Apple Patent May Help Users Switch from Commercials to Other Content
By Karla Robinson
August 23, 2012
August 23, 2012
- There are numerous ways to bypass commercials today. With radio, listeners can change the station or opt for commercial-free satellite subscriptions. With TV, DVRs allow viewers to fast-forward through content they don’t want to watch.
- A new patent granted to Apple this week is taking a different approach and could be applied to all broadcasts.
- The patent protects a new technology for “seamless switching between radio and local media,” according to the filing. It enables a mobile device to “automatically switch between broadcast content and stored media to offer the user a type of customized content consumption experience,” Apple Insider reports.
- The device would allow users to bypass any media they were uninterested in — advertisements, segments of a talk show, news programming, etc. — and substitute it with their own content.
- “By using metadata from assets like Radio Data System (RDS) data, broadcast listings or published third-party schedules, a device can ‘determine when an upcoming broadcast segment or media item is not of interest to the user,'” the article explains.
- “When such an event is detected, the device will seamlessly switch to stored media until the unwanted content is completed. Also included as methods of discerning what a user may or may not want to consume are analysis of audio or video from the source, akin to current iOS apps Shazam or IntoNow.”
- The technology would allow users to “like” or “dislike” certain content in order to develop a preference profile. It would also look for appropriate stored content to replaced the undesired sections, using a “relevance algorithm” to keep the media consistent with the broadcast stream.
- The post suggests the device could work well with Apple’s rumored set-top box, blurring “the line between live and on-demand television.”
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