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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 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?
...on a fantastically lean, mean & slim Microsoft Windows OS?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
The patent office doesn't invent any new drugs. That's like saying the post office is wasting its time on Cosmopolitan.
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.
Thats right. Nothing says progress like granting a extortionate monopoly on a drug that could save millions, if only they could afford it.
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.
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.
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.
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' ?
Stop telling me how to live my life! If I want to tell others how to live their lives, that's MY choice.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
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
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
Oh, I am pretty sure those two things are universally exclusive.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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.
36-24-36? Only if she is 5'3".
That feature is covered by the base "No chicks" edition 360.
Or one could say her life was made miserable because of her weight. The grotesquely obese (of which i am a member) are such by choice. There may be genetic traits that can lead one to being overweight, but so what. There are also genetic traits that make certain people's breath smell like death, or make people gravitate toward alcoholism. We are not animals. We are not slaves to every wisp of DNA-inspired urge or weakness. I, for one, am still fat because I have not yet chosen to make the lifestyle changes needed to lose weight. I am not a victim.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
You computer will now display the Blueberry Ice Cream of Death.....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
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.
Only if you're morbidly obtuse.
Welcome to the Internet. I can see that this is your first time here.
There is so much for you to see and wish to unsee.
Nope. We just assume that taking away the multimillion-dollar monopoly incentive won't have any effect on pharmaceutical developments and the drugs available (outside of patents) for your children's generation, or even your generation when you retire in 40 years. No effect whatsoever.
I mean, come on, dude, is a little bit of a balanced perspective on a nuanced issue too much to ask?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Friend, my logic is not flawed. Both ones race and ones religion are federally protected in all democratic societies an the planet (at least on paper). People are not born fat (as black people are born black). And are no forms of worship that I know of that demand (or even encourage) obesity. There is no Constitutional protection for being fat. It's easy to point at the fat guy and laugh, sure. But it's also easy to point at the stumbling drunk or the teenager with raging BO. People are mean to other people sometimes. That is not a discrimination; that is life.
Maya Anjelou once gave a great statement on this concept. She said (among other things) "The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself."
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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.
to see Stephen Hawking's avatar. I wonder if he gets a free mount.
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
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*
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
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.