Posted on 03/21/2008 6:59:24 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.
The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.
Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.
Perhaps I’ve seen Enemy of the State too many times, or perhaps I’m just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move. I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians?
Kunkel also spoke on camera with me about fixing bad Comcast user experiences, the ongoing BitTorrent battle and VOD. But he mostly towed the corporate line on these issues (the monitoring your living room came up after my camera was put away).
This is total B.S.
This idea is not comcastic. The sad thing is, there are lots of people who would actually want this service on their box
The Forbin Project revisited.
Yes but an even sadder scenario is they are the ones who dont want the gov monitoring the 1 en 0 going through an ATT Switch to keep them safe.........
what part(s),why?
For one, yes, this is rather insidious-sounding, and secondly, are we getting so lazy now that we can’t even be bothered to push a button on a remote?! I say, let’s go back to making your kids get up and change the channel for you. ;p
child abuse.....
Reminds me of my father having me go about a mile to the gas satation and get him a pack of Luckies out of the machine.They were a quater but had no filter so there was 3 pennies inside the cellophane I got to keep for the 2 mile trip....Same guy that showed me the one about “a match burning twice”
You are not watching government approved TV comrade, please return to your living room for Obamaa Hussien’s rousing speech for “Equality and Sharing, You in the Workers Paradise , and other Funtime things”. That is all.
Here's Mine.
I still have not forgiven them for the "Update Wizard" software years ago. My firewall was very curious about all the traffic.
They are Not Nice™.
Yep, duct tape’s stock will go up the day after this is released.
The LAST thing I want Comcrap to see is me walking around in my skivies scratching whatever itches . . .
“Dave Allen at Large” was precient!
He did a comedy skit of a tv that watched back with a distracted reporter.
From Orwell's 1984, Chapter 3:
'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'
A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.
Hello viewer, comcast has determine you would prefer to watch CNN’s interview of Hillary Clinton for your viewing convenience we will now automatically vchip Fox News which is less relevant to you.
Do you mean Colossus?
Bingo! We have a winner.
Interesting. Who knows what the future will bring?
My wife recently bought herself an Apple laptop, and it has a little camera/mike built into the inside center top of the lid.
Much to her surprise, one of our sons, who is getting a graduate degree in Europe and is currently in Sweden, called her up and suddenly appeared on her computer screen. We can see him and the room behind him; he can see us. And the sound is much better than the previous computer-to-phone connection that we had used, to escape the astronomical long distance phone rates.
There’s a small time lag, but he can even pick up his laptop, point it out the window, and give us a sense of where he lives. It’s almost like being in the same room with him.
What the present article makes me wonder about is, Who else is watching all of this?
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