Google listening in on your TV viewing

At PC Magazine they say it nicely:

So I had to laugh out loud when I first read reports about some Google software subsystems that supposedly will turn on your microphone (and eventually camera?) to eavesdrop on you. Google wants to do this because of some distant hope that the system will be able to hear just enough sound so that when it compares it with an apparently infinite database, it can determine what you are watching on TV at any given time. HAH!

Wait, it gets even better. Once they know what you are watching on TV, they (whoever "they" are) can feed you commercials aimed at your demographic. Never mind that the TV is being watched by the kids or Grandpa while you're eating dinner. Never mind that it's difficult to turn on the mic and get a reliable stream using what amounts to spyware. Never mind that anyone who keeps a computer running in the same room as a TV is from a weird demographic in the first place. I could go on.