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Intel To Launch TV Service With Facial Recognition By End of the Year

Posted by timothy on from the nielsen-with-a-ray-gun dept.

MojoKid writes "Despite television being a rather tough nut to crack, Intel is apparently hoping that its upcoming set-top box and subscription service will be its golden ticket to delivering more Intel processors to the living room. The service would be a sort of specialized virtual cable subscription that would combine a bundle of channels with on demand content. So what's Intel's killer feature that distinguishes it from the vast and powerful competition? Granular ratings that result in targeted ads. Intel is promising technology in a set-top box that can distinguish who is watching, potentially allowing Intel to target advertising. The technology could potentially identify if the viewer is an adult or a child, male or female, and so on, through interactive features and face recognition technology."

15 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. The marketing dweeb bastards won't quit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The marketing dweeb bastards won't quit until they force us all to wear burkas or Guy Faulks masks.

    1. Re:The marketing dweeb bastards won't quit by bbecker23 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's worse than that. Imagine the enhanced DRM this would enable. "Sorry, We have detected more than the allotted number of audience members. Your account has been charged $9.99 per extra viewer."

      --
      cat /dev/random > sig.txt
    2. Re:The marketing dweeb bastards won't quit by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

      We can only hope that a brave transvestite, a crack team of ACLU litigators, and the threat of public ridicule can save us from this dystopia...

    3. Re:The marketing dweeb bastards won't quit by Mitchell314 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Or the very cheap solution of duct tape. Which solves all problems, from broken tool handles to helicopters to any given international crisis. :P

      --
      I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
  2. 1984 much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because what we *really* need in the world is a TV that watches you...

    1. Re:1984 much? by Nexion · · Score: 4, Funny

      I hear in soviet Russia they've had this tech since the 80's. :P

  3. I wonder what it thinks my cats like by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, a cat food commercial will be presented whenever one of my cats enters the room?

    --
    In Liberty, Rene
    1. Re:I wonder what it thinks my cats like by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, your cats likely buy very little cat food.

      They'll already have your grocery bills, whether they be through paying with a card or by using a "rebate" card, so they'll already know that it's you who buy cat food, so they will show the ads when you enter the room.

      Oh, and that search you did for "pregnancy risk" the other day? Unencrypted through your cable modem, by the same provider as your cable TV? With a contract giving them a right to monitor all traffic? Expect to see a lot of diapers and baby food commercials for the next couple of years.

      Welcome to Ayn Rand's world. Please take a seat (great couch cleaning service starting at $5.99) and relax.

  4. wait by Fusen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    why would any customer want this?

    1. Re:wait by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      people are idiots; they will trade their privacy for a 'goodie'.

      some goodie will be presented. discounts or some motivator. it will be very cheap and laughable but people will sell their souls for bullshit token items. ever see a stampede at trade shows for the give-aways that are 'cool' ? same deal, here.

      go to slickdeals (site) and watch how many people sign up for emailings from companies or will fill out lengthy forms to get a token piece of junk or a $10 discount on something. they'll give lots of info away and not even care. they'll justify it with 'but I'm getting this neat thing for free! its FREE. how can that be bad?'

      that is a prevalent form of modern thinking. at least in the consumer age (20's 30's).

      we already accept cameras at nearly every traffic light. in the UK, its more invasive than that. people tolerate loss of privacy.

      I weep for us, because we value it so little and are quickly willing to sell it out for virtually nothing. once gone, its gone, too.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  5. Two words by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Electrical tape. Same as for obnoxiously bright LEDs.

  6. TV is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am 44 years old and I grew up with TV. None of my kids watch TV. I do not watch TV. Nobody I know watches TV. The TV is now just a screen in which content which is chosen by the person, at a time specified by the user, is displayed. Yeah, there are still people out there but that whole model of forced advertising is going away. The writing is on the wall.

    strike

  7. A telescreen? by griffjon · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. [...] The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.[...] It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

    Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. "

    Via http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

    --
    Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
  8. Buy a second TV by Golden_Rider · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and let them watch each other. And enjoy the hilarity of seeing them both trying to serve ads to each other. And then implode.

  9. Cognovision by MoGrapher · · Score: 3, Informative

    I wonder if this has come out of Intel's acquision of Cognovision, and I hope it's better than what they gave developers in 2011. I worked with this product for about a year, attempting to integrate it into our digital signage systems. Not only did it take a dedicated i5 with 2gb of RAM to safely run in the background, it often (as much as 40% of the time) produced the wrong information about a person. Gender was correct about 80% of the time, age was correct in only about 30% of samples, and race was almost never correct (except for very dark skinned folks were alwas called determined to be of African origin).

    The result was that we had to write an algorythm to essentially average out samples over a given duration. When we took 500 samples over 5 seconds, dropped the extremes, and averaged the rest we improved the accuracy to nearly 85%, but that is still pretty bad when you consider that automated actions will be taken based on those results (i.e. to play content for YOUR demographic).

    I don't really want my TV watching me.

    -MoG