Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?

[babsbunny]

http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/

ritten by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 11:42 AM PT

Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?

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.

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.

[mac2]

1. You mean when I'm sitting in my underpants watching TV

with holes in them...they can send me ads for Fruit of the Loom? Or my old granny who looks a bit depressed can get a prescription of pep pills from a drug company?

And then they might see me....thowing something at my TV when they talk about the so and so media? I give them a shout all the time and frequently the finger. Oh my...

Right now I'd settle for them just to send me what I pay for...CSPAN2. It has been shut off without any decrease in my monthly payments.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Are you fucking kidding me?

We need to separate what electronic device ownership means now, and detach it from network services. This shit started back with the Tivo, where they used GPL software to run it, but didn't allow the software to be changed. OWNERSHIP OF A DEVICE MUST IMPLY THAT THE OWNER CONTROLS THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THAT DEVICE. That's the START. The next thing is to separate digital content provider services from the devices that interpret that content, so there must always be an open standard and open market for things like cable boxes, so consumers can decide if they want a camera in their living room watching them jack off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[WCGreen]

3. Buck up Winston, you aren't doing enough exercise...

I always feel like someone is watching me...

[Mountainman]

4. It's always something that is good for you, makes recommendations.

Screw that, I don't want their recommendations. Your alone, your horny, they recommend some phone sex or something?

[marmar]

5. Total Information Surveillance Society

Welcome to Orwell's Nightmare. :scared:

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

6. I didn't really need another reason to avoid Comcast like the plague

but, hey! Thanks, Comcast!

[Speck Tater]

7. As if I didn't already have enough reasons for NOT watching TV. NT

[The Straight Story]

8. We should all get behind this - it could catch people smoking in homes with kids

if it saves just one life.... :rofl:

[MrScorpio]

9. In Bush's Amerikkka... Television Watches YOU! nt