A British company called Shazam is making big bucks off the mathematical analysis of music. Avery Wang, one of the company’s founders, recently met with me in a coffee shop in California to explain how his company is doing it.
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Wang wasted no time before beginning a demonstration. He put down his coffee cup and held his cell phone in the air, far from his ear. He looked like someone who had somehow missed the last ten years and hadn’t a clue about the basic function of the gadget in his hand.