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Sensor To Monitor TV Watchers Demoed At Cable Labs
An anonymous reader writes "Cable operators at the semi-annual CableLab's Innovation Showcase have informally voted as best new product a gizmo that can determine how many people are watching a TV. Developed by Israeli company PrimeSense, the product lets digital devices see a 3-D view of the world (the images look like something from thermal imaging). In other words, that cable set-top box will know whether three people are sitting on the sofa watching TV and how many are adults vs. children. Do we really need cable and/or video service operators knowing this? It all happens via a chip that resides in a camera that plugs into the set-top box."
Oh, the inner exhibitionist in me is tingling.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
If you're:
Came for this, left satisfied.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
. . . Runners who are trying to evade their Death Panel appointments. You can tell which ones are sick and due for termination by their elevated IR output.
What, are you kidding! That's way too sensible! As the other posters have surmised its an evil plot such that the cable operator can watch everything you do from their Skull Island fortress of doom!!!!!
A midget is getting annoyed that the TV won't let him watch Real Sex 10.
QamuIs Heg qaq law' lorvIs yInqaq puS
I saw that episode of the A-Team, too!
I'd use a looping video of one person watching TV on a 7" LCD just in front of the camera. You've got to have movement.
Even better, use a jailbroken GPS with miopocket.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Only if it's equipped with a microscope
ba-ding
In Comcast America, TV watches you!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The small child probably isn't the one licking its own genitalia.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! NO NO NO!!! 1984198419841984 I would fight it but they would just haul me off to the ministry of truth and lobotomize me. Besides, they will just wait till the argument gets old and continue with their plans for our evil, stinking, orwellian hellhole futures.
Kent Brockman: "Of course, there's no way to see into the Simpson home without some kind of infrared heat-sensitive camera. So, let's turn it on."
that if you could get the internal memos on this
oh, to be a fly on the wall of those inner meetings.
hey, lets have them install video cam-
oh, wait.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Some *AA exec is wetting his pants, but the public WILL NOT put up with this.
This kind of intrusion is a revolution just waiting to happen, sheeple or not.
I wish i had the confidence in the American public that you do. Im afraid most will just accept it and bend over.
Yeah, what keeps me up at night is wondering whether Americans will take up figurative arms over TV commercials.
er.. no. If you're reported as being alone & dead, there's just no point in ringing the doorbell.
Thank you for your large reply though.
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
Of course, even if it gets that bad, I suspect it'd be defeated with something like duct tape. .
And then the box detects its 'blind' and refuses to run your movie...
Or you could just wrap the extra viewers in duct tape -- so the heat sensor won't see them.
With reality TV, it's more true than ever.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
People like you are going to make it happen.
It takes a long time to put the technology in place but once it is there it only needs a change of government and a will to use the technology and opposition will be difficult to say the least. Communications could be selectively disrupted, travel monitored, private conversations recorded, phone calls logged and monitored and so on.
In the UK there is now a national network of cameras which log number plates of passing cars. It is not possible to drive through London or throughout the motorway system without the system knowing about it. As you travel, you face will also be recorded, any phone call you make from your mobile will pinpoint your position and help establish your social network. No materials you buy using a credit card or via the Internet will go untracked. Which digital broadcasts do you view, what books have you bought, where did you spend your money, park your car, walk your dog. These facilities are already in place and apart from an ongoing rumble amongst the libertarians the majority of the population have barely noticed and the potential for monitoring and control has not yet registered. I suspect it is already too late to roll those systems back.
Those systems are increasingly being used, and the ability they grant is reflected in legislation which increasingly restricts what you can say, and what you can do. They restrict it because the technology allows them to enforce it.
You think that because we aren't gunned down by the police or thrown in jail that we live in a free state, but you are wrong. The technology enables the state to control the flow of information and undermine the opposition. They don't need to gun anybody down or throw you in jail.
Cameras in the home will come and sooner than you think, and with them, further restriction on your life and less control for you over your life - unless you and others like you wake up now.