Campaign Fact Check; New Phone App Checks the Facts
COSTELLO: Ever watched a political ad and asked is that really true? I bet you have. Well, it's going to be easier to find out now because there's a free iPhone app released today that can fact check ads, who paid for the ad, how much they're spending on the candidate's campaign and so forth. It's called Super PAC Ad. Joining me now is HLN Digital Lifestyle Expert, Mario Armstrong.</s>MARIO ARMSTRONG, HLN DIGITAL LIFESTYLE EXPERT: Hey.</s>COSTELLO: We wondered, does this thing really work?</s>ARMSTRONG: Yes, it does actually work. I was impressed. Last night I downloaded the app. And it is a free installation on your Apple devices -- so iPhone or iPod Touch or iPad -- and essentially what it does is once you download this free app, you then basically just tap the button on here that says "I want to listen to the TV" or "I want to listen to a YouTube ad" and point it at the computer. It then uses audio fingerprinting to listen to the ad and then will give you information like you see here on your phone. You'll see who's responsible for the ad, what the claims are being made in that ad and the money that was spent. So you get a lot of transparency from the ad itself right inside of the app.</s>COSTELLO: So, who's behind this?</s>ARMSTRONG: Students. Go figures. Students at MIT's media lab were doing this as a class project. This isn't foreign. We have had other apps that can sense audio like Shazam. It's a music app where you can point it at your radio or anywhere you are and you're listening to songs and you don't know the name and artist and the title of that song, you can get the same thing. Well, this is doing the same type of technology. It's just more getting the information about politics and whether or not these claims are factual or not right in the palm of your hand.</s>COSTELLO: Ok. So do you think that this will make politicians more accountable?</s>ARMSTRONG: You know, that's a really good question. I think politicians are still not with it on the text spectrum to some degree. I think they may misunderstand or maybe just assume that this is not as big as it is going to be. I do believe that this will have a level of transparency that we have not had before and technology is making that possible. So, I think right away, no. They aren't paying attention to it. They're going to pay attention to their ads. Most of these things from the Super PACs are unlimited dollar amounts that can be spent. They are spending a lot of money on negative and attack ads and I think they're going to continue to do that and not worry about the technology of it.</s>COSTELLO: But maybe in the future, who knows. Good for those MIT students.</s>ARMSTRONG: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: Mario Armstrong, thank you so much for joining us.</s>ARMSTRONG: You're so welcome.</s>COSTELLO: Talk about picking the wrong house to break into. LL Cool J, oh, what he did to a burglar.