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)
@JenniMoyer: I don't know about the rest of the folks around here, but there's really only one gesture I'm interested in giving to Comcast. Can you guess which single finger on my right hand is involved in that?
I've unfortunately had to suffer through a Comcast takeover of an Adelphia cable system where I live. Years later we still don't have digital phone service, still have worthless cable boxes, still have lousy customer service (it's actually gotten worse since all we can do now is call the 1-800 number), still are paying too much, and now have terrible looking HD feeds to top it all off.
I can hardly wait until Verizon runs FiOS out to me. There's a reason we all feel that Comcast's services are just comcrapstic!
]]>Big Brother will really be watching you!
]]>over my dead body!
]]>Either way, this guy is a total nutbar if he thinks that's gonna work.
]]>Silly peeps, this is to help you.......
ve vant to make sure you do not let children watch the wrong things...ve vant to make sure you behave...ve vant only vhat is good for us, ahem; you...
just keep watching mind numbing tv...no worries,
you just Consume & Conform, ve Control
who knows , ve might have it in there already, hahahahahahahahaha
]]>Eeew...that's soooo creepy!! What's next? ElectroChips in the back of our necks that are programmed with our favorite TV shows?!?! That's just not right...
]]>"Aww HELL naw!"
]]>I am so happy that I canceled my Comcast subscription months ago. Don't like it folks? Then stop giving these fools your money. Once you take the plunge and cancel your cable, you won't regret it. In fact, you'll kick yourself for not doing it earlier.
]]>No more sex in front of late night tv:(
Hell to the no there's not gonna be a camera in my house. I would cancel my cable and buy more DVDs.
]]>that is such a horrible idea
]]>It was just months ago were Comcast talked about the possibility of having new movie releases available at the same time as theaters via on-demand. There was talk in these very comments (or gizmodo, can't remember) about people saving money by having a bunch of friends over for 'movie night' at their place, since more people are enjoying home theaters rather then going to the 'mega-plex'. So how could Comcast and the studios prevent this?
Cameras!
Granted, most of us here would find a way to circumvent this, but the public in general are idiots and will accept whatever Crapcast installs in their house. This all makes sense now. Want to order the fight or the next WWE event? You'll get charged by the amount of people you have over your house watching!
I'm loving my FiOS service more and more everyday.
]]>"Ahem. And the winner of the worst company in america... errm, excuse me... the whole F#%&@*% world is (drumroll please)...
COMCAST!!!"
]]>Mr. Kunkel can shove the fucking camera up his ass. Not that anyone would want to see what's going up in there. Really I hope those Wimps at FCC hurt Comcast somehow.
]]>And if I am changing in my room and the cable box sees me naked after uh, being in cold water? Will the TV then show Extenz adds?
]]>If my cable company wants to watch me I'll be more than happy to give them a show. I like being watched.
]]>With this or similar technology, you'll find yourself in a situation where you're going to pay more money for cable if your home is not offering up the right demographic to advertisers. If your home is offering up the right "body type" during the right shows, and they do not leave the room, then you may be offered substantial discounts on cable. The other end of that is you only watch PBS and CSPAN and you're single, and you leave the room during commercials when you do watch commercial TV. Then you'll find that your cable bill does not get those discounts, but instead you are asked to pay more. It'll all be in the new service agreements.
]]>Let's all vote for COMmunismCAST one more time for Most Evilest Company in the Whole Wide World.
]]>Clearly, the brainy types at Comcast left a long time ago. If Comcast put this kind of crap into my house, I'd let the dog take a dump on the thing, and then ship it back to Comcast and order satellite.
]]>I have a question... could this concievably be used by investigators to tell who was in the room at the time? You know... like if there was a murder in the room with said "body recognizing" camera equipped cablebox? Does it record who was where & when?
So many other daily items are used by agencies to potentially track our movements (traffic cams, store security cameras, atms, cellphones, ezpass tollroad readers,phone records, gps enabled vehicles.... the list goes on & on).
]]>No one (at least, no one who can afford TV advertising or who needs to advertise) is selling anything I want, so I won't see any ads for anything I want.
I would get absolutely nothing out of this loss of privacy, so I am opposed to such a loss of privacy.
]]>Solution: Face the box towards the wall.
]]>I could say "Well the camera was pointed in that direction, you not being able to see it burning is not an excuse!"
]]>Something tells me if they implement this, it might be the best investment I ever made.
]]>The newteevee.com article "Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You" portrayed some assumptions that require correction and clarification. I want to be clear that in no way are we exploring any camera devices that would monitor customer behavior.
To gather information for this article, the blogger picked up on a conversation between Gerard Kunkel and another person at a recent conference. They were discussing the various input devices offered by a variety of vendors that Comcast is reviewing.
The camera-based gesture recognition device is in no way designed to - or capable of - monitoring your living room. These technologies are designed to allow simple navigation on a television set just as the Wii remote uses a camera to manage its much heralded gesture-based interactivity.
We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple - a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.
As with any new technology, we carefully consider the consumer benefits. In fact, we do an enormous amount of consumer testing in advance of making a product decision such as this. We're confident that a new technology like gesture-based navigation will be fully explored with consumers to understand the product's feature benefits - and of course, the value to the consumer.
Jenni Moyer
Comcast
If you decide that the best thing for your company is to PUT A CAMERA IN MY HOUSE, I will decide that the best thing for me is that COMCAST NEVER GETS MY BUSINESS AGAIN, ever, for anything.
Are we clear on that?
Good.
]]>My first question is: How could this thing distinguish between twins and other persons with similar physical appearances?
Second: Why would I want Comcast, or any other tv company, telling me what I want to watch?
]]>What if you were only billed for time you were actually in front of the TV?
Sorry, just distracting myself from the horror that people with ideas like this make more money than me whilst my "Good Ideas" folder fills up.
]]>Aren't there anti-privacy laws that would prevent this from happening??IANAL, but anti-privacy laws would probably have little effect here, since subscribing to cable is still considered a choice. If you want cable TV, you have to agree to use their spycam in your living room (kind of like mandatory arbitration clauses).
Taping over the sensor seems reasonable, but I'm sure Comcast would use a failsafe measure to prevent users bypassing the camera, such as blocking your cable service if no camera activity is detected for period of time.
]]>Can you say Minority Fr@cking Report...? Gotta echo the earlier Whiskey Tango Foxtrots...
]]>We should all get tiny pictures of Gerard Kunkel sitting on a couch and tape them directly to the lens of the camera!
Then we'll get the super cool ads meant only for Comcast VPs! And Comcast will get the ad numbers and be like "Damn! Kunkel watches a fuckload of TV! In many many houses at the same time!"
]]>This is absolutely ridiculous and outrageously intrusive!
]]>All those paranoid schizophrenic patients you finally managed to finally convince that there was no camera in the TV set are gonna want their money back.
/have a friend with schizophrenia... funnier than and not as funny as you might think.
]]>And I if I do get it, I will be putting the foil over the lens, not my head.
]]>What happens if two people are getting intimate, and it starts pulling up tv shows they have set for the family dog when they are out of the house?
]]>@friendlynerd: Knowing Comcast, they'd put the camera behind the infra red sensor so if you put tape over it, the remote won't work.
]]>I remember reading an article in Time Magazine years ago, like around 1993, that predicted that this technology would be invented. I mentioned it to some media guy who came to talk at our school and he treated me like I was a moron.
I AM NOW VINDICATED.
]]>Are the cable box remotes radio capable or just infrared?
I was reading about this yesterday. Imagine the privacy invasion lawsuit that happens the first time a cable box with a camera is placed in someone's residence without them being notified.
Yeah right, it won't be able to make out details .. look at how small cellphones are and the multi-megapixel capabilities .. I'm sure they could find a way to fit a full blown camera into the box .. They'd probably market it as "share family pics easily" .. they probably wouldn't market the NSA backdoor though ..
BTW, I traded in my tinfoil hat for a full bodysuit ....
]]>My wife got new Apple Mac's for her work. The new systems come with a built-in camera on the monitor.
One time, out of the blue, her boss calls up and says "I can see you", my wife being a bit of a geek quickly figured out he had used admin rights to start up her camera with out her knowing it.
Shortly after is call she put a post it not over the camera.
So the point to this, if your cable box gets a camera, use a little post-it-not to fix the problem.
]]>Or an optical filter over the window, which passes IR light but little else might make the repeater unnecessary.
I think there's a cottage industry out there because of this.
]]>Oh, HELL no.
Either I can cover up that camera with duct tape or I can stick to books, which do not spy on you.
]]>This will be quickly elevated into the top rankings of the hall of fame for the worst ideas of all time. Can Comcast go any lower? Makes one actually glad to have Charter for a cable company.
And I love this guy's title: "senior VP of user experience", makes it sound like it's his job to enhance our viewing experience or something. I guess not.
]]>What's the big deal. Everyone knows that the little people inside that glass box can already see out. They just pretend not to.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>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'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.
]]>Communist URSS wasn't as bad. It's true that USA became what communism wanted to be. Power thirsty government and total surveillance.
]]>Oh, right, I dont have Comcast.
]]>(Someone had to say it, it is tradition!)
]]>About .3 seconds...
That is if I actually went with Comcast Cable in the first place... Which I won't.
]]>@HalOfBorg: Good point. Damn you, HalOfBorg!
]]>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.
]]>They's just incorporate the lense in with the remote sensor so you HAVE to leave it uncovered.
]]>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 :)
]]>@Underpants Gnome: Too funny!
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>*Drops his pants and moons the camera.*
If screwing with our packets is good enough for them then this should be too!
]]>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.
]]>@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?
]]>You know George Orwell had something like this is his novel 1984. It just went over sooo well then.
]]>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.
]]>Oh, my god...can you imagine the possibilities there for tailoring the VOD services...
]]>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?"
]]>Just wow.
]]>Damn, which group is a greater scourge on this country -- lawyers or marketing people?
]]>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.
]]>That is, couches- not couces. Sofas, loveseats, settees, etc.
]]>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!
]]>OVER MY FUCKING DEAD BODY. (vomits)
]]>