Posted on 07/28/2013 10:41:21 PM PDT by george76
Pay-TV providers like Verizon and tech giants like Microsoft are developing devices that can monitor our behaviors as we watch TV and play games.
“Watching the watchers” is taking on a whole new meaning.
News that Google .. may be developing a television set-top box with a motion sensor and video camera has rekindled the debate over technology that can record so-called ambient action. Should a TV-mounted box have the ability to track our movements, record our voices and monitor our behaviors? Should cable providers and tech companies be allowed to collect such information without our consent?
Lawmakers and privacy advocates are asking such questions as companies continue to experiment with data collection that will extend beyond our gadgets and into our living rooms and bedrooms. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google privately showed off a prototype device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January. The company is one of many tech players looking to compete with pay-TV providers, who themselves have been exploring new ways to capture information about viewers’ behavior.
In November, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) filed a patent application for a set-top box that delivers advertisements based on users’ behaviors
...
Creeped out yet? You’re not alone
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
Is Your Cable Box Spying On You? Behavior-Detecting Devices From Verizon, Microsoft And Others Worry Privacy Advocates
In Soviet Amerika the TV is watching you!
A couple minutes with a screwdriver and a soldering iron and it will be blind and deaf like it ahould have been in the first place.
Put one of those toy dunking birds in front of it.
You know what.... the new XBOX One will have a camera, mic, and sensors that will be able to recognize the face of its owner and what he is doing with his hands.
All of this info will be available to the feds.
This has been going on for years. I remember hearing about it in 1991.
And the cable company will terminate your service and ding you a couple hundred bills for tampering with their box. It’ll be part of the Terms of Service, and most won’t read far enough to see it, and will agree without understanding what they’re signing.
Will never hppen in MD where I live - must have consent of the owner of residence in order to surveil.
Carriers will never get authority from the MD PSC to deny service to a residence if owner does not consent.
Big Brother.
1984
Here...now.
I wish it were that easy. ;-)
The question is: If enough of subscribers leave cable can they SURVIVE without us?
What pitch would Huma and Anthony see?
they will also collect data on whether those in the room are actually watching the program/ads
Stupid bill!
The correct action is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the user absolute control over the actions of information processing devices he owns. No more than two or three sentences.
Might such a law kill an important US industry or two? Maybe. Maybe not. Does cynwoody care? Hell no!
I thought the same thing. This is not new. That is why, periodically, while watching TV, I raise my middle finger at my TV, assuming someone is watching me through it. F them.
Or an ad for their local gun shop ...
During a Obama speech. Yes Dear Leader, yes Dear Leader...
no cable, no dish.
That computer monitor is probably looking back at you, too.
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