New DVR will use camera and microphone to target advertisements based on recordings of users
everynametaken Send a noteboard - 05/12/2012 06:53:30 AM
It won't be long before our televisions are watching us.
You don't have to be paranoid or even a privacy expert to find this development a little creepy. Verizon has filed a patent on a new DVR technology that works by filming and recording viewers in order to send them targeted ads through their TV's.
"If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words," Verizon states in its application,which was first reported by Fierce Cable.
The patent was actually filed by Verizon in 2011 but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't required to release patent filings for 18 months.
And before you dismiss concerns over the new technology, which works as a software application, just consider two of the examples Verizon gives of how its new DVR technology could be used: sounds of couples arguing would trigger ads for marriage counseling while sounds of "cuddling" would prompt ads for contraceptives.
All together, the patent filing listed 20 examples, or "claims," of when the DVR technology could be used for the application, which is entitled, "Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a User."
As ArsTechnica points out, Verizon is not alone is filing patents of this nature. Comcast filed a similar patent in 2008 for using technology that would deliver ads based on which people were in a room at a given time. And in 2007, Google filed a patent for its Google TV service that would use cameras and audio recording devices to determine how many people were simultaneously watching a program.
The concept is just plain creepy. It is stunning to me how fast the digital age has produced an entire generation that is willing to basically give up all of their privacy. I am just dumbfounded at the idea that anybody would be OK with a concept like this.
You don't have to be paranoid or even a privacy expert to find this development a little creepy. Verizon has filed a patent on a new DVR technology that works by filming and recording viewers in order to send them targeted ads through their TV's.
"If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words," Verizon states in its application,which was first reported by Fierce Cable.
The patent was actually filed by Verizon in 2011 but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't required to release patent filings for 18 months.
And before you dismiss concerns over the new technology, which works as a software application, just consider two of the examples Verizon gives of how its new DVR technology could be used: sounds of couples arguing would trigger ads for marriage counseling while sounds of "cuddling" would prompt ads for contraceptives.
All together, the patent filing listed 20 examples, or "claims," of when the DVR technology could be used for the application, which is entitled, "Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a User."
As ArsTechnica points out, Verizon is not alone is filing patents of this nature. Comcast filed a similar patent in 2008 for using technology that would deliver ads based on which people were in a room at a given time. And in 2007, Google filed a patent for its Google TV service that would use cameras and audio recording devices to determine how many people were simultaneously watching a program.
The concept is just plain creepy. It is stunning to me how fast the digital age has produced an entire generation that is willing to basically give up all of their privacy. I am just dumbfounded at the idea that anybody would be OK with a concept like this.
But wine was the great assassin of both tradition and propriety...
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
New DVR will use camera and microphone to target advertisements based on recordings of users
- 05/12/2012 06:53:30 AM
438 Views
What makes you think people are ok with it? A patent is not synonymous with societal acceptance. *NM*
- 05/12/2012 08:17:38 AM
120 Views
If they didn't believe there would (one day) be demand for it then why would they develop it? *NM*
- 10/12/2012 05:10:21 AM
105 Views
It's an early patent, you're overreacting and also privacy wasn't the norm in the past.
- 05/12/2012 08:34:55 PM
274 Views
Would you mind the federal government doing the exact same thing?
- 05/12/2012 10:36:42 PM
375 Views
Asking me about my coffee preferences? I wish they had when I was deployed, only got Maxwell House
- 05/12/2012 11:29:38 PM
267 Views
No, bugging your house (which is what we are discussing, however it is framed.)
- 07/12/2012 01:57:51 AM
413 Views
Re: It's an early patent, you're overreacting and also privacy wasn't the norm in the past.
- 10/12/2012 05:08:49 AM
271 Views