"Sony says that its speakers are able to recognise what is the natural ambient sound of a sporting event, and what is somebody nattering on top. It does this using data captured at a Brazilian football stadium, and without anything happening on the broadcaster's end it's able to remove the commentary entirely. Sky has offered a similar facility for some of its matches for a while - but this will work with any sports event, including rugby, NFL and motorsport. The benefit is that fans can watch sport as if they're at the game, and not sitting next to a relentlessly unimpressive summariser with a booklet of cliches."