Audio Watermarking for Viewer Authentication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Voting systems in broadcast competition programs often suffer from votes being cast by non-viewers, which can skew results and undermine confidence in the scoring system, as social media influences prompt people to vote without actually watching the programs.
Innovation Solution
A mobile application that uses audio watermarking and signature-based authentication to verify that voters have actually watched the program by sampling and analyzing background audio signals to detect embedded watermarks or generate signatures, which are then compared to reference data to authenticate viewers and weight their votes accordingly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If voting is allowed from social media without verification, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to non-viewer votes skewing results
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary verification system that uses audio watermarking technology as a mediator between the voter and the voting system. The mobile application captures audio signals from the viewer's environment and extracts watermark identifiers to verify actual program viewing, thereby preventing non-viewer voting while maintaining social media integration for vote submission
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the traditional mechanical verification method (manual confirmation or complex authentication) with an acoustic field-based verification system. By using audio watermarking embedded in the broadcast program and captured through the device's microphone, the system automatically verifies viewing without requiring additional user actions, thus maintaining ease of operation while improving reliability
2Reliability
If audio watermarking verification is implemented, then reliability is improved by confirming viewer exposure, but device complexity increases due to audio sampling and analysis requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service by leveraging the mobile device's existing hardware components (microphone, processor, memory) to perform audio sampling and watermark extraction. The verification process utilizes resources already present in the device without requiring additional specialized hardware, thereby reducing the actual increase in device complexity while maintaining high reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-embedding audio watermarks in the broadcast program content before transmission. This allows the verification system to simply capture and analyze the already-prepared audio signals containing the identifiers, rather than requiring complex real-time watermark generation and embedding processes during the verification phase
Data Source
AI summary
Apparatus, systems, articles of manufacture, and methods for viewer authentication are disclosed. An example system comprises memory, first instructions, and processor circuitry to execute the first instructions to send one or more second instructions to the device, the second instructions to cause the device to trigger collection of audio metering data from a sensed audio signal based on a programming schedule that is to identify when the program is to be broadcast, the program associated with a first time duration, the audio metering data associated with a second time duration, accept voting data from the user for a ballot presented in the program, and transmit the audio metering data and the voting data, determine a level of exposure of the user to the program based on the first time duration and the second time duration, and adjust the voting data based on the level of exposure.