Ambient noise based augmentation of media playback

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8977974-B2
Application number	US-33033508-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 8, 2008
Priority date	Dec 8, 2008
Publication date	Mar 10, 2015
Grant date	Mar 10, 2015

Abstract

Ambient noise sampled by a mobile device from a local environment is used to automatically trigger actions associated with content currently playing on the mobile device. In some implementations, subtitles or closed captions associated with the currently playing content are automatically invoked and displayed on a user interface based on a level of ambient noise. In some implementations, audio associated with the currently playing content is adjusted or muted. Actions can be automatically triggered based on a comparison of the sampled ambient noise, or an audio fingerprint of the sampled ambient noise, with reference data, such as a reference volume level or a reference audio fingerprint. In some implementations, a reference volume level can be learned on the mobile device based on ambient noise samples.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a mobile device comprising:
playing audio content by the mobile device;
sampling ambient noise by the mobile device from a local environment of the mobile device to obtain a sample of the ambient noise, the ambient noise interfering with the played audio content;
converting the sampled ambient noise to an audio fingerprint;
comparing the audio fingerprint to other ambient noise audio fingerprints previously stored at the mobile de…

Assignees

• Kraut Joel
• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Kraut Joel

Classifications

• H04N21/41407

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/4126 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/42224

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/42203

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/4884

  Electricity · mapped topic