Google on the goggle

Google are gearing up to get inside inside your livingroom. In a research paper, two Google researchers, Michele Covell and Shumeet Baluja, propose using ambient-audio identification technology, via your computer, to watch television with you and deliver personalised internet content at the same time.

"We showed how to sample the ambient sound emitted from a TV and automatically determine what is being watched from a small signature of the sound," Covell and Baluja write on the Google Research Blog. "The system could keep up with users while they channel surf, presenting them with a real-time forum about a live political debate one minute and an ad-hoc chatroom for a sporting event in the next."

Not to mention the massive profits Google stand to make by selling the information to wide-eyed marketers who thought they'd never be privy to such valuable information. The system could see Google extend its online dominance into television, and presumably radio.

But this scenario of watching TV while fielding phone calls, sending instant messages, and surfing the net, not to mention the unease over "television tapping", may be tough to sell to TV audiences.

However, the proposal suggests privacy would be respected.

"Our approach will not 'overhear' conversations... no one receiving these statistics is able to eavesdrop... since the original audio does not leave the viewer's computer."

The project is still in early stages and Google say they don't have any specific product plans to announce yet.

Emma Somers