Palo Alto-based IntoNow, has just launched a very cool audio-recognition app called IntoNow, which is in a similar vein to Shazam. Except rather than recognizing music on the radio, it can actually recognize the TV program (right down to the exact episode) that is currently playing on your TV, computer or portable device! Well, that is as long as it has run on TV in the last five years, athough I’m sure this will improve as the database gets expanded.
IntoNow includes a full complement of social networking tools to share what you are watching with your friends and family. You can get complete episode and cast information, as well as info on future airings and even receive notifications when your friends are watching the same episode or show. Users also have the ability to comment on what their friends are watching within the App or post comments to Twitter and/o Facebook. Finally, there is one-click access to IMDb, Netflix, and iTunes. Obviously IntoNow will directly compete with the folks at GetGlue, so it’ll be interesting to see if they come up with something similar sometime down the line.
So How Does It Work?
According to IntoNow’s website, the app uses the SoundPrint platform, our patented indexing technology. With SoundPrint, IntoNow can identify what’s being watched, down to the individual episode, within seconds. In my preliminary tests, it worked quite well, quickly identifying TV episodes from Netflix, taking only about 4 to 12 seconds of audio to make a match. It also appears to match movies which have aired on television as well. The backend system powering the app utilizes 130 channels of live television, 266 years of video in it’s index and 2,610,000+ individual airings. Now that’s one impressive and monster database! It’s worth noting for our non-US readers, currently the app only works for US television shows.
Grab your free copy of the app and experience the voodoo magic of IntoNow for yourself!
