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Kinect: You Are the Controlled

Posted by timothy on from the read-'em-but-avoid-weeping dept.

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.'"

5 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe not such a bad thing... by newcastlejon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Maybe not such a bad thing... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even better: apparently you can wear your "crying" mask for a relaxed, ad-free evening of TV viewing.

      Seriously, where have we gone wrong? Somehow, ads seem to have become so important that they have to be crammed into every waking second of our lives (and perhaps into our sleeping time too, at some point). The amount of advertising still seems to be going up, with an every increasing number of commercial breaks, and more recently the annoying popups and overlays during the shows themselves. And everybody's sick of it. Yet there's no apparent consumer outcry for less advertising.

      Sure, ads pay for part of the content, but at some point you'd think the market gets saturated. We can increase ads from 6 blocks an hour to 12, have constant overlays, product placement and perhaps ad jingles playing the the background of the show's audio track, but at some point consumers aren't going to buy more, and ad budgets are going to be exhausted. Or have companies entered into some sick arms race, were your ad *has* to be the loudest, and in all of the 12 commercial breaks during one show, in order to beat the competition?

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  2. Re:Why am I thinking of the old Clippy cartoon... by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah. Also, noticing that you're getting ads for depressed people can be quite depressing.

    On that note, when you are doing research, and you come across a company you have never heard of before, and go to their website, AND THEN SEE THE SAME FRICKIN BANNER ADD ON EVERY OTHER WEBSITE FOR WEEKS, does this actually make anyone want to buy the product? It actually drove me away from both Simple Mobile, and Data Foundry. And they both had products that actually sounded pretty good until I was hounded away...

  3. Re:Why am I thinking of the old Clippy cartoon... by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In my experience with TV, no one should watch it.

  4. Re:the sad thing is people will buy it by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, as long as you're going to be shown ads, you might as well

    That's a defeatist attitude. Settling for less is the reason why we have a progressively less free, and less private society, and why people with power (influence & money, which is really money and money) continue to abuse people without consequence.

    I refuse.

    Advertisements are an abomination and only serve as an affront to an advanced and intellectual society. There is no amount of money, or shiny, that will get me to participate in such offensive and vapid wastes of time.

    So I can't watch sports anymore because it is a screen full of advertisements. Big deal. If I really liked the sport so damned much... I could get off my ass and go do it. The only difference between me and NASCAR are the police who object to me driving like that.

    So I can't purchase new consoles that want to destroy me freedom (specifically peaceful enjoyment of property) and take away my privacy so they can make even more money. Big freakin deal. There will be plenty of open source alternatives (Humble Bundle aint bad) and given enough time, technology like Kinect will be developed by competitors, hacked, and applied to open source alternatives that don't exploit you.

    So I can't watch TV anymore. Yeah.... *huge* loss there. I have been set free since I stopped watching TV nearly 10 years ago. There are a couple of shows that I am interested in and I just pirate the web releases that have no commercials and no overlays during the programming itself. Pay for Netflix and purchase DVD box sets when I really like a show.

    So I can't stand outside my car when I fill up with gas because those asshats want to put in 30 display screens playing advertisements WITH sound blaring. Fine, fuck-em. I get back in my car and turn on the music a little louder and relax till the indicator says it has stopped filling up.

    So I can't get a magazine anymore. Big Whoop. The quality of journalism has plummeted into the depths of the sewer system since I grew up anyways. Far better off just purchasing a book that will have far more detailed information and analysis about a topic than a vapid, attention-getting-whore of a journalistic attempt in some paper.

    So I can't listen to the radio anymore. Well that's a dying format anyways. A couple of dollars a month and I get commercial free music and programming at my fingertips, with premium options giving me more on demand control.

    So I don't have a usable mailbox anymore because junk mail advertisers fill it up in 2 days with useless and environmentally unsustainable advertising. Solved that more than 10 years ago with a single private mailbox store that filters all presort class mail into the recycle bin for me.

    So I can't surf the web anymore like I did when it was first created. Yeah.. that one did not affect me all that much since I was doing my best effort from the start to defeat tracking and prevent advertisements from hitting my screen at all. It is very rare that I encounter one now.

    So I can't just allow anybody to email me anymore. I run my own mail server. A couple thousand aliases and counting. Anytime a single piece of SPAM makes it to the inbox (which made it past the filters and RBL's) I just destroy the alias and deliver a new one to the source if I deem it appropriate. My business cards have a random prefix plus my name that I print out. Makes it easier to manage.

    In about another 10 years or so I will seriously consider a Kickstarter like project to create augmented reality glasses that can remove all advertisements from my field of view. Granted, that is quite problematic and has serious philosophical and societal implications, but let's face it, by then it will be all out techno-war for your attention and any hope at a peaceful quite life of intellectual pursuits will hinge upon your ability to tune out the massive amount of noise corporations want to throw at you.

    Never give up. Never surrender. Plenty of options.. including the best move... not to play.