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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."
I can see some obvious uses here that I hope never happen, like, "Sorry, but you only purchased one ticket to your pay-per-view movie, and three people are watching! Purchase additional tickets or ask some of the viewers to leave."
Of course, even if it gets that bad, I suspect it'd be defeated with something like duct tape. So, while it's kind of evil that someone might want to do this, I'm not all that worried that it would actually work.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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:
I bet it can't tell the difference between me, sitting at the kitchen table watching the Football and my wife sitting at the breakfast table with her back turned.
I bet it can't tell that I am reading, not watching.
How does it distinguish a large dog from a small child?
If it uses infra red it can at least distinguish a human from a cardboard cut-out of the Duke of Edinburgh! I have seen award ceremonies have trouble with that one, so I guess that makes it smarter than some humans.
Squirrel!
When the consideration is corporation vs. consumer, or government vs. citizen, FUD comes true nearly one hundred percent of the time.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
. . . 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.
Perhaps these are going to go in next generation Nielsen boxes so that Nielsen can give a more accurate count of viewers instead of just assuming 1 box = 1 viewer.
What would be the point if it *didn't* send the info to anyone?
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 worse, calls the MPAA for a violation of terms, and perhaps some 'circumvention prevention law' they will have bought by then, bringing down the black van onto your home..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
.. tell if I get a hard-on watching Jessica Biel?
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A midget is getting annoyed that the TV won't let him watch Real Sex 10.
QamuIs Heg qaq law' lorvIs yInqaq puS
Need I say more? Not their damned business, would NEVER give permission for such a thing in my home.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The manufacturer's homepage seems to imply that the device could be used for gesture-controlled applications, such as changing the channel without a remote control.
In other words, something like Natal.
Or to rephrase that, what does this device do that Natal doesn't have the capability to do? And that being the case, shouldn't people be equally worried about Natal spying on its users?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I'm sure you'll get modded +5 for that, but it's simply not true. There are many, many countries where you can say you disagree with the government or some corporation in public without mysteriously disappearing the next day. Webcams have existed for a long time now and I know of no country where it is required by law to have one turned on 24/7 sending images to 'Our Glorious Leader, May He Live Forever'. You and I and the rest of /. may disagree with many things that happen in this world (mostly concerning surveilance, copyright, and software patents) but if you are from a western country like I assume most /.'ers are, chances are you actually have it very very good in terms of wealth and freedom. That doesn't mean we should sit back and do nothing, but to the whole persecution complex some of us have is ridiculous and an insult to those who have it far worse than us.
"How would you like us to shave a dollar off your monthly cable bill?"
"It all happens via a chip that resides in a camera that plugs into the set-top box."
It all stops happening via a Craftsman five pound ball peen camera removal tool that resides in a box that sits on top the work bench.
This reeks of leftover dot com fever outrageous idea development looking for thrown-cash funding regardless of viability. Though crippled beyond recuperation that mind set refuses to die along with some of its other goofy projects, such as the Nukem Dukem 3D of extraneous peripherals, the eternally vaporous Smell-O-Vision-like "products". If it weren't for the fact that the marketoids attending the conference are undoubtedly drooling over their imagined implications for advertising revenue, it would have all the impact and lifespan of all the items taken from patents and idea articles and sputtered across the What's New pages of Popular Science.
But then I could be wrong. Cable operators could "require" these and tie the incoming signal to its continued operation. In which case it would behoove the prudent to invest heavily into manufacturers of big rubber asses with clamps designed to attach to the front of cable set-top boxes.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
A few weeks ago I unplugged my cable box as an experiment. You know, just to get an idea of what that would actually do to my life.
I did notice a difference. The difference was that I spent more of my time doing things that were actually rewarding, like reading the book I'd wanted to get to, learning to play a few pieces of music I'd been wanting to work on, and writing down my thoughts on life the universe and everything. In short, it's a lot better for me, for my eyes, for my health, and my sleep schedule.
So with the use of cable boxes to spy on me, it's time for me to get on the phone, get through arguing with the poor call center rep, and get rid of the problem for good.
I am officially gone from
Friedrich Nietzsche once said that if you stare into the abyss long enough the abyss stares back at you. Now staring at the TV can have the same effect.
Come on, you're messing with their opiates! If anything will cause them to riot it would be something like that.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
& the best part is you get to pay for the boxes lol
did you forget to take your meds?
And you should too. Stone cold seriously. Because if the cableco don't know what you're watching, then you have no Goddamn influence over them.
That great new SF show that just rocked your socks off? If you're not in a Neilsen household, then they don't even know that you watched it, and buying the DVD box set 2 years later won't save it. The fat welfare whore next door with the Neilson box and the seven kids who watch re-runs of America's Fattiest Fatty 24/7? They're the people driving the content provision.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
My roommate and I decided to try a no TV policy in our dorm room at the start of my second year of college.
That was 7 years ago, and I never went back to watching TV.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
that if you could get the internal memos on this, it would turn out that the idea is to be able to charge a per-viewer fee. In the same way that ASCAP is threatening lawsuits if you don't have a public performance license for the ringtone on your cell phone.
While this certainly has the potential to let TV programmers know that we do actually loose interest when a commercial is aired, and some programs that seem to get canceled are actually watched, there are far too many potential abuses for this technology. I don't want to suddenly become part of a reality tv show that is aired in some other country, and that I have no idea I am a part of.
- James
'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. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and -- one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.
'There, comrades! That's how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look.' She bent over again. 'You see my knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she added as she straightened herself up. 'Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, that's much better,' she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years.
-George Orwell 1984
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
In Comcast America, TV watches you!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
IIRC I read this in one of Lawrence Lessig's books.
Movie studio executives, of course, hated the idea of home video. Their business model was tied to getting paid for each showing, payment per showing, and also per viewer; the rents charged to movie theatres were set on a sliding scale based on the seating capacity of the house).
RCA thought they had a breakthrough, when they showed Disney executives a cassette they had developed. It was designed for rental and could only be played once. A mechanical locking arrangement was engaged when the cassette had finished playing. The consumer would then have to return it to the rental store, which had the special tool needed to unlock and rewind it.
They demonstrated it proudly to Disney execs who said, dismissively, "This is no good to us. We have absolutely no way of knowing how many people are in the room."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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."
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.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing - "Proles! Welcome Big Brother into your home! Allow our cameras/microphones/tracking devices into your lives! We will give you shiny things!" - is becoming ever more common.
Where I am (Central KS) the radio stations are running an ad, trying to drum up "volunteers" to for "an exciting study of a potential new way to fund the highway system". Guess what: they want people to voluntarily submit to putting a GPS logger on their car, to track where they drive, for the purpose of "usage-based taxation". The very idea of which "makes me ill and angry" to quote The Outer Limits! But the idea that people, rather than rising up with metaphorical pitchforks and torches, are VOLUNTEERING to have this ... Folks, we are on the downhill slide - get used to it.
Or rather, DON'T get used to it! Fight it at every step!
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There are so many problems with this.... 1. 10 people watching a moving = COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT 2. Someone is always monitoring your activities?!?!?! 3. Someone is always monitoring your activities?!?!?! 4. Someone is always monitoring your activities?!?!?! 5. Really? Seriously? Giving up your free rights to be observed so your programming is more towards your liking? 6. Someone is always monitoring your activities?!?!?! 7. Comcast and others already overcharge, hold their customer's hostage, charge for the month when the month isn't even over, cut off service for no reason whatsoever, limit your data usage or attempt to charge additional for "unlimited plans," treat their customers poorly, limit bandwidth, etc. Do we really want them knowing what we are doing all of the time? 8. Someone is always monitoring your activities?!?!?! Cable is the worst industry there is. I worked for the best of them at one point, and they sucked. Cable and cell phone companies take complete advantage of their customers, with little to no protection from government agencies because of the "non-essential" nature of their business. Electric, water, gas...regulated. In this day and age, internet and cell service is quickly becoming an "essential" service, and these companies should start to be regulated like electric, water and gas companies. The government is 5 years behind in tech advancement. It's about time someone reigns in these abusers of the "free" market.
"So, your family watches presidential addresses but never watches FOX News. What are you, socialists?"