tangent4ronpaul
12-05-2012, 12:32 PM
http://www.webpronews.com/verizon-patents-a-dvr-that-spies-on-you-2012-12
Verizon is moving into the targeted ad business in a big way. The wireless carrier announced a new campaign yesterday called Verizon Selects that would allow them to share a customer’s info with advertisers. Now the carrier has patented a device that makes its previous tracking efforts seem sophomorish in comparison.
Ars Technica reports that Verizon has just filed a patent for a DVR that comes equipped with a camera and mic. What would the camera be used for? It would spy on you day and night, collect information about your habits and deliver targeted ads based upon that information. It’s an advertiser’s dream come true, and everybody else’s worst Orwellian nightmare.
The patent filing lists a number of actions and objects that the camera and mic would be able to detect. It would be used to detect the usual objects like the number of people present and what they’re saying and doing. It goes into some weirder territory later on, however, when it says that they would want it to detect pets or the products being used by people, like a specific brand of chips.
Ars points to a particular example of how a camera and mic would be used in conjunction to deliver targeted ads to a couple. If the mic picks up sounds of fighting, it would deliver an ad for relationship counseling. Likewise, sounds of cuddling would present an ad for contraceptives.
Realistically speaking, this kind of tech is likely to never make it to market. US citizens have an expectation of privacy, and blatantly infringing upon that makes people angry. Verizon, or anybody else who has patented similar technologies, could sneak it to market, but the potential backlash is just too risky.
How to get targeted ads on your TV? Try a camera in your set-top box.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/how-to-get-targeted-ads-on-your-tv-a-camera-in-your-set-top-box/
Verizon has filed a patent for a DVR that can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. In the application, the company proposes to use the technology to serve targeted ads appropriate to whatever you’re doing in the, uh, privacy of your own home—fighting, cuddling, or hanging out with your cats.
Verizon is far from the first company to think of this unassailably creepy use for a set-top box. Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 for recommending content based on people it recognizes in the room :eek: ; Google proposed yet another patent for Google TV that would use audio and video recorders to figure out how many people in a room are watching the current broadcast.
Verizon filed for the application in May 2011, and it was just published last week. (By law, all patent applications are published after 18 months.) In the document, which was first noticed by FierceCable, Verizon gives two examples of the context-sensitive DVR’s use in a couple’s living room: sounds of arguing prompt ads for marriage counseling, while sounds of “cuddling” prompts ads for contraceptives. Charming.
Generally, these uses of cameras and mics frighten the living daylights out of customers (understandably so), so all of these patents have yet to be put to use. Still, the wheels continue to turn in content providers’ heads about how to get eyes and ears in your living room, even as the creepiness factor persists.
-t
Verizon is moving into the targeted ad business in a big way. The wireless carrier announced a new campaign yesterday called Verizon Selects that would allow them to share a customer’s info with advertisers. Now the carrier has patented a device that makes its previous tracking efforts seem sophomorish in comparison.
Ars Technica reports that Verizon has just filed a patent for a DVR that comes equipped with a camera and mic. What would the camera be used for? It would spy on you day and night, collect information about your habits and deliver targeted ads based upon that information. It’s an advertiser’s dream come true, and everybody else’s worst Orwellian nightmare.
The patent filing lists a number of actions and objects that the camera and mic would be able to detect. It would be used to detect the usual objects like the number of people present and what they’re saying and doing. It goes into some weirder territory later on, however, when it says that they would want it to detect pets or the products being used by people, like a specific brand of chips.
Ars points to a particular example of how a camera and mic would be used in conjunction to deliver targeted ads to a couple. If the mic picks up sounds of fighting, it would deliver an ad for relationship counseling. Likewise, sounds of cuddling would present an ad for contraceptives.
Realistically speaking, this kind of tech is likely to never make it to market. US citizens have an expectation of privacy, and blatantly infringing upon that makes people angry. Verizon, or anybody else who has patented similar technologies, could sneak it to market, but the potential backlash is just too risky.
How to get targeted ads on your TV? Try a camera in your set-top box.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/how-to-get-targeted-ads-on-your-tv-a-camera-in-your-set-top-box/
Verizon has filed a patent for a DVR that can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. In the application, the company proposes to use the technology to serve targeted ads appropriate to whatever you’re doing in the, uh, privacy of your own home—fighting, cuddling, or hanging out with your cats.
Verizon is far from the first company to think of this unassailably creepy use for a set-top box. Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 for recommending content based on people it recognizes in the room :eek: ; Google proposed yet another patent for Google TV that would use audio and video recorders to figure out how many people in a room are watching the current broadcast.
Verizon filed for the application in May 2011, and it was just published last week. (By law, all patent applications are published after 18 months.) In the document, which was first noticed by FierceCable, Verizon gives two examples of the context-sensitive DVR’s use in a couple’s living room: sounds of arguing prompt ads for marriage counseling, while sounds of “cuddling” prompts ads for contraceptives. Charming.
Generally, these uses of cameras and mics frighten the living daylights out of customers (understandably so), so all of these patents have yet to be put to use. Still, the wheels continue to turn in content providers’ heads about how to get eyes and ears in your living room, even as the creepiness factor persists.
-t