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According to the patent, spotted by Metro, the system would use 'a non-human hearable digital sound' to activate your phone's microphone.
This noise, which could be a sound so high-pitched that humans cannot hear it, would contain a 'machine recognisable' set of Morse code-style beeps
Once your phone hears the trigger, it would begin to record 'ambient noise' in your home, such as the sound of your air conditioning unit, plumbing noises from your pipes and even your movements from one room to another.
Your phone would even listen in on 'distant human speech' and 'creaks from thermal contraction', according to the patent.
TV advertisers would use this data to determine whether you had muted your TV or moved to a different room when their promotional clip played.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:36PM
They'd know if you muted the television during the commercial, i.e. your response to the commercial was "I don't want to listen to this".
However, if they were in cahoots with the broadcasters and put the inaudible signal just before the commercial break, then even if you mute the TV for the commercials they'd already have the signal*, and could work out which adverts you didn't listen to.
*Assuming you weren't watching the program itself with the audio muted.