The New York Times has published a story about a company called Alphonso that
has developed a technology that uses smartphone microphones to identify
TV and films being played in the background. Alphonso claims not to
record any conversations, but simply listen to and encode samples of
media for matching in their database. The company combines the collected
data with identifiers and uses the data to target advertising, audience
measurement and other purposes. The technology is embedded in over one
thousand apps and games but the company refuses to disclose the exact
list.
