Spotify obtained a patent that would allow users to monitor their speech. This access will allow the streaming platform to collect data to improve its algorithm and increase its musical recommendations.
Music Business Worldwide reported this news for the first time, the patent was filed in 2018 and was approved earlier this month on January 12. In the streaming giant’s app, Spotify said the technology would work by retrieving audio, including voice signals and background noise, to understand “content metadata” about users’ emotional state, gender, age and accent.
The patent also states that Spotify would be based on information such as “intonation, accentuation, rhythm and similar units of speech”. The platform claims that these factors would find out if a user is feeling “happy, angry, sad or neutral”.
The streaming platform would also gain access to users’ environments. This technology applies to physical environments, that is, whether they are inside or outside the social environment and whether they are alone or with third parties.
Spotify will be able to collect this information from “sounds of vehicles on the street, other people talking, birds chirping, printer printing and so on”. Spotify says that in the “field of streaming media services on demand, it is common for a streaming media application to include features that provide personalized media recommendations to a user.”
In a statement given to Pitchfork earlier today, a company representative commented, “Spotify has filed patent applications for hundreds of inventions, and we regularly file new applications. Some of these patents become part of future products, while others do not.
“Our ambition is to create the best audio experience there is, but we have no news to share at the moment.”