

Microsoft patents spying on you with your TV's camera - nreece
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/08/microsoft-patents-spying-on-yo.html

======
yyyt
In America, the TV watches YOU.

It's another absurd attempt of the publishers to control everything and
everyone. Unfortunately, this is technically cheap now. But as I talked to a
publisher recently, it's increasingly more difficult to regulate all the
copyrights of anything anyone wants to publish. They dig make a trap only to
end in it themselves. As publishing any content becomes too hard, publishers
themselves will switch to alternatives. I think it's a good opportunity for CC
and PD content to expand and become mainstream.

~~~
dromidas
>In Corporate America, the TV watches YOU.

Fixed.

------
givan
I don't like this kind of "smart" technology, technology should help people
not make their lives hard.

Richard Stallman is right, we should all oppose DRM, is unacceptable where all
this DRM is headed for.

People camouflaging in their living rooms so that the whole family can watch a
movie?

~~~
meaty
True advances in technology i.e. the ones which free us from slavery and stop
us from risking our physical selves are pretty much suppressed by the promise
of financial gain by using technology to leverage cash generation only. It's
all about growth and profit, not improving quality of life or reducing risk.

It is, incidentally, the opposite reason to why I ended up writing software
for a living. My objective was to ease the physical toil of people by
automating the work that can be done by machine, freeing them to do more
important and rewarding things.

Unfortunately, the increase in leisure time that this creates opens a big hole
for consumption which is where these vultures swoop in and enslave us again
via pay-per-breath DRM.

Stallman is a prophet of human nature more than technolgy.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> It's all about growth and profit, not improving quality of life or reducing
> risk.

And sadly, it would seem to be the attitude of SV as well. From all the
discussions and submissions here I get the impression that the concept of
earning money by actually helping people and/or giving them _real value_ is
slowly getting forgotten, drowned by A/B tests, ad-revenue, eyeballs & stuff.

~~~
meaty
A million times this.

Real value and percieved value have diverged so much now that only percieved
value matters.

------
antidoh
A Turner Broadcasting exec called skipping commercials via PVR theft.
[http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-
Us...](http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-Users-Are-
Thieves)

So this thing could stop play if you leave the room, including during
commercials.

"You! Winston Smith! Come out of the bathroom!"

~~~
swalsh
I'd be more than happy to pay for television. In fact if it means i'll get
more shows like "walking dead", and less shows like "shipping wars" i'd pay
extra.

But then I want those programs to stream in hd, and I want to stream them on
demand.

------
monochromatic
Sigh. Here we go again.

This is not a _patent_. It is a _patent application._

------
forgotAgain
Now combine it with facial recognition software and the fact that most home
electronics are always on and you have an amazingly dangerous device.

------
chollida1
Well at least no one else can do this now.

Microsoft, Please don't' license this patent:)

------
bcRIPster
And this is why a piece of card-stock paper sits over the lens of my Kinect
camera except for when we're actually using it to play a game.

------
kaolinite
Prior art: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen>

~~~
finnw
No, _this_ is prior art: <http://www.eqcity.net/microsoft/micro58.htm>

It's from 2001, shortly after the announcement of Windows Genuine Advantage.

~~~
meaty
You've obviously never had to deal with TV licensing in the UK then if you
think _that_ is prior art :)

------
antihero
Cover the fucking thing with tape? Or will we get "sorry, cannot play movie,
minimum one person required to un-pause."

~~~
lucian1900
On the other hand, pausing a film/game automatically when you leave the room
would be a nice feature, if configurable and overrideable.

~~~
Buzaga
it's not a good feature, it's just a gimmick, a good feature would be it pause
if and only if I tell it to(vocally would be nice).

Also, I'm pretty sure it would make me feel uneasy having machines reading me
all the time and making decisions on what should I probably want it to behave
like "Oh Breno is watching a QOTSA concert, he left to grab a beer, I should
probably pause" that's sort of goofy, but the matter is: it doesn't know what
I want.. it's a shitty feature

I'll call this type of gimmick "smartass technology"

I'm pretty sure there's a design/usability guide that supports what I'm
saying...

------
LarryMade
Brilliant patent idea on how to effectively kill the market for a popular
gaming device!

------
eloquence
While scary on paper, this is not likely to actually come to fruition; let's
be real.

~~~
Osmium
I agree. I almost think an organisation like the EFF should apply for patents
like this, just so they can be used defensively in future to stop it from
actually happening.

------
eco
This makes me wonder how feasible it would be for a group of activists to get
patents on business practices they are morally opposed to and then never
license them to anyone.

------
br2325
Dress up like a couch, cover your mouth and nose, cover the camera with
something

~~~
Gring
Don't buy the product?

~~~
lignuist
On the one hand yes. On the other hand, many people seem to ignore (I'm pretty
sure, it's not acceptance) such surveillance behavior if the product is sexy
enough. See what happens with smartphones and their apps right now.

------
DanBC
This idea sounds stupid, but Disney was initially against video tapes for the
same reason - you didn't know how many people were watching the tape, and so
how could you charge each of them?

------
vixen99
If you don't like it, don't buy it. What could be simpler?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Until the cheapest deals on TV will have such devices bundled with them, thus
incentivizing people to buy them anyway, until it becomes a de-facto standard.

------
greenwalls
I have a feeling the Duggers aren't going to like this...

------
jofo25
Maybe unplug your Kinect?

------
RawData
Ah telescreens....

