Personally I would never allow any app to use my microphone all the time, effectively being able to monitor a certain area around the device it is running on all the time. This is gross.<p>This is all the more true for an app from a company that did transfer sensitive user data to third parties in the past.[0]<p>In Germany, under certain circumstances, it is also illegal to make sound recordings of persons without their knowledge.[1] This might be the case in other jurisdictions too.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FShazam-meldet-Standort-heimlich-an-Werbenetzwerke-2111850.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=auto&tl=en&...</a><p>[1| German Civil Law Code § 201 – Breach of confidentiality of the word: <a href="http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdejure.org%2Fgesetze%2FStGB%2F201.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=auto&tl=en&...</a>
My first job was at a record store. The owners were an old man and his wife.<p>The old man was essentially Shazam personified. It was amazing. He could name any song, composer and artist after listening to a few beats. Except he would do it with old jazz artists and big band music.<p>Coincidentally the old man had huge ears. Enormous.<p>And when you'd ask him how he could remember all those songs, the wife would chime in, "It's cause of his ears. The songs all stay in his ears. Bouncing around."<p>The record store is long gone and the space is now occupied by a Cold Stone Creamery.
I wonder what the most common use case is for this? It's rare that I'm in front of my computer, there's music, and I have no way of determining what it is.<p>The mobile version makes -more- sense to me.
Why fingerprint audio with Shazam when you can do it yourself?<p>I've made my own audio fingerprinting software in Python under the MIT license, check it out!<p><a href="https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu</a>
I've always liked Shazam but I like what <a href="http://www.soundhound.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.soundhound.com/</a> did with their app better.