Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Automatic content recognition |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Key people | Zeev Neumeier Michael Collette Brian Reed |
Parent | Vizio |
Website | inscape |
Inscape is a provider of automatic content recognition (ACR) services to Smart TV OEMs. [1] The company was founded in 2009 as TV Interactive Systems, later renamed Cognitive Media Networks Inc. On August 10, 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Media Networks and renamed it Inscape. In July 2016 Vizio announced Inscape will spin off and operate as a separate, privately owned company. [2]
Inscape was founded in 2009 by Zeev Neumeier as TV Interactive Systems. [3] In 2012, the company raised $2.5 million in funding from Rogers Venture Partners, rebranded as Cognitive Networks, and hired Michael Collette as its CEO. [4] On August 28, 2013, LG announced its LivePlus interactive service powered by Cognitive Network ACR. [5] LG subsequently partnered with Showtime Network to launch in-program interactivity using Cognitive Network ACR. [6]
On August 10, 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Networks and renamed it Inscape [7] In July 2016 Vizio announced Inscape will spin off and operate as a separate, privately owned company with past Vizio CEO William Wang as new CEO. [8]
On November 9, 2015, privacy advocate Julia Angwin exposed the Inscape technology in an investigative piece for Pro Publica to track consumer viewing habits within Vizio televisions and sharing it with advertisers. [9]
Technology journals like Ars Technica investigated the matter and found that not only was Vizio observing its customers viewing behavior, it was quite easy for its software to be hacked and observed by third parties. [10] Shortly after these reports, both Vizio and its subsidiary Inscape Data Services were named in numerous class action lawsuits for violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act. [11]
In 2020, Inscape created an audience panel called the National Representative Panel (NRP). [12] Using ACR, the NRP is built from 15 million smart TVs in the US and claims the data to be representative of TV viewing for all US households, demographics, and geographies across 210 local markets. This data was created in partnership with Dativa.
TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. Now operating as Xperi, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property within the consumer electronics industry, including digital rights management, electronic program guide software, and metadata. The company holds over 6,000 pending and registered patents. The company also provides analytics and recommendation platforms for the video industry.
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Automatic content recognition (ACR) is a technology used to identify content played on a media device or presented within a media file. Devices with ACR can allow for the collection of content consumption information automatically at the screen or speaker level itself, without any user-based input or search efforts. This information may be collected for purposes such as personalized advertising, content recommendations, or sale to companies that aggregate customer data.
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