knolege of pop music in a call centre i dont really see it being possible.

audio anaylisis is a scarey scarey place filled with scarey maths and unhappy monsters.

[yapman.livejournal.com]

I laugh at Google's optimism.

Poor quality audio is not a good thing to try and process in any way, trust me on this.

[kneeshooter]

Have you seen Shazam?

[crm.livejournal.com]

nah mate, looks a bit to pop culture for me... ill poke it when im not late for work :P

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

It's actually pretty good iirc, though admittedly, throw it something from the leftfield and it struggles.

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

I don't think the audio section is needed. I think something linking either tv schedules to content or embedding tags in the content would be a far more workable solution. Similar to how you can attach a subtitles track to a movie.

It's not far off what you get already in some shows with interactive digital. Press the red button during adverts and they pop up with more info. I'm sure that could be adapted.

[kneeshooter]

I think this is based on the assumption that there is no other information available. For example the PC might just be "switched on" in the corner of the room while a DVD is being played. Of course it's very different if there are lots of other sources of informantion.

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

I don't think it will be too long before the DVD player will be talking to the PC.

Musicbrainz et al shows it can work...I'm not entirely convinced there is a need for it though yet.

I mean, you'd have to have the PC running the audio recognition software for what? So it can deliver you extra info on the product placement? Tell you what 'that' car or 'that' song is? You can probably get that info off Google in seconds.

It might be a nice geek toy (and I might be completely wrong) but I'm not convinced there is a massive need for movie recognition from audio.

[kneeshooter]

The need for the PC is one of the reasons why this idea is unlikely ever to progress beyond "interesting".

I agree someone will have to come up with a reason to have the PC running and a microphone attached - but that's just a challenge to clever minds surely!

It's more than just movies though - for example if the soundtrack to an advert was known that could be used to change the "Ads by Google" on your next search for example. Where there is potential data on users habits there are $$$.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I expect books to get really popular.