At this point, you're probably pretty used to the idea that your smartphone tracks what you do and shares that information with various companies. It's a little depressing, but it's become a fact of life. However, what about your TV?
Somehow, the idea that your TV is watching what you do and sending information back to base doesn't sit quite as well with me, and I suspect you as well. So what if I told you there was technology that monitors everything you watch, and then uses that information? I'm not just talking about Netflix or other streaming services, taking note of your favorite movies. No, I'm talking about your TV itself, watching everything you put on-screen. It's called ACR or Automatic Content Recognition.
What ACR actually does
Stop peeking at my screen!
Let's imagine you connect a Blu-ray player to your TV, and start playing a movie from your collection. How would your TV know what movie you're playing? That's where ACR works its dark magic. It basically works like a video version of Shazam, the service that can identify what song is currently playing wherever you may hear it.
ACR takes image and sound data being fed into the TV and compares it to a database of known media. So this means that your TV can know at any time what you're watching. The key detail is that ACR doesnโt just track what you stream through a TV appโit works across…