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TV People Meter: Monitoring What You Watch
bj3g2j writes "CNN has an interesting article about the People Meter that is built by Arbitron. It seems that the device is portable and picks up on signals sent from the TV (and/or radio) to determine what people are watching. This is supposed to improve the accuracy of tracking viewer habits. The best quote is that 'it includes a motion detector to verify someone is actually wearing it.' Lots of motion while sitting on the couch? Interesting concept in light of the recent ruling in California."
Telescreens a la 1984?? Stuff like this freaks me out, there is no need for the TV to be a two way device, it was meant to be one way, the signal goes out, no need to get info back, trying to build functionality into a system like this is playing with fire.
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Will this device make sure that your eyes are open during the commercials, so that you won't be accused of stealing?
Porno flick tonight
Young couple in love
Motion sensor pegs.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Wow. Quite literally "Spy Wear"
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Um, from taking the massive effort of actually reading the article, I can tell you this: the device is worn by the person watching. Not attached to the TV. Besides, your ability to associate the motion detection with something that is "put on the TV" makes my mind create weird images of how you watch TV...
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
The coolest system I've seen to track when people are in front of a TV uses both a motion sensor and an electic field sensor to find out if people are there - moving or no. It was part of some really expensive home automation project.
Silly big brother and his vans. Well, these "television detector" vans may have to deal with computer monitors now:
is that a licensed copy of Windows he is running?
is that a DVD or a home video?
just a screensaver?
or is that a TV card?
You are being watched. Your silence is appreciated.
And this will be small enough to be included in the mandatory National IDs. It'll be a boon to the television industry. Mmm... instant "tickets" whenever we fast forward. Or time shift. Or blink.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
There was also more information on viewing and listening by young males -- a key demographic group for advertisers -- who are notoriously sloppy about recording their habits in diaries, Mocarsky said.
Maybe once this thing comes into wide use, geek-oriented shows will get the ratings they should be getting and we won't constantly have to bemoan their cancellation.
~Philly
It's very simple, I want this in my TV because I want to skew the results as easy as I can. I want the "Star Trek Marathon watching" demographic to skyrocket.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Take it from a guy in commercial radio. Arbitron only deals in radio ratings and internet radio webcasts. That's it. There's no TV tracking going on with Arbitron, no matter what the story says. They've done the diary thing for years, and now they're looking at a better way to track RADIO LISTENING. Your TV watching habits are safe. This entire process also requires the stations in the TSA (Total Survey Area) to have special encoders for the stations to be picked up by the PPM. If a station doesn't have the encoder, they're not picked up. Sucks for low-budget stations, huh? Nielsen could use a PPM if it needed to, and I'm sure they're considering it. However, they'd probably be better off using set-top boxes like they've been trying out. Just remember the following equations: Arbitron = Radio Nielsen = TV.
The frequencies radiated by computer monitors are significantly different to that of TV sets. Not to mention that the van can actually reconstitute the signal, inside the van, and record to VHS with a burnt-in GPS record and estimated distance and direction.
They may be big brother (I don't care, I pay my licence fee and reckon it's well worth it) but they're not completely stupid.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Ok, so now to skew the results, I put one of those water-drinking toy ducks in front of the motion detector, and turn on Oprah. There you go, skewed results.
Now the only thing that I may be in danger of, is Arbitron thinking that my wife really loves to give head when Oprah is on...
As to the Big-Brother aspects of the thing, Arbitron says this to broadcasters:
- Measuring Compliance
So they know when you've been sleeping. They know when you're awake. They know if you've been bad or good. So get out there and consume.Compliance began with undocking the meters each day. We instructed panelists to undock their meters first thing in the morning and dock them in the recharging unit at bedtime. During November, the median undocking time on weekdays was 7:39AM, and the median docking time was just after 11PM. As expected, the undocking time was later on the weekend, around 9:00AM, as people tended to sleep later. The docking time was also later, 11:25PM, as people stayed up later (Figure 2). The PPM detects encoded media even while it is in the recharging unit, which means it picks up the clock radio in the morning and late-night TV viewing by people in bed.
The system covers TV as well as radio. Arbitron is partnering with Neilsen on this. The details are:
(As of July 18, 2001, in the Wilmington, Delaware test area)
Of the 71 media outlets invited to participate, 63 are now encoding their audio full time.
The Arbitron Portable People Meter listens to audio, has a DSP, "extensive storage", and an uplink system via its docking station. So it could potentially be used as a bugging device if reprogrammed. One more small step towards the surveillance society.
At least the current model doesn't have a GPS.
3000 people, thats how many.
how many die from the flu every year?
how many from car accidents or just our good old legal drug alcohol
If I were an advertiser, I wouldn't be convinced that no-motion in front of television means anything.
People that are zoned in on the television (and are therefore not moving all that much/often) seem more likely to be imprinted with advertising than are those who are more active while the television is on (indicating that they are probably not paying any attention at all.) I know if I am moving in front of the TV it's usually because I'm not paying any attention at all.
And if the room lights are off, how does the motion sensor not detect the blinking lights of the TV as motion?
Chirac a leftie? Uhm, no. Someone, I don't remember who, put it thus: 'Right now, the people of France have a choice between the corrupt right and the fascist right'.
The original poster did have a point, btw. In Belgium, citizens are *required* to vote. All those people who don't really want to vote but have to, vote Vlaams Blok (=extreme right).
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
can listen to audio, has a DSP, extensive storage and internet access. So it could potentially be used as a bugging device if reprogrammed. One more small step towards the surveillance society.
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I'm afraid they'll discover me for the loser I am. I just hope none of these Spyware people read this. They might program a lockout onto the TV just for me and then I'd be pissed.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
You DO understand that this sort of thing is VOULANTARY, don't you? It's just like Neilsen TV monitoring. They'll ask you if you'd like to participate. Then they either send you a diary that you fill out on what you watched, or they hook a monitoring box to your TV. It's not like they kick in your door and force you to do this, they ask you to, and I believe you are compensated for your trouble. This is the same thing, if you don't like it, tell them no if and when they ask you if you'd like to participate.
B) Only 17.2% of those voted for Le Pen, who came in second.
C) The "expected" second, Jospin, came in third with 15.85%, while Chirac got 19.4%.
D) The other 13 candidates got 47,55% of votes.
So Le Pen got into the second round, because there were more apathetic voters than usual, and more candidates than usual (of which there were only 2 extreme rights to split votes between, but 5 from the currently governing left coalition and 5 from the conservative opposition block). The dedicated voters (about as much as in the last election) got Le Pen in, and the "protest" voters (both those who voted for the coalition partners or extremists lefts, and those who didn't vote) got Jospin out of the race.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
How many times am I going to have to explain this:
THESE THINGS ARE VOLUNTARY. They are not going to be included in anything. What happens is the ratings firm, like Neilsen, asks you if you'd like to participate (they do this already) as a Neilsen home and have your viewing habits monitored. Now currently they either give you a diary, and ask you to fill it out, or they hook a monitoring box to your TV. This device is just a more accurate way to gague what you watch. Don't want it to know what your doing at a given time? Leave it in it's charger. Don't want it to know what you're doing at all? Say no, you don't wish to participate.
You don't HAVE to be a Neilsen home. They asked me, but where I lived at the time it was journals, and I wasn't willing to spend the time filling it out so I told them no. Actually, I just never responded to them, but same difference.
Most people WANT to participate, since then what you watch controls what is on TV. The Neilsen rating are one of the most important things in determining what happens to shows on TV. If you have a Neilsen unit, your viewing habits have a direct infulence on what shows stay and what ones go. That means what you like to watch, gets higher ratings.
So, if you don't like this, just stuff the Neilsen letter in the trash if they happen to send you one. They don't care, they just ignore you and find someone else.
Heh, heh. You obviously don't have children. A motion detector could be useful for turning the TV off when they leave the room.
But you're right. I wouldn't want someone tracking my viewing habits (though if they did, it'd foul up their statistical analysis something fierce). Besides, I watch it infrequently so I wouldn't be a valuable source of data for the networks.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Ummm, not necessarily. Consider the following scenario:
Of course, in this case, the PPM stands for: Personal Pet Meter!
Of course, there's always directly hacking the PPM itself, but this is arguably more fun knowing that the ratings have gone to the dogs. =)
If you still want to do some hacking, then take advantage of the Record-And-Send feature of a RePlay PVR; this requires help from someone whose shows are NOT encoded for PPM detection.
For those who lack pets, you could always just continue to wear the PPM, but while the hacked encodings are playing, watch or listen to whatever you want -- while wearing headphones.
Do you know who Neilsen is? They are the people that do TV ratings. These people are the Neilsen of radio. They actually, believe it or not, DON'T want everyone to have one of these. With research, you get batter data from a good sample than you do from a random portion of the population that you entice in other ways. Also it is certianly in their best intrests to keep the technology to themselves. They want to stay in bussiness.
Incase you don't know how Neilsen works: They ask 5,000 people in the nation, based on certian selection criteria, to participate. IF you don't respond to their letter, they find someone else. They fit their sample population with monitor boxes on all their TVs, or just give them diaries in the event that the local infastructer doesn't support their system. After a given peiord, they switch to a new sample. The is the same thing for radio (it's all diaries right now) and also will work for TV.
In the unlikely event you are selected (it is fairly unlikely given the population of the US) just stuff the letter in the bin, they'll go on to the next person.
Ad tracking is flawed on so many levels. Magazines, billboards, etc have no way of knowing the true demographic of people viewing the ads.
Unless the ad requires people to contact someone in response. In which case different ads can have different addresses, telephone numbers, URLs or email addresses. Or even promoting using some kind of money off cupon. But that dosn't tell you if people would have bought it at the regular price.
Nerd hypocrisy at its finest. "Don't you tell me what to do because I know what's best for you!"
And you wonder why nobody pays attention to the attitudes of the slashdot mind.
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Back when I was a student, and couldn't afford a TV Licence, I got a visit from a TV Licencing officer. I told him the truth and said I had just got the TV, and was saving up for a licence. He replied "well, okay, but mind that you do!"
I took the opportunity to ask him what they could do about PC TV cards, and also RGB monitors tied to VCRs (ie. no live display)
He said "Dunno, but I'd expect we wouldn't have an f'in clue!"
Digressing even further... a few years earlier my mother had tried to get a refund out of TV Licencing due to their mistaken records and had failed to get a reply. So, living in Bristol, home of TVL HQ, I doorstepped them. Managed to get a handwritten cheque out of them on the spot by sitting in the lobby for about two hours until someone came to speak to me. =)
I used to think the TV Licence was worth it, but now that the BBC are spending the money on crappy idents, silly DOGs and "The Tweenies", I'm starting to think switching to an opt-in BBC Subscription when the analogue switchoff comes is a good idea.
What are you, a moron? Do you think I made up these numbers? Can't your feeble, little, anti-democratic mind take the truth?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Which don't show that Le Pen got 4,804,713 votes this election and 4,565,946 last election (1995), which means he got 238,767 votes more this election which is a whopping 5% increase.
Now tell me why you didn't find them, or better yet, why you should be allowed to vote under the election system you propose.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
That only tells you how about the 'successful' ads you had. If you have one ad which is seen by 100,000 people, and 1,000 respond, and a second ad which is seen by 95,000 people and 1,000 respond, then you can't really tell anything about the people who didn't respond.
Do your own research. If you find something to back up your silly opinion, feel free to post it. Exit polls can be made to mean anything, esp. when they are as "good" as those pre-election polls. The fact remains, this election's first round had the lowest turnout ever.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck