While some commercials might be entertaining and amusing, for the most part we’re sure that many of you guys out there switch channels when your TV show is on a break and commercials start playing. The same could apply while listening to radio which is why plugging in media players into vehicles or popping in a CD would be a more attractive alternative. However if you’re too lazy to switch channels or the radio station, a recently discovered patent by Apple has revealed a system where users can switch away from commercials either from radio or video and replace it with stored media instead, like a song on your phone.
This switching is done automatically, and if you’re wondering how this is achieved, it actually uses metadata from assets like the Radio Data System, broadcast listings or published third-party schedules to help determine when an upcoming content might not be of interest to you, the listener/viewer. The system will then switch to your stored media until the content has been passed and will then resume regular radio/video services again. The system will also be able to determine what the user likes or dislikes through a system similar to Pandora, where users can like or dislike a song and the system will then “learn” your preferences. No word if Apple has plans to incorporate this patent into any of their upcoming products, but being able to skip ads and whatnot sure sounds like a great feature for Apple’s rumored iTV!
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