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Kinect: You Are the Controlled
theodp writes "GeekWire reports on a newly-surfaced Microsoft patent application for 'Targeting Advertisements Based on Emotion', which describes how information gleaned from Kinects, webcams, online games, IMs, email, searches, webpage content, and browsers could be used to build an 'Emotional State Database' of individuals' emotions over time for advertisers to tap into. From the patent application: 'Weight-loss product advertisers may not want their advertisement to appear to users that are very happy. Because, a person that is really happy, is less likely to purchase a self-investment product that leverages on his or her shortcomings. But a really happy person may purchase electronic products or vacation packages. No club or party advertisers want to appear when the user is sad or crying. When the user is emotionally sad, advertisements about club parties would not be appropriate and may seem annoying or negative to the user. Online help or technical support advertisers want their advertisements to appear when the user is demonstrating a confused or frustrated emotional state.'"
Why am I thinking of the old Clippy cartoon, "You look like you are writing a suicide note..." and now with ads for rope, guns, cheap Canadian pharmacies...
I don't know why anyone would ever buy something like that, but I do know that people will. Just look at how many people use Facebook now, which tracks everything they do online for the purpose of advertising to them.
This will be like that. You might think, "Wow, nobody would ever be that stupid!" but people will just watch.
If Kinect can see my enraged expression at yet another ad with loud, obnoxious music peddling something I've not the slightest interest in and show a different one I'd be happy... or to be more precise, less angry.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Ads might help bring the prices down for Kinect hardware, once its mainstream some version of Adblock for Kinect will come along.
There's no reason a happy fat person wouldn't be interested in a weight loss product. Being happy doesn't mean happy about being fat.
Sounds more like the marketing is targeting the unhappy because they are more vulnerable and susceptible to buying crap; it's not /product/ related
Does it patch me through to MS tech support and turn on my hot cocoa maker?
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
I personally don't like being tracked at this level of detail, because it exposes me to risks of identity theft, lifestyle discrimination, and possibly even government intimidation. Is this just old-people-paranoia over risks so tiny that they are laughable? I really don't know. But I DO know that I maintain completely separate identities on the few social networking tools I actually use (no facebook or linkedin or any of that...my skype account is for work only, my ventrillo account isn't monitored by microsoft or google, none of my email accounts have my real name associated with them, etc).
This doesn't mean I have escaped tracking. By virtue of the fact that I own a credit card I already have a consumer profile available for purchase by anyone with the right industry connections (and so do you, of course). But by keeping my identities scattered, I minimize the amount that any single entity knows about me (and keep it to zero in some cases, since they know something about someone they can't identify), and still get most of the benefits the services provide.
So I am not off the grid, I am just blury. Being blury minimizes my risks. You can be blury too, if you bother to put an ounce of effort into it.
Class 201: The Dark Ages
Today we examine the early 21st century nation state once referred to as “America” but now classified as the Dark Age. The political and financial manipulation practiced on the masses then was through a deftly controlled network of so-called think tanks, foundations, research centers and pre-positioned academics.
An excellent example would be a pseudo-educational complex, MIT, later bombed and razed during the Revolution of 2023 (see Mbotu and Heineman, Zeno ScholarGrid, circa 2045), where academics referred to as “economists” would spread propaganda and misinformation while pretending to represent the interests of the people.
One academic poseur, whose position was financed by the military-intel firm, Mitre, would mislead and confuse on labor economics. Another academic poseur, whose position was financed through a series of phantom foundations by the oligarch, the family known as the Rockefellers, would mix truth and fiction, confusing and bewildering the masses while claiming that his backers, the Rockefellers, had given away their fortune through philanthropy.
These were dark times, indeed!
The same political henchmen and women would continue to re-surface in presidential administration through presidential administration, from the Carter administration through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush (the son of the previously mentioned Bush – evidently some type of quasi-dynastic rule?), Obama and Mueller; difficult to believe so many were so easily duped, but literacy was at an all-time low during the Dark Age.
The ruling oligarchs of that period had succeeded in hiding their ownership and wealth, and the populace strangely enough appeared to remain incurious as to who exerted control over their daily lives.
Many routinely believed the political lackeys and servants of the oligarchs were actually in control – difficult as that may be to accept today – that was the reality in that era. (See Rule by the Hegemon, Chao and Zuma, circa 2051).
“Class, please review Chapter 17: Mind Control Through Cloud Computing and Social Networking for next week.”
[Soft tones signal end of session]
Note: Futura Fantasia was the name Ray Bradbury gave his high school newspaper which he published frequently during his later school years.
Ray Bradbury
1920-2012
Rest In Peace, Oh Mighty and Eloquent Wordsmith.
Just another detail in the race to implement constant commercial surveillance of everybody's home and another reason to opt-out of this technical innovation.
A few more of the stories and the idea of being watched by your TV will seem normal. But not acceptable to me or anybody who cares even slightly about privacy.
the process by which they sign certificates for malware?
If this is the direction the Internet is going, then it's getting close to time to dump it completely. What they're describing is a total and complete invasion of people's privacy, and I for one won't stand for it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Here's a new idea: Turn that Kinect or other camera around and point it at a video feed that comes from somewhere else. Say I want to watch cerain kinds of ads. I substitute the video feed from the Kinect (or Sanyo or whatever device) with a video stream designed to elicit the kinds of ads I want to see. It never actually sees me. It sees old Leave it to Beaver reruns, or Scooby Doo episodes. Whatever you want. Or turn it around and show it the program that it's sending you right now. That would be an interesting experiment in itself. Would it settle into one of a number of stable advertising states?
You hit the nail on the head.
Yes, purchases are tracked, with newer facial recognition used, even people paying cash can be identified.
However, this doesn't mean I am going to give what and who I am on a silver platter to people who constantly want to tweak my nose and say that I'm inadequate without their product [1].
By using separate Web browsers, AdBlock, and blocking Flash, it reduces one's identifiable fingerprint greatly. Why should my Vent account have my real name and such linked to it when all I might be doing is hearing some WoW kiddie on a raid stuff a condom-wrapped mic down the toilet, flush repeatedly, and yell, "I AM THE WATER GOD"?
I have multiple E-mail accounts. If someone wants me for work related stuff, I have one addy for that. General crap goes to another. Secure channel [2] stuff goes to a third address.
Yes, our privacy is being destroyed, but why make the advertisers' jobs any easier? Being blurry is a good thing. Especially if the screws get tightened down more and we start seeing arrests due to political views in countries under the guise of "disaffection" or "terrorist thought".
[1]: A real man doesn't compensate by buying a red sports car, Harley, or F-550 with duallies. A real man can use his fingers, toes, and tongue to get the job done.
[2]: A geek should have a gpg or PGP key available somehow, and perhaps signed. Normally it really is rare if someone would bother encrypting a message, but there have been incidents where I am glad I had the ability to speak freely with someone.
You know what I do...whenever im on someone's laptop doing something with it, i tape paper over the built in webcam, and if i owned an x-box (which I think qualifies you to suffer all kinds of stupidity for being stupid enough to actually own it) with a kinnect...i'd just unplug it when not using it if i were concerned about privacy
Am I the only one who is tempted to put duct tape on everything with a camera on it? We have curtains to keep people from peeking in. Why do we accept total strangers to watch us, analyze us and 'target' us with advertizing crap?!?
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I'd be more willing to pay attention to this news if the history of "targeted advertising" hadn't been so wonderfully, idiotically, shit. Perhaps a Microsoft offering like this might just achieve something worthwhile, but I'm not holding my breath. Let's see how the much-vaunted personalisation algos are these days:
I splash my personal browsing habits and general information all over the web (I don't even log out of FB most of the time) yet I have never been aware of anything other than random, pathetically irrelevant ads. As of writing, I have my Gmail open in another tab and I'm looking at an automated mail from Spotify that says "Anna just joined Spotify" - Anna is a friend of mine. Now, what do you think the mighty Google might be selecting, given that it knows lots and lots about me, and reads all my emails numbering tens of thousands? Tadaa!! "How To Declare Bankruptcy" and "Easy Web Site Builder". WFT? I'm not even self-employed, have never been in fact, and tons of my emails deal with subjects such as Apache and MySQL (I maintain a small little server for my friends). Why the hell would I want an easy web site built?
Maybe that was atypical. Let's try another. Here's one from a recruitment agent asking me about a job in user experience (I'm a designer). Google decides to show me these: "Gap Year Placements" and "Doctors in hot demand" - Huh?? I'm not a student!! I'm not a doctor!! Does Google know NOTHING about me after over five years of intensive Gmail use??
I dunno, maybe if I was a one-eyed teenage porno extra or something, I might be seeing relevant stuff in my datasphere, but right now it's just not happening.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Bipverts? Making it illegal to turn the TV off?
Where controller controls ME?
If it weren't for this I would never have learned about this Prozac ice cream and the Microsoft Anti-Fan club! Ok technically it's my local LUG, but I'd never have learned about them had Microsoft not detected my intense hatred of them and delivered an ad!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Make the product info easy to find, and accurate... place in on the internet. Done.
Shoving ads in my face will cause me to boycott the product. If I want to know about it, I'll look for it myself.
If I'm bored and want to discover things, it's not by ads that I find them.
Marketing need to grow the f#@k up. Knowing more about me, isn't going to sell your crap to me.
And they cant see boo. If they start reading my private messages and emails so they can mine 'emotional states', i'm suing for privacy invasion.
If i post something public that i can be identified by, well that is my fault.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One step on the way to accepting governmental surveillance.
Ill have my black electricians tape at the ready.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Full stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
A large dose of cynicism, some superiority and a touch of apathy. I'm going to work on it in the mirror right now.
Have gnu, will travel.
What good does it do to find fish if you can't make 'em bite your hook?
Now, the system we are working on at Retina-Hook Tech, it won't depend on the moon or mamma to set the mood. We're working on nerve-stimulating microchips tapping into optic nerves responding to scan-patterns laser-tattoo'd on customer retinas (in the peripheral-vision area, so the patterns won't interfere with center-focus vision; we don't want to get sued).
When we've perfected our product, merchants with something to sell will just hire us, we'll flash the right optic code to our tattoos (licensed, so we, not the customers, always own them, and the chips, so we can program them any ways we want, any time we want, with no legal hassle), to set the right emotional and wanna-have hooks, the signal will trigger the micro-chips, the micro-chip will goose the customers to hunger. The merchant will just have to reel in the hooked fish.
Say you just bought a warehouse full of old Coleco Adam computers and want to sell the dinosaurs. It will take about ten days to sell ten million when our system is up and running. Not only that, we'll be able to pinpoint-target customers, say electronic engineers and IT people, to be your buyers, so you'll know they will have the money to buy. We'll goose 'em to think the Colecos will become antiques some day. Or if you have only one and want your auction of it on ebay to go over the moon, just license our flicker-gif to put on your auction-page, then watch the bids roll up!
We gotta do Just a little more perfecting on our retinal tattoo technology and then we'll float an IPO to get money to cover the cost to lobby Congress, so we can get retinal tattooing and micro-chipping tied in with immunization of children in the law. We'll probably have to agree to tie-ins with the FBI and Homeland-Security, let them use our tech to make people confess what they're up to, to keep the country safe. But, hey, this is the United States of America in the 21st century, baby! With those tie-ins we'll be in like politicians, that is, if they are smart ones and license our flicker-gifs to play on their ads.
What about not showing me yet another Geico advertisement when I get angry every time I see their logo, reinforcing my negative feelings from years back when they ripped me off, which I am reminded of every time I watch their commercials and which I would likely forget about otherwise after those 11 years. Good job Geico. Same goes for other companies.
If you got a tech to judge my emotional state, don't judge it before the ad, judge the way I react to it and if its a strongly negative one (annoyed, angry, frustrated), just stop the ad right away. If its bored, I'd probably seen it and still remember so no need to watch more than 5s spot, since you already reminded me of the product, so safe to stop that as well, but maybe not remove from circulation like in the former case.
Also, ad delivery networks should understand that they are damaging their own brand by consistently showing me ads from companies I hate with passion. They get to share the feelings by association. So since every other ad on Hulu is from Geico, they managed to change their image from a favorite service to a place I dread to go and would rather pay for the content if available than to watch it on Hulu with stupid Geico ads. Good job on ignoring my 250 nos on the "Is this ad relevant?" question, Hulu. Bravo.
Just my 2c
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Jump lab rat jump.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
That useless hunk of shit I overpaid wayyyy to much on because of promises of cool games and interaction that lost its novelty after about 2 weeks because taking more time and energy to wave my hand and talking outloud instead of just pushing a button is actually being used by enough people to warrant this kind of advertising?
Kinect is a waste of money and plastic. The wiimote is a better control device than the kinect the wiimote is a piece of shit that isnt 1/10th as good as the ps3 Move which still even it sucks because motion control sucks, I just got dazzled by it and foolishly bought a kinect. Luckily amazon was more than happy to refund my money.
Back to the advertising. I dont give a rats ass because I dont watch tv. I DVR stuff the very few programs I want to see on history channel, pbs and discovery. Everything else I watch for free online or access via netflix. Aside from banners on websites I havent actually had to watch a commercial so far this entire year more than just a few times. No way in hell Im doing anything on my console that will push more commercials on me.
Hell I dont even have my 360 hooked up to the internet and havent for a year or more just because there is no reason for me to. I refuse to pay for XBL when I can play games online free on my pc and 360, I can watch shows and movies on netflix, and well basically I dont do anything with my 360 but play single player games that are exclusive to it that I cant get on my ps3 and then pc first.
Fuck the kinect, fuck advertisements and fuck the kinect watching me to tell me what ads to show me. Last thing I want is a god damn device watching me.
I find *ALL* advertising to be annoying and unwanted, the more custom tailored it is to me the more offensive I find it. Also, advertising seems to operate under the assumption that people have money to spend. Tell me, how is an advertising based economy going to work when every year more and more people are unemployed? I don't care how targeted and relevant your ads are, people without jobs aren't going to buy your product/service.
The advertising economy is headed for a huge crash. It's a scam, top to bottom.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Oh, I get it. The advertisers are schooled in psychology 101, but do they actually help people or even attempt to? Its all about the money, I've never seen them actually care if they annoy anyone.. [ geco, you can spend 15 minutes making us a dollar on your car insurance[pp]! ] That is the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Is anyone taking all this Kinect crap seriously? In my area nobody really cares, including me. Personally, I don't really want to shout or wave my arms like an idiot for the computer to do something. Keyboard or a controller sounds much more comfortable.
I have taken the same step. Mostly switched "watch tv" to "meet with friend / play games/ watch internet with adblocking".
All Kinect users are equal, but some are more equal than others.
When I first saw this headline, I was enraged at the fact that something like the natural progression of targeted advertising could be covered by a patent. Then I thought about it for a second and realized that the inability of companies other than Microsoft to perform this kind of targeted advertising may actually be a good thing for me. Since I don't use many Microsoft services, I won't have to worry about being assaulted with this kind of advertising from the services I do use.
On a somewhat related note, perhaps companies should be more concerned with overloading their viewers with their ads. After a couple of days of browsing YouTube and seeing a 30-second spot for SK Energy or Vitamin Water every 10 minutes, I can guarantee that I will never buy any of their products. If I was a dick, I would file a patent for offering advertising services that guarantee that the ad would only be displayed to a user once every few hours to ensure that I don't overload them with my ads and push them away from my product.
You look unhappy Dave...
Also makes me think of the robot from the movie "Moon".
Waiting for next generation psychological software now...
In the future everyone will wear privacy masks.
Although I can see how a product based on this patent would appeal to advertisers, it does not appeal to me. I want to decide, rather than have corporations decide, what products I might want to buy. Plus I don't feel comfortable with the thought of corporations storing my emotional life in a database. That seems like a violation of privacy.
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