The Next Phase of Intelligent TVs Will Observe You

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The Next Phase of Intelligent TVs Will Observe You

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 30, 2011 @06:47AM from the unseen-mechanized-eye dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Japan based NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) is testing an interface which observes TV viewers, determines their interest and provides information related to the TV program in accordance with the way they are watching it. UTAN (user technology assisted navigation) TV viewing interface, as it is called, has a camera mounted on the TV which photographs the viewer and estimates the viewer's degrees of interest, concentration, etc. The information is processed by a tablet PC and recommended information is shown to the viewer. It is possible to show individual interests as well, in case there are multiple viewers."

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Nice, however.. by Anrego · 2011-05-30 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Would be brilliant if there was anything interesting on!
Seriously.. all TV related technology is kind of meh these days because ultimately you are choosing between 50 different reality TV shows, maybe one or two token sitcoms/dramas and re-runs of real shows you’ve already seen and probably already own the DVD.
It’s not like music where there is enough variety that you can be taken aback by some band you didn’t even know existed. There is a limited amount of TV programming, and if you had any interest in it, you’ve probably already seen it or are at least aware of it.
1. Re:Nice, however.. by Frosty+Piss · 2011-05-30 06:54 · Score: 2
  
  I think that in the end this technology will be used not to "enhance" viewer experience, but rather for targeted advertising. Nothing is "innovated" these days for the benefit of mankind, but rather for the benefit of the CONSUMER.
  
  --
  If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
2. Re:Nice, however.. by Stormthirst · 2011-05-30 06:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Nothing is "innovated" these days for the benefit of mankind, but rather for the benefit of the marketing departments.
  FTFY
3. Re:Nice, however.. by spire3661 · 2011-05-30 07:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  A ton of tech progress is being stifled by the desire to capitalize on digital distribution. Almost EVERY piece of tech is now sold with a built in store. My wife has a Bodybugg. Its a device that measures your daily activity etc. TO be able to USE the device at all, you have to subscribe to their webservice. There is no way to upload the contents to your local machine or use it at all without paying a subscription. They have inserted themselves between the device and the user for no REAL reason other then monetization.
  
  "From Bodybugg support
  Posted By: bodybugg Support Team
  Posted Date: 6-3-08 1:01PM
  We are sorry if you were misled in any way, but bodybugg does require that you maintain an active subscription to the web application. This is comparable to a cell phone company wherein you pay for the phone as well as the calling plan."
  
  Its amazing that they compare operating and maintaining a cellular network to collecting and visualizing personal data on a website. Really?
  
  I mention all this becasue the REASON TV tech is 'meh' is because everyone is jockeying to lock up the digital frontier and ignoring actual technological progress. I would LOVE to have a simple 1 hour TV buffer. No record, no storage, just a 1 hour TV buffer to pause, FF, rewind. It cannot be that hard to make a simple inline buffer like that. But the likelyhood of seeing it in the next decade is slim partly because of patents and partly because there is no ongoing revenue stream from it.
  
  --
  Good-bye
4. Re:Nice, however.. by XFire35 · 2011-05-30 07:20 · Score: 2
  
  The Sky+ box offered by Sky can let you pause/rewind/FF live TV for an hour and even over that (I think it's dependent on how much you have stored on the hard-drive however), but the principal is there.
5. Re:Nice, however.. by BluBrick · 2011-05-30 09:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You mean, like when I was watching some show over at my friend's the other day and all of the cans on the table were turned so the labels were facing the camera and they kept mentioning the brand of their cell phone like ten times while sitting on the sofa in front of the camera?
  Fortunately, I think content like that is going to be shortly lived, because people are smart enough to know when they're being directly marketed to like that and find it distasteful.
  A wise man with no name to speak of once said "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it!".
  It's called "product placement", and it's not at all short lived - it's been happening for decades. The current form in which a character mentions a product ad nauseam is, surprisingly, a little subtler than the original form. Radio plays from as early as the 1920's were sponsored by companies as an advertising vehicle for their product, a strategy first successfully employed a brand of laundry soap (hence the term "soap opera"). You can bet the characters in those shows asked each other how they got their whites so fresh and clean with rather unnatural frequency.
  It's not going to go away, because people are dumb enough to fall for it. Advertising works, sad to say.
  
  --
  Ahh - My eye!
  The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
6. Re:Nice, however.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-30 09:30 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  When I finally called Comcast and told them to cancel my subscription they were mystified. "Are you switching to dish?" No. "Are you moving?" No. "Then why do you want to cancel?" Because I pay you $140 a month. You charge me for stuff I don't want. Every single broadcast is in HD but unless I pay for for HD you go to the extra trouble to reduce the quality of the signal before delivering it. I pay you for service but I still have to watch you paste pop-up ads over the top of the programming in addition to the ads that are already there. I have over 200 channels and there is NOTHING to watch that isn't a bunch of insipid BS or reruns. If I want to record programming you require me to use your DVR that you charge me for every month, deliver a used one to my house and refuse to fix when it doesn't work. I can stream every single thing I want to see in the same resolution for free. I want to cancel because you provide nothing of value.
  Long silence followed by "we can give you a 6 months discount to keep you as a customer". You really weren't listening were you?
7. Re:Nice, however.. by PopeRatzo · 2011-05-30 10:08 · Score: 2
  
  Would be brilliant if there was anything interesting on!
  That's the whole point. The new interface will allow the system to choose programs "that will interest you" without you having to make any decisions. It will probably sold as providing new freedom for TV viewers, but the only "freedom" it will provide is the "freedom" from having any choices.
  This is the holy grail for advertisers, for content providers: to take away viewers' freedom to choose what they watch. After all, choosing is just so difficult especially when there's nothing good on. I mean, how many times have you had a difficult time deciding what to watch because everything is shit? Now, you won't have that problem any more. It's a Win-Win. The content providers win and the advertisers win. That covers all the important parties in the cultural transaction that is television.
  And don't think for a second that an effort isn't being made to do the same thing with the Internet. For the providers, the problem with net neutrality (the concept, not the law) is that the viewer gets choices and nothing puts a crimp in profits like choices.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
8. Re:Nice, however.. by stms · 2011-05-30 10:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I would LOVE to have a simple 1 hour TV buffer. No record, no storage, just a 1 hour TV buffer to pause, FF, rewind. It cannot be that hard to make a simple inline buffer like that. But the likelyhood of seeing it in the next decade is slim partly because of patents and partly because there is no ongoing revenue stream from it.
  What are you talking about I use one of those it's called ThePiratebay.
9. Re:Nice, however.. by c0lo · 2011-05-30 13:19 · Score: 2
  
  Would be brilliant if there was anything interesting on!
  With the TV set able to spy, the selection range may be wider. E.g.
  You - during news: "Fuck X (a politician at you choice)"
  TV: "would you like an pr0n movie featuring X? His TV captured some delicious scenes".
  
  --
  Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
10. Re:Nice, however.. by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2011-05-30 13:28 · Score: 2
  
  Just because you are a stupid, bleating sheep doesn't mean everyone else is.
  In other words, don't be a sheep, be like me.
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
11. Re:Nice, however.. by thunderclap · 2011-05-30 18:38 · Score: 2
  
  Oh he was listening, and had he or she said 'yes, I understand. They will retrieve the stuff tomorrow.' He/she would have also lost their job.They aren't mystified. That person simply hadn't dealt with a person who was sick of it yet.
  And yes monetization is the problem. Solution? Stop buying.
1984 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-30 06:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

No thanks.
1. Re:1984 by boarder8925 · 2011-05-30 07:11 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  If I were still in high school, I would agree with you. What I took away from 1984 after the first reading is all the technological nightmarish oppression that Orwell depicted. When I read the book again, though, that changed. I'm not at all saying that Orwell wasn't warning about invasive technology, but the bigger point of the book is the control the state has over the people's hearts and minds. It's not about the surveillance, it's about what the surveillance is meant to achieve. All the totalitarian measures seemed to be more of a stopgap until the language was finally reduced to meaninglessness via Newspeak and people's ability for thought was so hemmed in by the basic language filled with all sorts of shades of meaning. When Orwell writes about the Two Minutes Hate and the anti-sex propaganda, he makes it clear that those are the more dangerous dangers, because instead of people's having better outlets for their energiesâ"namely, sexâ"all their passions and energies were put toward the service of Big Brother and the government above them. The surveillance is to help enforce that, but the ultimate goal is to make it impossible for people to think about anything else, to want to think about anything else. If all that we get from 1984 is that surveillance is bad, we're not reading it right.
  
  --
  Keep your eyes to the sky.
2. Re:1984 by amiga3D · 2011-05-30 07:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I can see a big market in a totalitarian society for this. You put on programming to extol the virtues and greatness of the ruler/s and watch to see who is interested and who is not. Viewing of propaganda can be made mandatory and this insures that your people will not only view the programming but remain attentive. Potential dissidents would be much easier to spot. Modern technology has many ways to benefit man and also many ways to enslave him.
3. Re:1984 by boarder8925 · 2011-05-30 07:25 · Score: 2
  
  You missed the point entirely. I didn't dismiss the warnings Orwell gives us about surveillance, and especially about perpetual surveillance. What I meant is that the problem with how most people apply the book is that they stop with the technological you're-watched-everywhere nightmare and never look at the other issues Orwell raises and warns about in the same book. (Nationalism, for one.) I am always watching out for news like that of the TVs That Watch the Watcher, I encourage everyone to guard themselves against those sorts of things, and in addition to this I am always on guard against the sorts of tricks used to manipulate people out of reason and into emotion and blind devotion to an abstraction.
  
  --
  Keep your eyes to the sky.
4. Re:1984 by cforciea · 2011-05-30 07:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Realistically, if the data gets sent upstream, then no one would ever buy this. If it is only used locally, then there will likely be quite a lot of buyers.
  Realistically, they will use this the same way they do any other tracking: they will tell you about the benefits and just not bother mentioning that they are storing your data "anonymously" someplace when it retrieves information for you. Then people will buy it without even thinking about the privacy connotations.
  
  Why would any data have to be sent upstream?
  "Have to be" and "will be" are not the same thing.
5. Re:1984 by Dunbal · 2011-05-30 07:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  you'll see that the intention is to provide information to the viewer, not to the service provider.
  
  Money earned by providing info to the viewer: $0.
  Money earned by providing info to advertisers and media companies: $millions if not billions.
  Yeah yeah, the information is for the "viewer". Just be sure to read the fine print.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
6. Re:1984 by Opportunist · 2011-05-30 07:47 · Score: 2
  
  Nono, it will be opt-out, so you can disable it. Of course, disabling it makes you suspicious.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
7. Re:1984 by AK+Marc · 2011-05-30 14:35 · Score: 2
  
  1984 was almost a sequel to Animal Farm. Animal Farm was a book to show that communism doesn't work and why. He wanted to show the cat (everyone hates the lazy and focuses on the lazy, but they are the red herring - the cat doesn't hurt anyone and doesn't strain the system at all). He wanted to show that equality can't work when you have people who will believe themselves to be better than others (and that's human nature, so it will happen).
  
  But then Animal Farm was used to push nationalism. He never said communism/socialism was "bad" but that it was essentially an exploration into why it would, left unchecked, fail. However, democracy, left unchecked, would also fail. That's why constitutions are set up. They place limits to help things stay checked in a manner that would promote longevity.
  
  1984 was the response that fighting socialism could lead to a greater evil. When fascism/nationalism takes over, society collapses as well. You have to understand that it's not a lone book, but that it's part of the body of work of a government critic and when he bashes something it's not just because it's bad or that the opposite is right. I remember other parts than just the technical surveillance being the big parts. It's having to be like everyone else all the time, even in your home (the how didn't matter) and that if you didn't you would be punished by society. And that not only describes fascism, but high school as well.
  
  But all that digresses. The "point" of the book was to essentially bash the nationalists that were waiving around Animal Farm as proof that nationalism was better than communism, at least when looked at in a very specific context.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
Hey everybody, by teamhasnoi · 2011-05-30 06:54 · Score: 2

it's a cautionary tale, not a manual.
1. Re:Hey everybody, by russotto · 2011-05-30 07:13 · Score: 2
  
  How important can the lessons in there be to the current and future generations if people could press a "like button" to indicate whether it satisfactorily stimulated there pleasure center.
  That sounds more like the other well-known dystopian novel, _Brave New World_.
2. Re:Hey everybody, by betterunixthanunix · 2011-05-30 07:17 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  On the other hand, we seem to be inching closer to a Brave New World dystopia, where we are bred to want certain things, and we constantly get what we want in order to keep us distracted. We are also free to choose exile from the system, if we want, and live on a island where we have all the freedom we want (except the freedom to communicate with our friends).
  
  We have also been cautioned against creating a world in which we are endlessly distracted by pleasure.
  
  --
  Palm trees and 8
Sounds like a bad idea ..... by DaMattster · 2011-05-30 06:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

Does this mean now that law enforcement could have a potential window into our own homes and that we could lose any rights to privacy. I can see this thing being co-opted for law enforcement and surveillance.
1. Re:Sounds like a bad idea ..... by marcosdumay · 2011-05-30 07:14 · Score: 2
  
  Also, we'll pass that law giving law enforcement access to it anytime they want, without any paperwork. But that is just an unintented side effect, law enforcement will never make use of that law. We promisse, really!
  
  --
  Rethinking email
Re:Watching Porn?!?!?! by egcagrac0 · 2011-05-30 06:58 · Score: 3, Funny

Probably stream to chatroulette.
Electrical Tape by chazchaz101 · 2011-05-30 06:59 · Score: 5, Funny

I see you've covered the camera with electrical tape. Would you be interested in these other privacy related products?
Re:1984 by stealth by betterunixthanunix · 2011-05-30 07:00 · Score: 2

That is a common theme in dystopian novels: that the dystopia was established by the very people it oppresses, who thought they were improving their lives, and who often continue to believe they are better off even when they are being oppressed. Even 1984 alludes to that idea, when Winston Smith notes that the proles could overthrow the at any time if they wanted to (but they never will, as Smith is told at the Ministry of Love).

--
Palm trees and 8
Re:1984? by icebike · 2011-05-30 07:02 · Score: 2

I don't know if you've seen it already or not.
Let me check my photo archive....

--
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
In Soviet Tokyo... by leftie · 2011-05-30 07:03 · Score: 4, Funny

TV watches you. ;)
Really, I'm capable of doing that myself by holophrastic · 2011-05-30 07:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm fully capable of determining my own level of interest, thank you very much. I'm also fully capable of choosing what to watch. It's not like I wind up missing out on a series that I would have loved if only it had been recommended to me.
This really isn't a problem for me that need to be solved.
No matter, I'll spend a little more money on electrical tape to cover up the camera.
Re:T-minus 5... by easyTree · 2011-05-30 07:33 · Score: 2

In future Soviet Russia, you observe TVs.

--
Requiem for the American Dream
Re:1984? by GameboyRMH · 2011-05-30 07:35 · Score: 2

I thought so, I could have sworn I read it on my Kindle but it's just not there...

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Great, now there will be a run on by MightyMartian · 2011-05-30 08:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Door: Knock knock knock
AC: Who's there?
FCC TV Repair Patrol Officer #1 [smashing in door]: Comrade AC, we have noticed that your TV no longer functions according to FCC standards. According to Article 7 of the Patriotic Freedom Act of 2016, we are empowered to enter your residence to troubleshoot and repair your TV.
AC: You can't do that! I have constitutional rights!
FCC TV Repair Patrol Officer #2: Is this your signature on this bill of sale?
AC: Yes, why?
FCC TV Repair Patrol Officer #2: According to Hippie v. Walmart, 572 U.S. 144 (2017), the EULA for this TV, which allows the FCC, via the contract you signed with Walmart, to observe you via your TV.
FCC TV Repair Patrol Officer #1 [looking at TV]: Yup, he put electricians tape over the lens.
FCC TV Repair Patrol Officer #2: According to Article Eighteen of the Digital Liberty Copyright Act 2016 you have circumvented security measures of this device. This is now a capital offence. Could you please have the name of your next of kin so your remains, if there are any after we're finished, can be sent properly directed. Now please drop your pants spread your ass cheeks wide...

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
New poll? by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2011-05-30 08:23 · Score: 4, Funny

POLL TIME!
[_] This is nothing new. I know someone who has claimed for more than a DECADE that their TV is spying on them.
[_] Like men will ever give up control of the remote!
[_] "Excuse me, but why is it every time YOU walk into the room the TV ask if we want to switch to pay-per-view porn?"
[_] I'd rather have a TV that lets me keep an eye on the scum who think that watching me is a good idea.
[_] That scream you heard was all those "In Soviet Russia TV watches YOU" jokes dying.
[_] It doesn't matter - he'll still spend the evening clicking from one channel to the next every commercial.
[_] Just when you thought you couldn't come up with another reason not to watch TV ...
[_] Duct Tape Lesson # 2,389,042 - Did you know that you can use duct tape to cover the sensors to keep your TV from spying on you?
[_] You know that they'll soon be charging extra for a TV that doesn't watch you.
[_] Mess with them - stick a computer monitor with The Sims having awesome double-back-monkey sex for hours at a time in front of the sensor. Bonus points is you screen "Faces of Death" with the monkey-brain-eating scene instead.
[_] Sue them for "producing and distributing under-age porn" because your under-18 daughter walked in front of the TV while running from the shower to her bedroom.
[_] mumble mumble remote when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

--
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
A wise man once said by DragonHawk · 2011-05-30 16:19 · Score: 2

"Television [network] companies are not in the business of delivering television programmes to their audience; they're in the business of delivering audiences to their advertisers." -- Douglas Adams
(From "What Have We Got To Lose?"; first appearance in Wired UK #1, 1995; reprinted in The Salmon of Doubt)

--

dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.