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This is a beautiful piece of tech for any ad company looking to collect reaction information to ads (like google): * It works at low power. Turning on the fron

by est31 7y ago

This is a beautiful piece of tech for any ad company looking to collect reaction information to ads (like google): * It works at low power. Turning on the front camera and processing the visual data generated needs large amounts of power. * It can't be blocked as easily as a front facing camera. * People are less aware that they are being surveilled, which makes them less motivated to block it. * Yes, it's not capturing any facial expressions, but the information generated probably still gives valuable cues to advertisers. Also, get ready for unskippable ads pausing when you aren't looking into the direction of the smartphone.

krm01 7y ago
Did not think about it that way, but that does sound like a highly plausible direction a company that ditched their 'don't do evil' mantra would take it. In fact, thinking about it some more, the reasoning behind the tech would make more sense from a business perspective vs a huge want from the user's POV.
- folkrav 7y ago
  Google obviously does evil things. Still not an excuse to keep using this argument, which was nothing but sensationalism and clickbait. "Don't do evil" is still in Google's COC[0]. > [...] And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up! It's not like a COC is anything legally binding, or like they didn't do anything bad before restructuring under Alphabet, either. [0] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
Rickasaurus 7y ago
I'm not ready for a fifteen million merits type world.
scrumper 7y ago
It'll end up in street billboards and beacons in stores too, surely. Walk past, glance at an ad, it'll hoover up your cellphone MAC...
- shantly 7y ago
  If it hasn't already ID'd you by gait as you approach.
  - scrumper 7y ago
    Ugh! Hope you're wrong. I know the resolution of the radar is sufficient to recognize little gestures (dial, for example), but that must fall off over distance, surely. Hopefully. Right?
axaxs 7y ago
Ugh. I remember when Black Mirror was viewed as creepy and dystopian... See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
- shantly 7y ago
  Fifteen Million Merits is one of their episodes that's not about the future at all, the way I read it. More of an allegory about now (or, now in 2011, anyway).
  - axaxs 7y ago
    That's an interesting take that I could completely see now. When I watched it, I guess I took it more at face value, that in the future when everything is automated, only celebrities and 'power generators' will exist, and of course the rest of the stuff like unskippable ads and in-your-face pornography.
    - shantly 7y ago
      I think the lack of "enforcers" of any kind throughout the episode is key to understanding it. The closest thing we really see is the Cuppliance drink. The stage hands hesitatingly start to step in near the end, but are waved off and aren't exactly jack-booted thugs anyway. Those demoted aren't dragged away crying. Our protagonist does property damage without apparent censure (one is left to suppose the screens get replaced, eventually, while he's out, maybe or maybe not with a charge to his merit account, similar to the way "detritus" is taken care of). This is why I don't think there's much room for ambiguity re: whether the outdoors at the end is real. If it's not then that's undercutting what's been the key theme of the rest of the episode, of timid acquiescence to a very gently coercive system. If it's real then that's the punch line of the whole thing—these people could just leave, and they don't because of some combination of social norms, fear of the unknown, fear of losing what (pointedly crappy and meaningless—the avatar skins and such) comforts they have, and (one may assume) some soft but effective persuasion techniques that might come up if they tried. Since assuming it's the latter is consistent with the rest of the episode and makes it much stronger, it doesn't make much sense that it'd be anything else or even be deliberately left ambiguous (why?). It's all about how control and how a "trapped" state can occur absent anyone waving guns around. With more than a little commentary on social class, celebrity, electronic entertainment, and the hollowness of participation in an economic system and society heavy on alienation (the bikes), along the way. [EDIT] I just skimmed the first few minutes again because I remembered there being a whole thing about fruit, and not only that, the opening's full of cartoony imagery of the green outdoors. The outdoors at the end is definitely intended to be real, not fake or even ambiguous, unless we assume incompetence on the part of the creators. It's the antithesis of the wholly false, not-even-trying-to-look-real outdoors scenes that are all over the beginning, which did leave room to wonder what the world's like outside this environment—the ending gives us the answer.

by est31 7y ago

krm01 7y ago

Did not think about it that way, but that does sound like a highly plausible direction a company that ditched their 'don't do evil' mantra would take it. In fact, thinking about it some more, the reasoning behind the tech would make more sense from a business perspective vs a huge want from the user's POV.

folkrav 7y ago
Google obviously does evil things. Still not an excuse to keep using this argument, which was nothing but sensationalism and clickbait. "Don't do evil" is still in Google's COC[0]. > [...] And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up! It's not like a COC is anything legally binding, or like they didn't do anything bad before restructuring under Alphabet, either. [0] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/

Rickasaurus 7y ago

I'm not ready for a fifteen million merits type world.

scrumper 7y ago

It'll end up in street billboards and beacons in stores too, surely. Walk past, glance at an ad, it'll hoover up your cellphone MAC...

shantly 7y ago
If it hasn't already ID'd you by gait as you approach.
- scrumper 7y ago
  Ugh! Hope you're wrong. I know the resolution of the radar is sufficient to recognize little gestures (dial, for example), but that must fall off over distance, surely. Hopefully. Right?

axaxs 7y ago

Ugh. I remember when Black Mirror was viewed as creepy and dystopian... See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

shantly 7y ago
Fifteen Million Merits is one of their episodes that's not about the future at all, the way I read it. More of an allegory about now (or, now in 2011, anyway).
- axaxs 7y ago
  That's an interesting take that I could completely see now. When I watched it, I guess I took it more at face value, that in the future when everything is automated, only celebrities and 'power generators' will exist, and of course the rest of the stuff like unskippable ads and in-your-face pornography.
  - shantly 7y ago
    I think the lack of "enforcers" of any kind throughout the episode is key to understanding it. The closest thing we really see is the Cuppliance drink. The stage hands hesitatingly start to step in near the end, but are waved off and aren't exactly jack-booted thugs anyway. Those demoted aren't dragged away crying. Our protagonist does property damage without apparent censure (one is left to suppose the screens get replaced, eventually, while he's out, maybe or maybe not with a charge to his merit account, similar to the way "detritus" is taken care of). This is why I don't think there's much room for ambiguity re: whether the outdoors at the end is real. If it's not then that's undercutting what's been the key theme of the rest of the episode, of timid acquiescence to a very gently coercive system. If it's real then that's the punch line of the whole thing—these people could just leave, and they don't because of some combination of social norms, fear of the unknown, fear of losing what (pointedly crappy and meaningless—the avatar skins and such) comforts they have, and (one may assume) some soft but effective persuasion techniques that might come up if they tried. Since assuming it's the latter is consistent with the rest of the episode and makes it much stronger, it doesn't make much sense that it'd be anything else or even be deliberately left ambiguous (why?). It's all about how control and how a "trapped" state can occur absent anyone waving guns around. With more than a little commentary on social class, celebrity, electronic entertainment, and the hollowness of participation in an economic system and society heavy on alienation (the bikes), along the way. [EDIT] I just skimmed the first few minutes again because I remembered there being a whole thing about fruit, and not only that, the opening's full of cartoony imagery of the green outdoors. The outdoors at the end is definitely intended to be real, not fake or even ambiguous, unless we assume incompetence on the part of the creators. It's the antithesis of the wholly false, not-even-trying-to-look-real outdoors scenes that are all over the beginning, which did leave room to wonder what the world's like outside this environment—the ending gives us the answer.