Grab still images from live television with IntoNow’s CapIt tool. Photo: Yahoo!
Whether you’re watching the Olympics or your favorite prime-time drama, you’re probably using a smartphone or tablet to look up information about the competition or show, and the people who appear onscreen. Yahoo recognizes our desire to cross-reference televised content with online content, so it updated its “second screen” TV companion app with new real-time features.
And, oh yeah, you can use the newly overhauled app to auto-generate meme fodder as well.
Yahoo’s revised IntoNow app features group chats about shows, the ability to identify the songs playing in the background of a show (just like Shazam), and a tool that creates meme-worthy images from screen grabs of live TV. Prepare for an onslaught of Olympic memes, because they’re coming.
TV memes. 
The technology behind IntoNow’s “CapIt” image generator is impressive. The app listens to a show’s audio, just like the song-identifier app Shazam. It then uses the audio from the show to determine what you’re watching. Once this happens, the CapIt tool presents a stream of still images from the live broadcast or show. After choosing an screencap, you can add captions to the top and bottom of the image (think LOLcats), and then share your new meme candidate on Twitter and Facebook at will.
Unfortunately, the CapIt feature only works with shows that are currently being broadcast. So, if you didn’t grab a still from Sunday night’s True Blood episode while is was playing, you missed the boat for vampire-related lulz. At least until one of HBO’s many repeat showings is aired.
The app will still be able to determine what you’re watching by the audio of the show, regardless of how (or when) you are watching it — you just won’t be able to acquire one of the CapIt screen grabs. Also, regardless of whether your TV content is live or recorded, the app will still showcase Twitter streams relevant to the show, CapIt images that others have taken, discussions about the show, and trivia quizes. To accomplish this, IntoNow maintains a database of 266 million minutes of television. That’s the equivalent of watching 200 TVs simultaneously playing different shows for six years.
In addition to recognizing every episode of Alf and Airwolf, the app is also able to determine the music playing in the background of a show. Because of dialogue and other noise, the Music Sync feature isn’t perfect. But according to Yahoo! vice president of product Adam Cahan (he founded IntoNow, which was eventually purchased by Yahoo!), the feature has a 90 percent success rate.
The app itself is a fun companion during TV watching, and delivers most of the information relevant to shows being viewed. And we found it’s especially helpful during the Olympics, providing information on medal counts and the competing athletes. But, really, the meme-generating CapIt tool is the money feature. And if CapIt were’t enough, Cahan told Wired that Yahoo! is investigating a feature that creates animated GIFs from still images of TV shows.
IntoNow 3.0 update is available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad for free.
