Consumerist
Where's my tinfoil? Comcast's senior VP of user experience, Gerard Kunkel, apparently wants to put a camera in your cable box and use it to serve ads.
From NewTeeVee:
If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who's in your living room.Do not want. New TeeVee also has a video interview with Mr. Kunkel in which he talks about the TiVo rollout in Boston and other cableriffic topics. Seems like a nice guy, but I wouldn't let him put a camera in my living room.The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the "holy grail" because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.
Kunkel said the system wouldn't be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn't be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn't been consumer testing, and that any rollout "must add value" to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.
Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You? [NewTeeVee] (Thanks, Graham!)
(Photo:cmorran123)
Comments
OVER MY FUCKING DEAD BODY. (vomits)
He just wants the Comcast goons to be able to spy on teenagers making out of the couces of America. Find your own excitement Kunkel!
You've got to be kidding me.
Oh helllllll noooooo. No effing way, thank you very much. On what planet does this seem like a good idea?
That is, couches- not couces. Sofas, loveseats, settees, etc.
Horrible. We could probably manage to block the feed to disconnect the camera is we're able to open our cable boxes... which I dunno if they'd let that happen easily. (without special screw driverz)
I would never allow the camera.
Damn, which group is a greater scourge on this country -- lawyers or marketing people?
That's so creepy. But solved easily by a piece of opaque tape. Until, I suppose, Comcast bribes some lawmaker into making it illegal to tape over their spycams.
If this happens, I'm buying stock in a company which makes black electrical tape.
So are companies' plans based entirely on cynical speculative fiction now?
As if I needed yet another reason to keep being cable-less.
I do not need BBCAmerica that badly.
Wow... That is quite possibly the stupidest idea ever.
Wow.
Just wow.
Oh yeah, the invasion of privacy advocates will be all over this one in a hurry. 1) I wouldn't want a camera in my living room, corporations have no right to look into my home to see what I am doing. 2) If this technology can recognize forms, could it not also reveal what these forms are doing in the living room. I'm not an exhibitionist comcast but thanks for the offer.
The truly sad thing is these people are paid HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars to come up with stuff like this. How could it have gotten this far before someone stopped and said: "Excuse me guys but do any of you realize how STUPID this is?"
I say just tape up a goatse picture in front of the camera, but i'd be afraid of what targetted ads that would bring.
No thanks, if this happens, Comcast has finally broken the final straw
Comcast is really trying their hardest to morph from top contender for worst company in America to superevil corporation, aren't they?
They just want to monitor the guy who jacks off to porn on their On Demand service...
Or the woman...
@GrandizerGo:
Oh, my god...can you imagine the possibilities there for tailoring the VOD services...
Doesn't my Telescreen already do this ?
I agree that this is a crazy idea, however this might fly if they design it so that all the "body type recognition" is done inside the box and no pictures are sent to Comcast.
Given the other absurd violations of privacy that we have put up with, such as the Gmail ads based on the contents of your e-mail, or the proposed ads via cell phone based on your location, I fear that this Comcast imager may actually happen.
I know consumerist would never lie to me, but this just cant be true. I mean Bush monitors couple phone lines and there is mass hysteria. You put cameras in everyones homes?
No one likes to be advertised to. No one likes to be monitored. There is no way this can be true. No one is dumb enough to think Americans, or anyone, would use their service.
And you would think advertisers would stay away from it too.
You know George Orwell had something like this is his novel 1984. It just went over sooo well then.
but on second though, it would be funny that midgets could never watch rated R movies because the camera would see them as kids.
It's like they're just asking for someone to start wagging their junk in front of the camera nonstop...
@Bladefist: I dunno...with the possible exception of New Coke, when was the last time anyone really screwed up by betting on the stupidity of the American Consumer at large?
Thank God I have a choice for cable that is not Comcast. Otherwise, time to get out the duct tape.
@mikemar42: my thoughts exactly.
The camera will also be useful for the star of the fitness program you're watching, so that they can scold you for not keeping up....
No.No and NO.
Getting a big dish, buying all our own equipment and just buying our 4DTV subscriptions from the sat dish middlemen is starting to actually sound like a good idea. Like these guys [skyvision.com]
The outlay of equipment and maintenance is sounding like less hassle that some of the cable providers.
@mikemar42: Are you questioning your loyalty to the Party?
Cool . . . anyone here read "1984"???
"Please face the camera for facial recognition"
*Drops his pants and moons the camera.*
If screwing with our packets is good enough for them then this should be too!
BULL - FRICKIN - SHIT! That little camera would be rendered useless so fast, the cable box would think it fell off a truck.
Why in the world would ANYONE think this is a good idea?
Comcast, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD. Put this idea where it belongs...in the garbage can, right there with your customer service.
Recognize your house by body forms? Is there suddenly going to be additional charges based on the total number of body forms recognized a month? I wouldn't put that sort of thing past Comcast.
@chiieddy: And BBC America is on Dish Network. :)
@Underpants Gnome: Too funny!
Years ago, I worked for a large company (it rhymed with Feneral Goods). We used Nielsen's for ratings of commercials. They planned to provide pendants that would be worn around the neck and a cable box attachment that would record who was watching the TV during the commercials. The participant families would, of course, be rewarded for their efforts. The pendants would detect body heat, so you just couldn't leave the pendant in the room and leave the TV on and then go make snacks, or whatever. The joke going around, though, was how many pendants would Fido be wearing while chained in front of the TV. This current scenario would have to be an extension of that experiment :)
They's just incorporate the lense in with the remote sensor so you HAVE to leave it uncovered.
I can just see this now: You don't pay your Comcast bill, and they use the cameras to see when you're home to come collect. Or if you don't pay they turn the cameras into live feeds available via pay-per-view for paying customers. I wouldn't put it past Comcrap.
Next step: stream all knowledge directly to The Riddler.
@HalOfBorg: Good point. Damn you, HalOfBorg!
It couldn't possibly work anyway. People aren't robots who march into the living room and sit bolt-upright on official TV-watching furniture for the duration of a program.
@mikemar42: Naw, I think its the remote ;)
@Underpants Gnome: I would like to subscribe to yours newsletter.
How many seconds would that camera was active before it had tape or even better, colored out with Sharpie after the Comcast douche installed it?
About .3 seconds...
That is if I actually went with Comcast Cable in the first place... Which I won't.
"In Soviet Russia, TV Watches YOU!"
(Someone had to say it, it is tradition!)
DO NOT WANT.
Good thing I watch tv naked at all times. Makes watching Justice League a little awkward, but still.
Oh, right, I dont have Comcast.
Over my dead body.
Communist URSS wasn't as bad. It's true that USA became what communism wanted to be. Power thirsty government and total surveillance.
@CityGuySailing: Than you for the great idea. Must buy a Fido now!
I've checked every calendar in a 20-mile radius. It isn't April 1st yet.
Someone must have released the April Fools story a week early by mistake. Please, God, let it be that someone released the story early.
@friendlynerd: Then people will stop buying the crap.
By the way, more and more TV is available online.
In Russia, several channels already have live feed. (More competition to classic providers).
I dream about the day when I can get rid of cable to get all of my shows on the web.
I'm on digital basic cable. The box was filtering out HD channels, so I dumped it for an antenna - the rabbit ears type - and got all the channels I care about in HD. Out of curiosity, I plugged the cable directly into the TV, and got all the digital channels, AND all the HD channels.
From the Comcast Website the only benefits to the box are Pay-Per-View, ON DEMAND and the Comcast On-Screen Program Guide. I don't use those. The Comcast box now lives in a drawer.
Wait for kids to figure out that all they need to do to get around the protection is to put a photograph in front of the camera.
@nytmare: Good. Very good. That's just what the party wants you to think.
What's the big deal. Everyone knows that the little people inside that glass box can already see out. They just pretend not to.
If I agree to one of these newfangled cable boxes with a camera in it to display personalized ads and I cover the camera lens with a piece of duct tape does it mean I won't get any annoying ads?