Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Seeks Patent On Shaming Fat Gamers
theodp writes "A newly disclosed Microsoft patent application — Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristic — takes aim at fat people, proposing to generate fat avatars in gaming environments for individuals whose health records indicate they're overweight, limiting their game play, and even banning them. From the patent application: 'An undesirable body weight could be reflected in an overweight or underweight appearance for the avatar. Only requisite health levels are allowed to compete in a certain competition level. A dedicated gamer could exercise for a period of time until his health indicator gadget shows a sufficiently high health/health credit in order to allow reentering the avatar environment.' Linking one's gaming avatar to one's physique, explains Microsoft, will produce healthy and virtuous behaviors in individuals. Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using 'psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.'"
So THAT's why we're going to have digital medical records...
if Microsoft does this, then the Playstation becomes the console for the large.
Prior art in Wii Fit.
"That's obese!"
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
prior art exists, now Ballmer has to grow a stupid mustasche, chew carpets, and march on Poland.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
How about patenting a system to prevent people from supporting the Jonas Brothers! Now that one would make millions!!
I wouldn't piss off this fat kid... he has a power glove AND a Max controller. TURBO'S, FTW!
Ah, the NES zapper. That thing was awesome. Is it sad that I can still burn an entire afternoon playing duck hunt when the mood strikes?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Big government wasn't enough, now the corporations step in.
What's the date.. first of april? No.. I don't get the point of this..
...on a fantastically lean, mean & slim Microsoft Windows OS?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Where the guy tries to order pizza, but the pizza shop checks his health records... then denies him the pizza?? Sounds like it's becoming true!!!
Brilliant idea. Take people who don't measure up to everyone's expectations, and heap shame on them in the one place where they can take a break from it all. Microsoft should also file for a patent on a method to lose money.
Ha! I have been shaming and banning fat people for years now. Where is my patent?
So soon, if this trend keeps gaining wind under its wings, WoW will be flooded with millions of fatass female elfs and midgets... Well, they get whats coming to them.
Does this mean I won't be able to play as a 36-24-26 blonde woman anymore? If Microsoft starts actually checking players appearance and gender, I predict there will be absolutely no "hot chick" avatars in the Microsoft MMORPGs! Is this "sausage fest" environment really the result they are looking for?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I hope that the photo of the overweight dressed with Nintendo garb is from someone you know, and that they gave permission for you to humiliate them in front of thousands of other people.
Otherwise, it's cruel. He probably meant for that photo to remain private.
The poor kid needs your encouragement, not your ridicule. Can I find some embarrassing photos of you when you were a kid and post them online?
So, Wii makes you swing the controller and get exercise or nags you to load up wii fit and exercise. Xbox (presumably) will now force you to exercise in order to play. Does this mean that the Playstation will become the system of the obese? I'll bet some marketing company is already working on the ads...
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
I'm glad the patent office is spending time on this rather that working on useless things like new life saving drugs...
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
...How appalling
A game would have to be pretty compelling otherwise to make the risk of being banned for poor health do anything other than dissuade larger gamers from playing all together.
Most likely it will reduce the number of people playing any game with this technology in favor of competitor's games and as such is pretty much doomed to fail.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
"The physiological data can be gleaned from a third party health data collection repository"
As someone who worked in the healthcare industry for a number of years, this seems like a HIPAA violation lawsuit waiting to happen.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Where, exactly, does Microsoft think it's going to get this stuff from? The summary actually makes reference to health records.
Heck, I'm not sure most government agencies should have access to most of that information. Microsoft sure as fsck has no business with it.
Welcome to the dystopian future, fat boy. This is actually kind of scary.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I though one of the main point of gaming was to take you out of reality and become someone or something differant. I doubt this would ever be used in game, and if is i don't think it will sell very well. Maybe they just wan't to patent it to keep other from doing it? I don't the employess of MS are any more fit than your average gamer anyway...
Eating the brains of your enemies does not make you smarter. But it's still fun.
This patent business seems an overly complicated way to get rid of Steve Ballmer.
The precise point of video games is to be some other than yourself for awhile. If they start restricting people based on their physical appearance, how long until we start using other biometric data? The major appeal of video games is shattered when we lose that... who wants to play a video game as themselves?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Does anyone see any ulterior motives in trying to be some sort of a competition for the wii? Wonder if they're thinking about limiting time for movies watched on the Xbox, etc...
Somebody doesn't get it.
well, you may, but you probably can't
So I want to play games, so I have to exercise. Exercise releases chemicals causing pleasure in my brain.
Eventually, I enjoy the exercise more than video games. I stop buying new games, and EA/Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo go out of business, and thousands of people lose their jobs.
Thanks a LOT, Microsoft!!
I drive through the Microsoft's campus almost daily. One of the funniest things I've seen (I have a rather twisted sense of humor) is all the Microsoft employees trying to waddle across the too short and too frequent pedestrian crosswalk signals that Redmond configured.
Have gnu, will travel.
It seems all the fat kids are denouncing this as discriminatory and all the skinny kids are making fun of the fat kids.
Sounds about like what I'd expect.
Sometimes patents like this one can serve the public interest merely by reducing the likelihood of bad ideas like this one from being put into general use through fines and legal action.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I really had to stop for a minute and double-check the posting date. I thought that I certainly would see an April 1 designation somewhere. This is just too sad. Now we not only have nanny states, but we also will have nanny softare companies.
Logon Process
1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del
2. Enter Logon ID and password
3. Step on the scale
4. If weigh is a healthy value, process logon; if not, recommend a gym membership (all in the name of keeping employer-paid health insurance costs down).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Better, yet, they PATENT discrimination in games...
First this is the kind of patent that makes our patent system worthless. Patenting a Light Bulb = Good, Patenting a You're Fat Neener Neener Neener = Bad Second, they have no real capability of using their patent unless they want to violate someone personal privacy. It would be like facebook posting my weight to the world without my consent, or forbidding me from removing it when I no longer want to expose myself. Shame only works if the user can't opt out and if the users cant opt out then it's a violation of privacy without exception.
NO SMOKING NEAR MY XBOX 720! You will void the warranty with their built in smoke detector!
~Mekkah
Can I be the first to heap scorn on the fat kid in the photo.
You fat bastard, you fat bastard, you ate all the pie !
(And a bucket of chicken too by the look of it).
Why do people allow their kids to turn into such bloaters ? And don't give me any of that "oh it's genetic crap". There is no DNA strand that codes for "being a fat little piggy who Mommy overfeeds in the hope you'll amount to something more than your Father when you grow up".
I blame Mario ... come on, he eats pizza all day and has a right paunch on him too ... what kind of a roll model is that ? (Note the deliberate misspelling of roll, thats a pune or play on words, that is). And Sonic too, I mean he was so fat, after 5 seconds of running he starting rolling head over heels.
Why don’t you send out cease-and-desist letters to all the other websites that are using it?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
We'll tell you where you want to go today, you fat bastard.
Imagine how this will work.
Overweight people will be banned from a game if they don't 'get fit'. Those who really want to play will then 'get to it' and get in shape.
Of course with all that exercise and new activity they are participating in will slowly bring them to realize there is something else to life then online avatar based games (with very shallow user access requirements). Slowly they will turn away from such games and begin doing things that are more active and fit in with their new health conscious life style.
Profits in gaming start to fall off because they banned all the people who pay to play and be someone else. When they got to the point they would qualify to play the game, they no longer had the mindset to want to play the game.
And there go my Microsoft stocks.
That pic has been circulating around the internet for YEARS, newfag.
Anything posted to the web is fair game for public ridicule until the heat death of the Universe. If you've got a problem with that, don't post anything personal. Period.
This seems like a rather interesting concept. From the summary, it's probably illegal to implement due to medical privacy (and if not, it should be) but it's still interesting.
MSFT probably realizes that they are right behind fast food chains in being targeted for law suits claiming they are liable for making people fat. By making such a feature available to say, parents for example, they may make themselves less susceptible to suit. I highly doubt MSFT is just looking to shame people.
Yours sincerely annoyed,
Jeff Albertson
Because if they don't, they may not have any players at all.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What an intriguing way to wipe out virtually all computer/console gaming by your own company!
I had never thought that anyone would patent business suicide.
Way to go Microsoft!
Can't wait to see Balmers avatar running around with his head stuck up his backside, that's going to be a total roflmao moment.
I promise to take screenshots.
Come on people, are you dense? The idea is to create a game where success in the game is linked to personal health improvement in real life. If you don't like that sort of concept, don't play that particular game. I have no idea where you get the idea that this would be applied to all online environments.
At first I thought that this was an article from the Onion, but after reading the TFA, I'm having a hard time believing this would pass a patent exam.
You have to insure that the fitness measurements of an individual actually belong to the individual. Haven't read their patent, but I can't see how a game can reasonably do this without some sort of biometric keys.
And what are they going to do about people with medical conditions that might preclude exercise or normal weight? Are they really going to kick people off off the game with cancer because they have no control over their water retention?
All in all, this is a remarkably dumb idea.
It might be better suited for a dating site, using some mechanism to insure that the Avatar for an individual accurately represented basic physical aspects of an individual while preserving mostly their anonymity. Maybe use a Video camera plus some other hardware to scan the individual both to identify them upon logging in and updating their avatar to reflect any changes to their weight/height/BMI/hairline etc.?
Please consider this *publishing* of this idea, and as a result *invalidating any patent* that might build off this stupid Microsoft idea.
Kid probably shouldn't have set his Facebook profile settings to Everyone.
They are making quite a leap by stating that by shaming someone online will motivate them to loose weight. I wonder if they can back this up from published research? This strikes me as extremely ironic, as MS is probably responsible for a great deal of the extra heft that is now plaguing our society. How many people do you know that now sit in front of a machine that is created and/or run by MS products that would have otherwise been out biking/walking/exercising in some way. Guilty conscience?
Also, there are a number of different reasons a person could be overweight - perhaps they are unable to exercise? Are they going to measure MBI? Or will they just assume that anyone who xxx lb is overweight? Don't get me started - this strikes me as cut and dried discrimination.
MS is doing a great job with their patents - I wonder if this will fall in to the same category as their recently slashdotted sparklines?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Not only for the workplace anymore! Now standard on all MS games. If Microsoft seriously gets this 'patent' approved for the US gaming market.... how will it actually hold up against the constitution? If it's illegal to discriminate against people for the above reasons (sex, socioeconomic class, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc) for things like a job, a loan, housing; then what makes it alright for MS to use those for 'shaping gaming experiences' ?
I just hope they don't make all us heavy people look like pear shaped blobs.
Musculature and bone structure should be taken into account. Otherwise most professional wrestlers would look like the people inn Wall-e. I know my wii fit avatar looks nothing like me since while I am overweight, but I am also muscularly fit.
I think the idea is to publish stupid patents to shame the idiot who filed it.
the evilness of this corporation. my evil quota is full. now, we have seen a lot of horrible moves by microsoft, but i mean this ?!?!
they could just go all out from their seattle hq wearing postals and start kicking fat individuals in the face, saving a lot of effort and budget in the process and patent office's time.
Read radical news here
Great Thanks micro$oft for making my life suck more. Oh, wait. I can't afford your game hardware anyway. You fail.
If the government did this, it would be called "Socialism". I guess its ok for Corporations to do this sort of thing.
a strong kick in the face, to beat some sensitivity into you instead ?
Read radical news here
_In this great People's Republic of China,we seek to control games in order to keep our youth healthy mentally and physically) Oh yeah, China is definitely gonna want this for their youth
Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using 'psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc
Even if they could somehow get all that information from players, what difference would it make?
Maybe when they said "gaming experiences" what they actually meant was "ridiculous chat systems that have nothing to do with games".
If they start with this, then whats next? If you're a smoker you can't play wii tennis?
Besides, they'd lose too much money if fat people couldn't play video games anymore.
Ave Molech Setting
Where did'ja get my picture from? I locked my Facebook profile.
you and your obsessions. fat people are not discriminated against or humiliated in any way in my country. the country is turkey. and i have never yet seen any other country nearby, leave aside any european countries in which overweight people were ridiculed, belittled, bullied or discriminated against in any respect.
i very much have the idea that you people are so obsessed with your own socioeconomical circumstances, and so many bullshit propaganda being fed into you that you fail to see a world outside yours with different ideas and inclinations exist.
Read radical news here
I can only hope this sort of thing is not planned to be incorporated into the multiplayer feature of Bioshock 2. It would cause no end of trouble: We can't all be Buck Raleigh now, can we?
Another way to make life suck even more. I bet this is a deal with the new health care system to make more people kill themselves.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
the perfect avatar for the pictured child; its called the BSOD. Seriously though, so when does a software company think it should replace parenting?
If you shame them in their one place to escape, they'll turn to another place to escape such as reading sci-fi.
The horror! Not sci-fi! (btw... it's spelled syfy now).
Won't somebody think of the children?!?! The rotund, wheezing, waddling children.
I'm surprised they can manage to turn somewhere at all. At least in the olden days kids had to walk to the library or bookstore, so sci-fi reading had an exercise component.
How many people can find pleasure only in gaming? It just doesn't seem plausible. At least when puberty comes along there's another thing they can do by themselves that's a lot more fun.
Putting moderation advice in your
So What, doesn't stop the people who share their account or hire other players to keep their characters leveling.
One of the most touching things I ever had on Xbox Live was when I received a message I from a friend who always seemed to be on, but not in the previous 2 weeks. The message was from his mother thanking me, and everyone on his friends list for being his friend and telling us he had passed away. She continued to tell us he had Downs Syndrome, and at 21 years of age had passed away from complications of it. She told us that we, his virtual friends were the only friends he really seemed to have, because we didn't know about, or judge him because of his condition.
Would this system have deprived him of the one joy he had in his life because he couldn't run the hundred meter dash, or didn't match up with some other physical standard?
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
"You are no longer an optimum energy producing unit. You are being ejected from the Matrix. Goodbye!"
<schlorp, spitooie!>
> Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using 'psychological and demographic information such as education level, ..., intelligence quotient...
Does this mean I can finally play an online game without hearing prepubescent, homophobic brats calling eachother fags?
36-24-36? Only if she is 5'3".
Virtuous behavior? Avatars? Next thing you know Microsoft will be disabling the In Nami Ylem routines. I'm taking my Ankh and heading through the next moongate.
Yet I want this "No fat chicks" edition of the 360.
To see this from Microsoft, implying a digital community where people's avatars are based on their real-world identities?
X-Box Live is the anonymous gamers' paradise. Memberships are payable by untraceable prepaid game time cards, and the user space is littered with false identities and anonymous faces.
Or did you think d00bietoker420 was his real name?
At what point do they expect their pre-existing customer base to go legit and start signing up with real identities that would allow this system to even work, dystopian Orwellian connotations not withstanding?
Signed,
Anonymous Coward.
I want avatars that show me how old everyone is, so I know who to mute before I am hit with an avalanche of "Ur a gay fag!" and "Fucking Hacker!"
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Who wants to be online and see the ladies sporting a c-section scar?
I'm applying for a patent on making stupid business decisions. The main effect of this patent is to keep Microsoft from doing stuff like this.
...because the Internet is all about honesty, and they never entered anything false in all those bazillion registration forms on the net. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I'd like to patent some clever adjectives that could be used to describe said persons in a manner that may stimulate self improvement. These creative original words may include: "lard butt", "tubbo," and "fat bastard."
Moreover, I will use invasive marketing techniques to discover who is and is not a "fat bastard," and if they are, all their login requirements and profile names must be changed to something of the form fat_bastardXXX where XXX is a number assigned to them.
Why will I do this, you ask? Simply because I want to help all you poor fat bastards out there, even though I know that 90% of my users are fat bastards...you must be eliminated.
Next up, patenting gas chambers...
Sorry, but you forgot the other 'A'. I hate it when that happens.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Ok now I have an ideea for a game that'll make millions. Summo online the MMO. The more you eat the higher your power level.
I know a guy who's been a quadriplegic, with limited upper body function, since a stupid motorcycle accident. Playing games using a special controller is one way he passes the time. Will he get a pass? Or will he be put in a motorized wheelchair in the game too? What about people getting chemo? Amputees? Will kids be made short? Will the elderly be given bad knees? Etc.?
You computer will now display the Blueberry Ice Cream of Death.....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Welcome to fascism
There goes Microsoft's gaming market. What next? "Sorry, this console doesn't turn on for smokers."
... wii (and other) extra-controllers for.
Dance-pads, workout-pads, virtual body-suits... suddenly, you have some system that "pretends" to let you be the "Dance Master 3.0" or some "wristband-controller that does not even lies in your hand"... but in fact you have gizmos that send your weight and your wrist-size to . Hohoho!
Don't believe them! They are after your weight!
Quick, tell me! Where do I sign up to pay for the privilege of being discriminated against for my views or appearance!
will they also be making bald avatars?
for the online community longer than I can remember, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let my reputation be squandered by the likes of Microsoft--especially in this case.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. At least you didnt spell it with two "p"'s. That's the worst.
Anyway, I am very cynical of HIPAA. It has never protected me from health care providers making disclosures to third parties when I wanted (and was entitled to) privacy, and it just adds inconvenience when I want to do simple things like having a family member pick up one of my prescriptions ("Oh my god! We could never allow that, even if we had written authorization on file! Think of your privacy!").
So... what did HIPAA accomplish? Well, now when I go to a pharmacy, they force me to sign a HIPAA disclosure/waiver before they will fulfill my prescriptions. What does this disclosure say? Stuff along the lines of "here is our policy on how we will violate your privacy when we feel like it. Don't you feel better knowing?". Of course, I could choose not to sign, but then they won't fill my prescriptions. Ah, being presented with a Hobson's choice over medical necessities always warms my heart about the human spirit.
"Blessed are the coercers, for surely they will fuck you over while smiling at you."
Anyway, to my point: yes, you are protected by HIPAA. However, my expectation is that they will just circumvent it by a click-through EULA waiver. No waiver, no play. There you go. Hobson would be proud.
So, what ? I get to play as a Paladin of the Invisible Pink Unicorn ?
I get improved resistances vs Purple Oysters (of Doom) and extra HP from pineapple pizza or something ?
Oooh, can we start in-game jihads against the Pastafarian guys ? Or do only mainstream religion followers get to do that ?
This
. . . PCs and consoles will come equipped with a robot arm that feels you up to determine your real gender.
Or course, some users would pay extra for that.
Maybe the guy has a good sense of humor about it. Think of how famous the Star Wars kid could have been. Probably not very, but he might have gotten some good interviews and an extra 15 minutes. Sometimes the only difference between having people laugh with you and at you is whether or not you decide to join in. Having said that, I'm not sure why you got modded flamebait, you have a valid point, maybe it was the anonymouscoward part. Personally, I wish I knew that guy. What a bad ass.
Ballmer: It's a rite of passage. Everyone has to play their part, with no role reversals! Trust me; it's fun being ridiculed as the fat kid on the playground.
So... will Microsoft be making a big donation to Child's Play any time soon?
"This new X Box won't let me play today because it thinks I should get out of bed and do more exercise. It suggests half an hour of jogging. How many weeks did you say it be before I can walk again?"
I love it when people can only talk in extremes.
Microsoft wants to patent this technology. So CLEARLY they will immediately use it for every application.
CLEARLY they are just going to randomly access hospital records without getting any authorization.
Come on folks. Get a clue.
Someone at Microsoft (or one of their competitors withi a leak) has an idea for some sort of socially interactive physical fitness gaming network to compete with the Wii Fit. They dont want 450 lb Slashdoters having hearattacks while they try to "get in shape" by doing 3 situps, so they want to allow for sensors to see what sort of shape someone is in. (That gets them out of the lawsuit.) Someone says "While we are doing that we should allow for other means of in getting baseline data like medical records, cause they might do this fomrally in a retirement home or something."
If shaming fat gamers is wrong, then why tack on the picture of The Greatest Nintendo Warrior? Hasn't this poor slob suffered enough?
I can't quite express the shock and bile that this article literally provoked with me. I have a reason or two to be invested in this, though I'd love to think that I would be anyways. I'm both a fat chick, and disabled. The one easily has been associated with the other. Among some of my medical issues, I have several neuromuscular diseases that have resulted in partial paralysis with repetitive motion(such as walking, or any other 'continued' type motion, including brushing my own hair). My legs and arms routinely gimp out. I'm in a wheelchair if it's more than a very few steps. I need lots of help with my routine life. I'm also in severe neuropathic and musculoskeletal pain, due to nerve damage, chronic muscle spasms, spinal degeneration, et al. I only preface my rant with all of this in order to prove a point relevant to this topic:
I have spent copious amounts of time online in various MMORPGs, from the very inception of Everquest, to the beginning of WoW, and have tried most of them in between, including the mostly 'social' ones. I have learned the game mechanics, as much as I'm able, and have participated socially, as much as I've been so inclined, at various times in my life (It's funny how that's decreased drastically in increments from EQ to WoW), and I have paid into the economy with the subscription fee associated with each. I have not, at any time, been an MMO addict, in that a pixelated game could ever interfere with my perception of 'real life', and its priorities.
I have, however, used these games as a form of escapism from my pain and discomfort. To say otherwise would be a blatant understatement of the facts, and why? I don't see using an MMO, either one of the more strategic 'hack 'n slash' fantasy or sci-fi types (WoW, AO, Runescape, Eve Online) or a social (Sims Online, There, or Second Life) venue as being an unhealthy coping mechanism for a disabled person. We often spend so much of our time in a house, trapped inside of bodies that don't work, or are screaming silently with pain. To be able to thrive, leap, dance, run, and maybe kick some butt in a pixelated body is liberating. Never mind the opportunity to interact socially, unhindered, in the aesthetic form of our choosing, because isn't that what we -all- like to do?
What this all essentially means is: Microsoft wants to nerf handicapped people.
I'm barely going to get into the fact that Microsoft has alluded to the fact that they want to dig into my socioeconomic and medical data, because that both defies belief and insults my intelligence on a level to a degree that I truly believe they'll be reamed by people much bigger and badder than I am. (And I mean that on a less than literal level to any smart asses out there. =P )
I'm going to imagine, for a moment, that I actually had the motor skills to play CoD6 with my best guy friend and his cool crew, Team Drunky. *Team Drunky moves in to engage the enemy with a tactical strike, having decided against the comedic, but less effective death-via-precision-supply-drop. A skirmish begins. Ferret likewise is out the gate, sniping at the opposing clan, but glances over his shoulder, unfortunately, at Nixon, who is slovenly shuffling in his general direction, in a cold sweat, upper body graced with an ill fitting flak jacket, an M16, that she cannot lift, sparking as it drags along the pavement. Ferret groans inwardly as he faces the dilemma of whether to join Team Drunky, and live, or whether to try and save his soon-to-be and as-good-as-dead friend, whose right leg has now completely ceased to work. "Save yourself, you idiot! This is completely fruitless!" Nixon yells, right before catching one dead between the eyes. Sadly, Ferret was relieved. Team Drunky was relieved. The opposing team was sorta relieved.
Apparently Microsoft and America were relieved, because another fat person was kept off the net... back into the obscurity of their dark living rooms, in front of the television... where they belong... or something.
I've often
My human form is simply the earthy representation of my plump soul in heaven and you can't prove otherwise.
Nullius in verba
Set him on Texas instead?
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Seriously, did I time warp?
This is Microsoft Covering Their Ass - this patent combined with project NATAL is about making sure Fatty Mcfatterson doesn't have a heart attack while punching the monkey. They will gracefully make the game easier so it doesn't stress out the player.
One has to wonder how one differentiates an unhealthy user from an unfortunate one.
There'll be gaming fat farms and self improvement gaming; You're looking at it wrong.
Can anyone, anywhere, point out ONE time HIPAA was actually enforced beyond just a symbolic wrist-slap? Show me the company that was forced out of business, show me the CEO whose career was ended for HIPAA violations.
Every single one of my "health providers" -- doctors, dentists and optometrists -- make me sign paperwork saying they can share my information with anyone they want. I tried to decline signing that paperwork once at an optometrist for an eye exam I was paying for out of my pocket.
They kicked me out of the office.
HIPAA works a lot like the TSA. It's just done for show.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Although the "weight" method of stratifying gamers is absurd, what's wrong with separating people by age group or other metrics? For once we could have servers the way we have threads here: If you don't royally piss people off and you actively contribute to the gaming experience, you get "karma" and get to play with other people who have the same goals of enjoying the game, instead of fragbagging and teamkilling or whatever they do these days.
I'm all for it. If you want to behave like an ass and ruin people's fun and stats, then you can play on an unregulated server with all the other cockwhirlers.
-
1. "Everyone" "knows" that video games are unhealthy and are the reason why kids are fat nowadays.
2. Tell the politicians that you've developed a way for video games to help prevent kids from getting fat.
3. Tell the parents that you've developed a way for their computer/video games to *automatically" help prevent their kids from getting fat.
4. Get a "Save the children!" law passed requiring that this Anti-Fat-Kid-Rights-Management software be mandatory.
5. You have a patent on the Anti-Fat-Kids-Rights-Management idea.
6. Profit from the monopoly.
What the hell? The Microsoft Vista license states "Where allowed by your local laws, the manufacturer or installer and Microsoft exclude implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement."
If Microsoft cannot attest to the fitness of their own software, why do they think they can attest to my fitness!?!
to see Stephen Hawking's avatar. I wonder if he gets a free mount.
Maybe I'm confused, but aren't the real-world benefits of exercise and fitness way better than any a game could offer? I mean, if you can't entice someone with feeling great, longer life, and getting laid a lot, do you really think you can entice them with pixels on a screen? Really? I mean, I love me some video games, but... really?
I think there is an aversion of activity that exceeds the rewards of it. Adding more rewards isn't really going to help, because the current rewards are, well, just amazing. I mean, it doesn't get much better than being hot, being healthier, and long life.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
I have a better idea. Have everybody wear a yellow star and call them JUDE! A lame ass corporation that dictates appearance has no business being in business.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
This is so patently stupid (pun intended) that it should have never even seen the light of a Slashdot day.
It will NEVER become a reality, for so many reasons(medical privacy rights would be a good place to start), so why are we even discussing this shit?
Oh, right. Because it is funny.
Please continue...
i just love how many people cant see this is a joke. Keep whining about something that isnt real :D
Sizeism is one of several prejudices that seem currently acceptable by society. Imagine if the M$ news release said that game experience would change if the player were black; levels inaccessible because you were the wrong colour. Or female. Or gay. Or disabled.
25-30% of Americans are obese, but much of society (including the obese) seem to buy-in to the view that skinny is good and obese is obscene - and so nothing changes. Look at the comments here. Similar comments against gays or blacks would be dismissed as troll, but here we're having a good laugh. Anyway, with so many people being targeted by M$ I doubt that M$ is doing itself much of a favour.
Slashdotters who are quite happy to say: "fuck you, go on a diet ha ha" might do better by standing up for minorities that don't include themselves. In today's world we all have a job to protect our rights from the fucked-up ambitions of government, interest groups, and business, and divide-and-conquer is one of their ways of eroding rights.
"Lets have DRM, filtering, and inspection because some people are pirates", "Let's have biometric responses and limitations because some people are fat", "lets limit others because of IQ", "lets fuck with them because they are a minority, and the majority will let it pass". Well its possible to make up distinctions that catch all of us - we all belong to one minority or another depending on how creatively you cut the cake - and if we go down this path we all get fucked. So we have to stick up for others as if it were ourselves.
OK, help me get down off my soap box. Anyway, I'm a fat bastard and always have been. Nothing I can do about it. But I'll be alright so long as besides having fat avatars you can have avatars with 10" dicks :-)
Just a other way to get on the pre existing condition list.
This is the same M$ that used to hire temps as full time to get out of paying for there health care.
So it sounds like they're going to do it on the body mass index scale. Dumb. That penalizes athletes who are in excellent physical condition. I'm 30 to 40 lbs over weight by those charts. But I'm not. I work hard physically, I farm, so I have a lot of muscle and dense bones. I have little body fat. My physical activity makes for a heavy body that puts my body mass way over for my height yet I am very healthy. Even life insurance companies have started to admit those charts are dumb. They fail to take in to account real health. Once again Microsoft is behind the times and simply wrong.
What will they patent next? Racism?
This is irritating. I certainly won't be playing any games that implement this. I'm forced to be male despite being a woman IRL, and they want me to pay for the privelege in-game?! They'd at least better have shemale avatars. I pay good money for my meds.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using 'psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.
was OOH! I want to play Splinter Cell starring Niles & Frasier Crane!!!
how is babby formed?
Detecting the FBI agent pretending to be a 13 year old girl could be useful, for many reasons. But despite the stupidity of such an easily fooled system for general use, there is a legitimate use: physical therapy with Wii-like or Dance-Dance Revolution like components, designed to measure progress in a genuine fitness program.
And for related entertainment, there is the video "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?" at http://www.watchtheguild.com/the-guild/the-guild-music-video/.
I'll take out a patent on Avatar with underdeveloped genitalia so whenever someone from microsoft uses an avatar they'll have to pay me.
This will double in cost for any three letter executives who will have dickless avatars.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I have a feeling this is one of those patents meant to obstruct/charge licensing on predicted development. This along with other Microsoft decisions highlites a growing and disturbing trend in the IT industry as a whole ie Google.
Linux isn't the inherent answer either as folks like ubuntu are all too eager to follow suit.
All your HIPAA rights are waived in the TOS. Did you click 'I agree'?
You've got to be kidding. So why stop with heath? Let's include sexual preferences and orientation, religious and social affiliations, and stereotypes based on where you live.
But Ballmer is damn fat as well. Why stop at games? They should deny access to all services for fat people, starting with HIM.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I just think this is fucking disgusting... Game world and real world should be entirely different entities...
Seriously, Nintendo is going in the right direction with their Wii controllers. Why not have wearable controllers, to make the gameplay more immersive? Then, when you're battling the dragon, or having a shoot-out, you're using your whole body. Want to do more damage to the dragon/goblin? Swing your arm around faster. Want to avoid getting shot? Lay down on the ground. Instead of sitting on the couch, eating chips, and getting a nasty case of repetitive stress disorder on your thumbs and wrists, we could actually be exercising. You could spot the addicts because they'd be fit as all hell.
*** once i really listened, the noise just went away. -liz phair
This could be a new Turing Test?
prior art exists, now Ballmer has to chew carpets.
Hitler was a lesbian?
I have to wonder what stake Microsoft has in teen suicide and school shootings that they'd think this is a good idea. A bit of a leap you say? Let me lay it out for you.
Fat kid gets home from school, decides to play some games to put the bullshit he had to deal with at school behind him... Too bad his avatar is fat too! No escape from the ridicule and stupid crap! Or even worse, the same people who harass him at school start harassing him online, and then start harassing him at school ABOUT his fat avatar! BONUS POINTS!
So, depending on the kid's psychological makeup there are three possible outcomes:
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
As the San Antonio Chapter President of the Entertainment Consumer Association, I will VOTE AGAINST this proposal because I believe Medical Records is like your Social Security Number, PRIVATE INFORMATION! If Microsoft did such thing, I will stop using my Xbox360 and sell it immediately, because I WONT use XboxLive if they will reveal my private Medical Records. MICROSOFT CAN YOU GO ANY LOWER!?
The Microsoft Windows OS's avatar would then take up the whole screen.
Table-ized A.I.
Just change the aspect ratio of your screen such that your avatar is now normal and everybody else is a bean pole.
Table-ized A.I.
Microsoft plan to have get out of that shooting rut by making the replacement for halo about sumo wrestlers
They're going to integrate Facebook Connect with XBox live so they can grab all your details.
Seriously, Facebook has everything but IQ. Everything else you can put in there.
Work Safe Porn
Erm, so is Microsoft to be viewed as pursuing a defense of truth in advertising? Or as being an asshat engaging in passive-aggressive defamation of character?
Sounds like a lose, lose situation... I seems like the market strategists would see that this could really go all bad... Who are the majority that actually play video games? Most the people that I know that are big gamers really aren't in the best shape or they are our youth...
Okay, so I'm a chunky. And I will go ape shit on anyone who tries to blend mandatory fitness with gaming.
I'll happily pay extra if airlines start adopting this.
I'm real tired of sitting next to a woman called "house" on my long flights.
I hope that the photo of the overweight dressed with Nintendo garb is from someone you know, and that they gave permission for you to humiliate them in front of thousands of other people.
What makes you think the picture is humiliating?
If you think the picture is humiliating, aren't you the problem?
If we all thought there was nothing wrong with the picture, then there wouldn't be anything humiliating about it, would there?
paintball
I kind of like the idea of having an avatar that's similar to me. Weight, muscle, general appearance, and how the world could affect the avatar are all interesting idea.
The patent also mentions pedometers and similar tools. Wii Fit was a start, but a system such as this one could encourage real-world exercising in order to see changes in your avatar and even to receive certain Achievements. Now those would be some achievements to show off. :) The game could theoretically guide the person toward a healthy amount of weight loss, which is monitored by the tools (eg; a Wii Fit board rip off, a pedometer, and so on). This is an ideal situation that assumes that no cheating is taking place.
I could see such a game asking about asthma (or the like), but it clearly goes too far when talking about pulling in medical records. There are some obvious reasons for considerable concern, but there is also some interesting potential here.
... and they lag irl
something like this would never happen. also, if it uses personal demographics, it could 'out' GLBTQ players, or you could have a situation where a transgendered person can't play as the character they identify as, or some other ridiculous situation. or simple typos that are so pervasive in bureaucratic record systems could lead to embarrassing or annoying 'errors' in your avatar.
seriously though, something like this would just never happen, and if they tried, it would fail.
Well, may be gamers must expose also sexual orientation, religion, size of penis, and other important for computer game information.
A physical characteristic is accessed that has been nonvolitionally obtained from a user, avoiding the inconvenience or unaccountability of voluntarily supplied information.
This is so ... wrong .. that it is hard to know where to start criticizing it. At first I thought it was an April Fool's joke a little too early, but then I clicked through to the patent itself. As a work of brilliant satire poking fun at the whole patenting process, it succeeds -- too bad it's for real! Anyway, here I go:
1) M$ will obtain your data nonvolitionally -- to wit, without your consent! Leaving aside the obvious Constitutional implications of this (5th Amendment violation, for those keeping score), it raises the interesting question: where is this data going to come from? (And: can the source be spoofed?)
2) More ominously, note the following claims:
[0024]It should be appreciated with the benefit of the present disclosure that the physical characteristics that can be conveyed include can include health information pertinent to performance such as blood pressure, heart rate, pulmonary flow rate, weight, body fat index, strength, blood glucose level. These physical characteristics can be chronic conditions such as allergies, disabilities, diseases, etc., that facilitate locating people of similar sensitivities, lifestyle and background.
[0025]In addition, the physical characteristics can include psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc. Such information can be useful in enhancing social interaction as well as adjusting how an avatar performs in a competitive virtual environment.
Needless to say, such 'physical characteristics' provide a fertile ground for discrimination. For example, imagine the following:
You have been denied access to Fourth Reich because you are a Jewish scum. Your internet address has been logged; your home address has been located; a squad of Storm Troopers will be by shortly to teach you a lesson in respect.
3) No more anonymity. Under this system, Publius -- the collective identity of the Founding Fathers when they were attempting to convince their fellow citizens of the necessity of a new form of government -- would have been ferreted out and they would all have been tossed into British gaols to await their trials for treason.
And let's not forget M$s ultimate goal:
NON-WINDOWS SYSTEM DETECTED.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
This is a blatant abuse of internet privacy, No entertainment industry should mandate such things and pry into the lives of their customers like that. It's the right of any person to play a game if they want to and if they are overweight, underweight, or ideal it should be up to them and their doctor, Not Microsoft!
Sickest thing is we would be paying money to these people for this 'service'.
In no other industry can a manufacturer screw with their customers more then in the game industry!!!
BTW, I have many gamer friends who are of many different weight classes... One friend is superskinny and another is a large (but not fat guy) how are these people going to be looked at, cause their is nothing wrong physically but they would not be able to change the fundamentals of their bodies, it's just genetics.
This is just more proof that choice is not a 21st century value.
Maybe the folk at Microsoft feel that they're not getting enough licensing revenue of their existing FAT patents...
http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productTitle=FAT%20File%20System
Not that I have any plans to become a Microsoft customer, but still. The idea of having exercise advice shoved down my throat by a company run by that tub of goo, Steve Ballmer, is beyond asinine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's funny thing, I was playing Rockband 1 and upon urging of my friends, I decided to make a character for my game. Now, I'm not too fat, but I decided that I was going to make a fat character for my game. Why make your avatar look just like you? I wanted to create a Jack Black esque character. So I found the weight slider and move it to heavy. Unfortunately the made my character muscular. I told my buddies, "Dammit, I don't wanna be buff, I wanna be fat!" The idea that someone would want to create a fat character didn't even cross the developers mind.
This reminds me of another article on Second Life that said there were no fat avatars in that game either. Not because the capability wasn't there, but nobody, and I mean, NOBODY, elected to do so. We need more fat video game characters and avatars. Aren't you tired of always playing a hard bodied hero in every game?
In film there's the everyman character. But we have yet to see that in games. The closest thing I can think of is Nathan Drake, with his easy going attitude. That's ridiculous though, cuz he's a globe trotting treasure hunting babe magnet. I can't identify with him.
In related news, Microsoft patented the act of inhaling oxygen and exhaling co2. A judge has issued an injunction against breathing for everyone until the case is resolved.
Actually, the kid in the picture is my younger brother. The picture was taken 15 to 17 years ago. One of his friends must have scanned it and put it online somewhere.
He doesn't look like that today. He started a weight lifting regimen about 10 years ago and he is probably in much better shape than most of the people making fun of this picture online.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Features are supposed to help sell games when they're in a nice bullet-point on the back of the box. I don't see anyone in charge of making a game wasting resources on a feature which is likely to decrease sales.
I've been looking into my crystal ball, and I predict that the number of hot girls on the internet is going to drop to near-zero.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Finally, a use for my PhD!
This post once again made me feel extremely nauseated about Microsoft and it got me thinking.
People are people all around the world, we are taught different things but there is some kind of psychological DNA if you will, maybe it's based on brain structures or the lack of them, but I have a feeling you will find similar types of personalities in different places.
It is why art and stories written centuries ago still strike a chord, why movies from other countries can be endearing.
I imagine the Microsoft attracts more pathologies than most companies, and I wonder what positions in society those types of personalities would occupy.
I imagine Microsoft execs would feel quite at home sitting on the ruling council of a religious fanatic society in the Middle East.
I wonder where in Africa you will find similar personalities.. and where in the U.S. you will find those of the criminal exec-types found in those countries?
We should try and recognize a pathology and do something about it, instead of just turning our eyes away. It is gross, nauseating, yes it might make you want to kill yourself if you have to actually have a conversation with these horrible individuals at Microsoft, but maybe we should actually try to remove them from their posts and give them intensive professional counseling before they get taken seriously and have stupid ideas actually implemented.
On the other hand, doing nothing is perhaps safest. At least they aren't being handed live weapons.
...that microsoft is most likely only doing this just to avoid potential lawsuits from parents of obese children playing their xbox360s and claiming their children became fat from playing 16hrs a day on their consoles and getting diabetes from it. Period.
Fat people...the last great frontier of discrimination.
If this is indeed true, I will never buy another product from Microsoft again. This reeks of communism. People are too GD nosey these days.
For deleting my post, and proving my point.
Although I don't think this is a completely bad idea, I have to wonder - when will the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL be limited to people with an IQ > 120?... exercising the mind would do some of these guys well either, don't you think?...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
This is Microsoft's way of showing they care about their gamers health. Something like saying, "we want you to be healthy so we are going to limit you from playing the game." Basically, this is combating the idea that games are the reason for people being fat. For instance, if you are addicted to a game too much, you may not exercise like you normally would. They want you to be addicted, so they just found another way to make sure you still exercise. They decided to limit or block you from playing until you have exercised. They are talking about more than just checking your medical records here. They are talking about checking your health instantly before you try to play. Or maybe somehow linking in to even more record keeping, that isn't used yet, by places like gyms. They also want to find ways to make sure your not slacking on other aspects of your life because of their games. That or they just don't want you to be able to blame them anymore. They want to be able to tell if you are socializing, getting along with people, and just about anything else people blame games for. What it amounts to is, "Have you been a good boy today? Well then, you can play." Otherwise, get out there and fix what your not doing. Fighting with your girlfriend? Go make up, then you can play. *ring ring*, real life is calling. If you don't want to answer, we'll glue the phone to your ear!
it doesnt happen. neither publicly, nor privately. the most overweight people suffer from is constantly being reminded/scolded about diabetics and heart attack possibilities. occasionally they may get nicknames. but depending on their character, they happen to be endearing nicknames from prominent overweight figures from comedies in movie/literature, or generic nicknames. then again, any person who has a noticeable character gets a nickname, not just overweight.
I very much have the idea that you're a bit of a well-meaning naif who can only imagine the world as you've experienced it ... but that you are nonetheless wrong. It's nice that you have never seen discrimination, and can't imagine it. That doesn't change that it does, in fact, exist. I have never personally seen a platypus ... and since I've had this rock, I've not been mauled by tigers. Neither of these statements change the existence of the platypus, or the fact that there aren't tigers nearby anyway.
there. this was the kind of shitty attitude i was talking about. just out of your ass, you were able to just evaluate who was i, and what i know and what i dont, with just from a posting that contradicts your perceptions and experience. its as if the world revolves around you, and yours is the 'real' world, whereas others' are always some 'exceptions'. this is the shitty attitude thats dominant in america, regardless of you are an american or not.
im not going to even justify that kind of half assed uninformed generalization with a reply. i will just repeat that this is a 7 billion crowded world, and 250 million populated america is but a tiny part of it.
Read radical news here
you made conclusions out of your ass, and some morons modded you insightful.
show me ANYthing in what i said from which you can create a correlation in between the number of overweight people in a country, and the behavior towards overweight people in that country.
Read radical news here
I'd love to see what the response to disabled folks will be on this one.
My wife's cousin is confined to a wheelchair. Does that mean his avatar will be required to be in one as well?
Actually, the whole idea of "shaping" the gamer's experience by:
psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.
is screaming "discrimination lawsuit"
In Ultima 7, hacking his way through the Forge of Virtue.
I think Wii Fit constitutes prior art -- within the context of the program, your avatar's appearance changes in response to your body weight.
www.wavefront-av.com
Is that Cmdr Taco in the blue Jedi get-up?
Dude, the guy has a Powerglove. A gamer's most dirty desire.
A POWERGLOVE!
What if I am playing DDR or some game where I actually stay active. I can actually gain a sweat from Tony Hawk Ride (and a good sweat at that as well).
So Microsoft will turn off or ban my X-Box when I am playing a game that keeps me active? That sounds pretty dumb if you ask me.
I have actually lost over 50 pounds. I used to weigh right around 315 and got down to 250. My motivation to get even more active with working out was playing video games that kept me active like Benami dancing games.
There are alot of games that keep up on our feet now. Microsoft would need to check and ensure I am not playing one of those games.
This will also open the door for a buttload of shovelware that keeps you active as well.
The world is how you make it
I wonder how this is going to work for disabled people. I'm overweight because I can't walk, which happens to be the same reason I play so many video games instead of exercising (which I do actually do, in a way, but it's physiotherapy). Even if there's an opt out or a "disabled" get out option I don't think I want to use it, the opt outers will just be labelled as fatties who are embarrassed to tell people their real weight and I don't want a great big "disabled" tag on my avatar. The great thing about the anonymity online gaming is that nobody knows I'm disabled, people mean to be nice but as soon as they find out they start being a bit too nice, like I'm a kid playing with adults who needs everyone around them to hold back. I really prefer it when no one knows.
I won't be happy if we have to put our real genders in either. I'm female but I usually play as a man to avoid the sexual harrassment, rape threats (have had these) and the embarrassment when 13 year old boys ask if you have a boyfriend (I'm 27). But who knows, maybe I won't have to worry about this stuff when all my characters are fatties in wheelchairs.
I hope that the photo of the overweight dressed with Nintendo garb is from someone you know, and that they gave permission for you to humiliate them in front of thousands of other people.
What makes you think the picture is humiliating?
If you think the picture is humiliating, aren't you the problem?
If we all thought there was nothing wrong with the picture, then there wouldn't be anything humiliating about it, would there?
Brilliant insight, friend. Building walls and hedges around ourselves to try and hide our defects has only created a world in which we all look at each other through such murky, ugly lenses. Nobody can be comfortable as they are; this affects the haters more than it affects those that they hate. How many of you out there find that you hate just about everyone, for the most minute little quibbling details, you are driven to near-loneliness by your inability to like others. Embrace humanity; none of us is perfect. Perfection is a state of stagnation from which no further improvement is possible. No human ever reaches this state, and thank heavens for that because it's lonely at the end of the road.
That picture is nothing more than a photo of a young kid probably having fun dressing up with his various nintendo gear... I don't see why you find that it should be humiliating to him... But I do understand why you say so. There is this pervasive aura of fear in human society these days. People so afraid of being seen as deviant, defective, weird, afraid of making waves or ripples, afraid of being rejected by other humans. You repress your own harmless desires for no good reason, and sup on hatred and ridicule and constantly compare and contrast everything with one another in a subtle dance of synchronization whereby you adopt the characteristics most likely to help you avoid social friction.
Conflict is the BREAD and WATER of life. Without it, you cannot be called a living thing. You are flotsam in the stream of particles comprising timespace. What else but conflict gives the world evidence that each of us has his own will?