Search engine results linked to video playing (non-web linked) - speech recognition in background?

I was watching a TV show from the History channel on the Tudor's - playing it on my computer and I thought to myself I wanted to search about their history so I typed into Google "War o" and the first option was "War of the Roses" - which out of all the options of "War o" I would think this would be one of the last options to choose from if on there at all, because I think "War on" might be more popular than "War of". This search was done on Chromium and I then tried the same thing again in Firefox and it came up lower, below "War of the spark" lol whatever that is.

What I'm really curious about is how this happened b/c the file name is something like "History channel episode 34" or something, so it doesn't even have any name reference in the filename, the only way to know it was English history was the audio on the video. This is the creepiest part IMO, b/c that would mean there is some speech recognition going on in the background.


Here's the results of other times I typed "War o" on another browser

War on poverty
War of the spark
War of the roses (3rd listing in Firefox after already searching in Chromium)
war on drugs
War of the worlds
War of 1812
war of attrition

Is there a way to find out how popular certain searches are to compare how often one is searched as opposed to another?

In case anyone is wondering, my search history has no British/English search history on this OS install, I can confidently say that, though I've searched about many other wars - WWI/II, Korea, Vietnam and more recent ones & I've not searched any British people that I can think of.

I also don't have data turned on my cell phone, no connection, no google login details or anything, so I can't think it was being done that way. I'd like to know if anyone else has experienced this type of thing.

edit: I looked at recent TV shows wondering if there had been a show related to this and I didn't find anything special besides the WWII & D-day shows.

Not real sure what you are trying to say here, maybe it's just me.

You were watching, I assume, a dvd about the Tudors, decided to search a bit about it, and your search suggestions listed 'war of the roses' high on the list after typing in 'war o'.

So did mine, across a few browsers. I just would think it's due to that being a more commonly searched item than we might think.

I might be missing what you are trying to say here?

a reply to: Maverick1

My first result returned is "War of the Spark", a Magic the Gathering playing card set. And I dont even play Magic, or any card games. Guess i am winning in obfuscating my life against search engine AI.

originally posted by: Maverick1
Not real sure what you are trying to say here, maybe it's just me.

You were watching, I assume, a dvd about the Tudors, decided to search a bit about it, and your search suggestions listed 'war of the roses' high on the list after typing in 'war o'.

So did mine, across a few browsers. I just would think it's due to that being a more commonly searched item than we might think.

I might be missing what you are trying to say here?

Yeah, that's basically it. It wasn't a DVD, it was basically a program recorded off cable on a computer program - like a Tivo for computers. The file doesn't record any data about the content, no metadata or anything, so there is no way that the computer would have known I was watching anything about the British monarchy (Tudor time).

I wanted to search about the war of the roses and when I started to search by the time I typed in "war o" it listed the "war of the roses" as the first result, which I just can't imagine is the most likely search result for someone typing in those 4 letters. There are so many other more popular word combinations than a war almost 600 years ago!

The things I listed were other options that come up and I would think that any of those would have ranked higher than "the roses" in a search. I just found it a very low chance to have this search result unless maybe there is something running in the background.

I wouldn't have though anything about this except this isn't the first time this has happened with watching video's like this and getting search results directly linked to an obscure topic with very common search terms for the first 1-2 words before the suspicious result was offered as first choice.

I'm trying to look for other ways to determine how it is suggesting these responses so accurately. It's pretty similar to people saying they get ads on their phone after they were talking about something, like "we need trash bags" and then an ad pops up in about 1 minute (or less) for "Hefty cinch sacs" or something.

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: Maverick1

My first result returned is "War of the Spark", a Magic the Gathering playing card set. And I dont even play Magic, or any card games. Guess i am winning in obfuscating my life against search engine AI.

When I searched that result (I think it was pretty high on my list as well) it looks like it is pretty new and "popular" (in that niche I guess) - so maybe at your age/demographics/interests, that might have been the most likely result the algorithm would suggest.

IDK if it goes by what has just recently been searched, like a trending search list. I've noticed this happens when major news events take place like when there was a shooting in virginia beach, I typed in "Virgi" (I was searching for that VB shooting) and it offered up the "VB shooting" as first result. Now there are LOTS of other options that could have ended that word - Virgi:
Virgil
Virgin
Virginia

But I had just watched a video (Vice news) that was covering that topic, and may have read a thread on here. So it seems, IMO, there is something more than regular algorithms running in the background.

I'd like to figure out a way to test this.

I think the list of results on search engines are based on the popularity of the websites or the search terms.

Not 100 percent sure but it makes sense.

No doubt there is money involved too, can you pay to have your website higher on the list?

No...i am pretty sure i made a post about when this happened to me a few years ago. A friend of mine was over and we were watching American Horror Story Freak Show and we were discussing the clown which bramched off into this and that and this and that till one point he mentioned the sad clown phenomenon and I told him about Emmett Kelly and how I owned a painting I cant remember eirher by him, of him, or inspired by his persona and after he left, I was second guessing my being right about what i had said so I pulled out my phone and went to Google.

E.....M...... And that was it. After typing just E and M the drop down box of suggestions appeared and the top one was Emmet Kelly.

Now I am not a language ...hmmm.....ok so I am.....but I mean it just as a transition to get to my point so we will pretend a sed...

I am no language expert but I would guess that there are far more popular words and subjects to type and/or search for beginning with the letters EM than Emmet Kelly. My phone had been fifteen feet away untouched for maybe four hours when I picked it up to use Google.

So your smart devices are always listening to you. They always will be and probably have before we knew. Probably video tape you as well. It will be impossible to step out of line or commit a crime soon and the weird thing is, I oddly prefer people being able to behave in such ways even if I simultaneously dont condone crime so it is a real mind-French word for seal.

I was playing an online video game and we were talking about nuclear war. Maybe an hour later, I logged out and went onto YouTube. Several videos about nuclear war showed up in my recommendations, even though I'd never searched for anything similar before.

i.e. if you are online, Google knows what you are doing.

originally posted by: AlexandrosTheGreat
No...i am pretty sure i made a post about when this happened to me a few years ago. A friend of mine was over and we were watching American Horror Story Freak Show and we were discussing the clown which bramched off into this and that and this and that till one point he mentioned the sad clown phenomenon and I told him about Emmett Kelly and how I owned a painting I cant remember eirher by him, of him, or inspired by his persona and after he left, I was second guessing my being right about what i had said so I pulled out my phone and went to Google.

E.....M...... And that was it. After typing just E and M the drop down box of suggestions appeared and the top one was Emmet Kelly.

Now I am not a language ...hmmm.....ok so I am.....but I mean it just as a transition to get to my point so we will pretend a sed...

I am no language expert but I would guess that there are far more popular words and subjects to type and/or search for beginning with the letters EM than Emmet Kelly. My phone had been fifteen feet away untouched for maybe four hours when I picked it up to use Google.

So your smart devices are always listening to you. They always will be and probably have before we knew. Probably video tape you as well. It will be impossible to step out of line or commit a crime soon and the weird thing is, I oddly prefer people being able to behave in such ways even if I simultaneously dont condone crime so it is a real mind-French word for seal.

This guy gets it. This is exactly what I'm talking about but for me, instead of talking, there was a video playing in the background. Also it was a standard computer, not a smartphone, my phone wasn't even in the house at that time. I know there have been a lot of stories with smart phones doing this but I've never really heard of computers doing it.

If this is really happening the way we are seeing/experiencing it, I can't even begin to imagine the ramifications this would have in the business world. Then think about doctors visits, attorney visits, R&D for business - let alone small startups that seems to find competition with the exact same product (unique/rare) out of the blue.

I went through a period when I was really trying hard to start a business and was working on product design and I'd search high and low for a product I was interested in and there wasn't one. I'd work a few weeks on research, design, etc and as I was doing the research, I'd continually search similar topics/products I was working on and suddenly there would be a new product online -the exact same as what I was working on. This happened more times than I care to mention and I finally gave up. It made me look into the "matrix" type reality b/c I wasn't sure if these products were real, if they had been there before, etc. I'd look at my old searches, and do the exact same search query (for the product I was working on) and I hadn't made a mistake and overlooked the product, it just didn't show up before, or wasn't there. I know this isn't exactly the same as the search results issue of the OP, but it's similar in possibly how information is "gathered" from machines.

originally posted by: danbuter
I was playing an online video game and we were talking about nuclear war. Maybe an hour later, I logged out and went onto YouTube. Several videos about nuclear war showed up in my recommendations, even though I'd never searched for anything similar before.

i.e. if you are online, Google knows what you are doing.

Were you talking online over the video game chat, on the phone talking or talking to someone in the room? I've had the same or similar thing happen with YT results as well, I think i mentioned previously in another thread.

Also, was the game on a computer or a console game & which console if it is one - if you don't mind saying??

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
I get "war of the planet of the apes", with "of the roses" as a later option.
If the engine had known my personal interests, those choices would have been reversed.

My results:

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof

originally posted by: danbuter
I was playing an online video game and we were talking about nuclear war. Maybe an hour later, I logged out and went onto YouTube. Several videos about nuclear war showed up in my recommendations, even though I'd never searched for anything similar before.

i.e. if you are online, Google knows what you are doing.

Were you talking online over the video game chat, on the phone talking or talking to someone in the room? I've had the same or similar thing happen with YT results as well, I think i mentioned previously in another thread.

Also, was the game on a computer or a console game & which console if it is one - if you don't mind saying??

It was World of Warships, just the built-in text chat. PC game.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

What? Nonsense as usual from you.