Methods and apparatus to perform audio watermarking and watermark detection and extraction are disclosed. Example apparatus include means for transforming an audio signal into a frequency domain representation, and means for determining characteristics of frequencies of the frequency domain representation that may contain the code. In some examples, the means for determining is to normalize the characteristics of the frequencies of the frequency domain representation in respective ones of the code bands that may contain the code to determine normalized characteristics of the frequencies representative of the code, a respective one of the code bands that may contain the code to be normalized against a first characteristic of a first frequency in that code band; sum the normalized characteristics of the frequencies representative of the code; determine the sum is representative of the code when the sum satisfies a threshold; and validate the code based on an encoding scheme.

A method of processing supplementary content in a digital receiving apparatus, includes connecting to an external device being different from a broadcaster; receiving uncompressed audio/video (A/V) content from the external device being different from the broadcaster; extracting audio watermark from the uncompressed A/V content, wherein the audio watermark includes domain type information, time information and event flag, further the event flag is used to signal when an event is available, and the event flag is 1-bit; constructing a first uniform resource locator (URL) based on the audio watermark; transmitting a request to a remote server based on the first URL; receiving a second URL for the supplementary content from the remote server; and presenting the supplementary content based on the second URL.

An information system generates data, generates an audio token, associates the audio token with the data, and transmits the audio token along with the data to the account management system. The information system configures a broadcasting computing device to broadcast the audio token at a location. User computing devices at the location via an audio communication channel receive the broadcast token and retransmit the audio token to the account management system via a network. The account management system receives the audio token from a particular user computing device along with a request for data associated with the audio token, extracts the data associated with the audio token data, and transmits the data associated with the audio token to the particular user computing device.

The present disclosure describes an efficient computer-implemented near-field communication system and method based on broadcasting audio signals for dynamically providing context-related additional content to a mobile device. In embodiments of the present invention, the additional content is mapped to specific audio watermarks and/or triggering commands which are encoded together into a digital signal. Based on continuously scanning the received background noise, an exactly defined frequency range and volume is dynamically selected for broadcasting the signal. Hence, the encoded digital signal is further modulated into an audio signal in the exactly defined frequency range. In embodiments of the present invention, the selected exactly defined frequency range for transmitting the audio signal may preferably be located in the ultrasound and/or infrasound frequency range. In case of transmitting ultrasound signals, gyrosensors of the mobile device may be employed as audio signal receivers in embodiments of the present invention. Moreover, in further embodiments of the present invention, audio signal receiver of a mobile device such as gyrosensors or microphones may be switched on by transmitting a command via a wireless network such as Wifi or Bluetooth. Also the information about the selected frequency range and volume for broadcasting the audio signal may be provided to the mobile device via a wireless network in embodiments of the present invention. In response, an audio signal receiver of the mobile device may be tuned to the selected frequency range. The received audio signal is further processed on the mobile device so that the context-related additional content may be displayed and/or rendered.

Example levitating meter apparatus are disclosed. An example metering system includes a meter having a display to present indicia associated with a panelist, the meter having a microphone to receive audio output from the media device and circuitry to perform media monitoring. The example metering system includes a base having a cavity to receive at least a portion of the meter, the meter to magnetically levitate relative to the base to decouple the meter from the base.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to perform audio sensor selection in an audience metering device are disclosed. An example apparatus includes at least two audio sensors to receive audio at an audience metering device and a selection tester to identify a plurality of audio sensor configurations supported by the audience metering device, the plurality of audio sensor configurations identifying respective gain values to be applied to the plurality of audio sensors. The selection tester is further to select one of the first one of the audio sensor configurations or the second one of the audio sensor configurations based on a comparison of a first quality metric and a second quality metric. The example apparatus further includes a media identifier to identify audio received at the audience metering device using the selected one of the audio sensor configurations.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture (e.g., physical storage media) to implement flexible commercial monitoring for television audience measurement are disclosed. Example television audience measurement systems disclosed herein include a flexible commercial detector to detect whether a first watermark decoded from a television program broadcast signal is a bridge watermark that indicates a portion of the television broadcast signal including the bridge watermark is associated with a flexible commercial insertion event, the flexible commercial insertion event corresponding to insertion of a flexible commercial in the portion of the television broadcast signal. Disclosed example television audience measurement systems also include a commercial metric calculator to credit audience exposure associated with the portion of the television broadcast signal to a flexible commercial crediting metric in response to a determination that the first watermark is the bridge watermark.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed herein to identify media presentation by analyzing network traffic. Example instructions cause a machine to generate a traffic profile to reduce a computational burden of identifying streaming media being presented on a media presentation device, the traffic profile including first network traffic data indicative of the streaming media; obtain the traffic profile and second network traffic data corresponding to the streaming media; and generate, in response to a score for the second network traffic data meeting a threshold of similarity, a network traffic analysis report identifying the streaming media being presented on the media presentation device.

In one aspect, a method includes (i) accessing broadcast-schedule data associated with a channel; (ii) using the accessed broadcast-schedule data to identify an upcoming content-modification opportunity on the channel; and (iii) responsive to identifying the upcoming content-modification opportunity on the channel, performing an action to facilitate performing a content-modification operation related to the identified upcoming content-modification opportunity on the channel, wherein performing the action comprises causing in-band message data to be inserted into at least a portion of a content segment that is being transmitted by a content-distribution system on the channel.

Methods and apparatus to determine a state of a media presentation device are disclosed. Example disclosed methods include generating a first set of weighted coefficients based on first audio received by first and second microphones at a first time. Example disclosed methods include generating a second set of weighted coefficients based on second audio received by the first and second microphones at a second time after the first time. Example disclosed methods include comparing the first set of coefficients and the second set of coefficients to generate a similarity value. Example disclosed methods include, when the similarity value satisfies a threshold, determining that the media presentation device is in a first state. Example disclosed methods include, when the similarity value does not satisfy the threshold, determining that the media presentation device is in a second state.