Spotify now recommends songs using your emotions.
Spotify has started to develop technology to make music based on users’ mood recommendations. The streaming platform obtained patent approval with which it will be able to make specific suggestions with the help of voice recognition.
Spotify applied for the patent in 2018 and got it on January 12, 2021. In the patent, Spotify specifies that with voice recognition technology it will be able to determine the emotional state or the environment of the users.
The patented technology is an audio signal processing method that identifies speech and environmental noises. The system retrieves the content metadata based on the processed audio signals and provides a subsequent output corresponding to the preferences.
Based on people’s emotions, such as sadness, happiness, anger, or a neutral state, the system will capture the intonation, stress, and rhythm of speech. At the same time, the user must provide additional information so that the technology further refines the identification of their tastes.
Spotify acknowledges that its current method isn’t entirely efficient at identifying people’s tastes in given situations. However, with speech recognition, you will be able to capture emotions and background noise with the help of the Markov model architecture.
Other Patents Spotify has gotten includes:
- Technologies to improve its karaoke feature so users can put their voices on a track.
- A system under development that will make it possible to identify plagiarism in real-time from the sequence of patterns.
So, does this increase the amount of data Spotify collects about you? Well, Yes!
A study on privacy by the University of Berkley shows that mobile applications do not always respect users’ right to privacy. Accept or not accept cookies? Allow an app to use your data or not? Sometimes the answer is very clear, but the answer may seem a bit controversial. If you do not agree, you may not be able to access the application, and if you agree, your privacy will be compromised.
Spotify has not clearly stated this. Nevertheless, one could clearly see that for the new system to work, Spotify has to be allowed access to more data. Data about the environment you live in is also gotten. With all this data in one place, there is a risk of potential misuse. This is how most of the top companies make their money.
So expect music that just looks so right for the most and all ads that may be too specific for your liking. Users who consent to the collection of their data are making your job easier when it comes to selling perfectly targeted advertising to each user.
