This smartphone app plays smooth jazz when you put it on the sofa

Computer scientists from the University of St Andrews have developed a smartphone app that uses the device's front-facing camera to recognise what kind of surface it's sitting on.

The app is called SpeCam, and links up with an existing database of materials. When it detects a particular surface, it can trigger a specific action. The researchers suggest that you could trigger it to play jazz when placed on the sofa, or dance music if on a coffee table.