7 ms·

Microsoft patents spying on you with your TV's camera

53 points by nreece 14y ago

antidoh 14y ago
A Turner Broadcasting exec called skipping commercials via PVR theft. http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-Users-Are-Thieves http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-Us... So this thing could stop play if you leave the room, including during commercials. "You! Winston Smith! Come out of the bathroom!"
- swalsh 14y ago
  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.
- Erwin 14y ago
  An updated bleak vision of the future can be found in the 2nd episode of the British series "Black Mirror": in a world where the only currency is a Facebook virtual currency you can use to buy extra items for your avatars, skipping commercial costs money and the omnipresent screens/cameras emitting a screeching sound if you close your eyes during the commercials. "Black Mirror" is a rare type of near-future sci-fi with a strong societal criticism. The third episode, "Entire History of You", is also great: what will happen a decade from now where technology like Google Glass is omnipresent?
greenwalls 14y ago
I have a feeling the Duggers aren't going to like this...
givan 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    > 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 14y ago
      A million times this. Real value and percieved value have diverged so much now that only percieved value matters.
- TallGuyShort 14y ago
  >> People camouflaging in their living rooms so that the whole family can watch a movie? The attitude that it would be okay to accept the license agreement with no intention of abiding by it's terms is just as bad IMO as the attitude that it's okay to market this technology in the first place.
  - givan 14y ago
    People usually don't read those 50 page license agreements, even if they did, they have all those legal terms that make it hard to spot all the inconveniences and everybody should need a lawyer to understand all the risks, and hiring a lawyer for buying a TV is too much. And there is also another problem, if all the vendors adopt this technology then you can only choose to not have a TV at all. I expect things I buy to adhere to common sense rules without reading license agreements before buying, I don't like having surprises like big brother watching me or things like movie stopped because grandma entered the room and she is looking at the TV.
antihero 14y ago
Cover the fucking thing with tape? Or will we get "sorry, cannot play movie, minimum one person required to un-pause."
- lucian1900 14y ago
  On the other hand, pausing a film/game automatically when you leave the room would be a nice feature, if configurable and overrideable.
  - Buzaga 14y ago
    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...
- stevewillows 14y ago
  You could trick it with a picture of a happy family watching TV in front of it. Bathroom breaks all around!
br2325 14y ago
Dress up like a couch, cover your mouth and nose, cover the camera with something
- Gring 14y ago
  Don't buy the product?
  - lignuist 14y ago
    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.
- Roboprog 14y ago
  Great, then the whole family can watch "Sherlock Holmes" :-) (the Robert Downey Jr steampunk version, where he does just that in one scene)
- stevewillows 14y ago
  like Frank on It's Always Sunny? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTZ_ZPIEqBw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTZ_ZPIEqBw
kaolinite 14y ago
Prior art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen
- brazzy 14y ago
  Uncomfortably close, but of course abstract ideas can't be prior art.
  - kaolinite 14y ago
    Yep, it was just a joke, but trying to make a point at the same time.
- DanBC 14y ago
  The "popular" tv personality Noel Edmunds had a tv show on BBC tv. A small part of that was to prank (willing) viewers by hiding a camera in their TV. They'd watch the show, and suddenly BAMN they'd be on live TV; and then get invited to take part in a quiz or something.
- finnw 14y ago
  No, this is prior art: http://www.eqcity.net/microsoft/micro58.htm http://www.eqcity.net/microsoft/micro58.htm It's from 2001, shortly after the announcement of Windows Genuine Advantage.
  - meaty 14y ago
    You've obviously never had to deal with TV licensing in the UK then if you think that is prior art :)
yyyt 14y ago
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 14y ago
  >In Corporate America, the TV watches YOU. Fixed.
DanBC 14y ago
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?
forgotAgain 14y ago
Now combine it with facial recognition software and the fact that most home electronics are always on and you have an amazingly dangerous device.
eloquence 14y ago
While scary on paper, this is not likely to actually come to fruition; let's be real.
- Osmium 14y ago
  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.
- meaty 14y ago
  Seriously, it will. All it takes is a vision and suitable marketing and an alterior motive and it'll be out there quicker than you know it. If there's a penny to be made, it will happen.
chollida1 14y ago
Well at least no one else can do this now. Microsoft, Please don't' license this patent:)
vixen99 14y ago
If you don't like it, don't buy it. What could be simpler?
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  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.
- Tsts 14y ago
  Than you can't watch movies, which may mean you can't communicate with regular, standard, movie-watching people, which may mean you can't get any business/job, which may mean you die of lack of money/healthcare/etc.
LarryMade 14y ago
Brilliant patent idea on how to effectively kill the market for a popular gaming device!
jofo25 14y ago
Maybe unplug your Kinect?
monochromatic 14y ago
Sigh. Here we go again. This is not a patent. It is a patent application.
bcRIPster 14y ago
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.
eco 14y ago
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.
RawData 14y ago
Ah telescreens....

53 points by nreece 14y ago

A Turner Broadcasting exec called skipping commercials via PVR theft. http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-Users-Are-Thieves http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/Turner-CEO-PVR-Us... So this thing could stop play if you leave the room, including during commercials. "You! Winston Smith! Come out of the bathroom!"

swalsh 14y ago
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.
Erwin 14y ago
An updated bleak vision of the future can be found in the 2nd episode of the British series "Black Mirror": in a world where the only currency is a Facebook virtual currency you can use to buy extra items for your avatars, skipping commercial costs money and the omnipresent screens/cameras emitting a screeching sound if you close your eyes during the commercials. "Black Mirror" is a rare type of near-future sci-fi with a strong societal criticism. The third episode, "Entire History of You", is also great: what will happen a decade from now where technology like Google Glass is omnipresent?

greenwalls 14y ago

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

givan 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  > 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 14y ago
    A million times this. Real value and percieved value have diverged so much now that only percieved value matters.
TallGuyShort 14y ago
>> People camouflaging in their living rooms so that the whole family can watch a movie? The attitude that it would be okay to accept the license agreement with no intention of abiding by it's terms is just as bad IMO as the attitude that it's okay to market this technology in the first place.
- givan 14y ago
  People usually don't read those 50 page license agreements, even if they did, they have all those legal terms that make it hard to spot all the inconveniences and everybody should need a lawyer to understand all the risks, and hiring a lawyer for buying a TV is too much. And there is also another problem, if all the vendors adopt this technology then you can only choose to not have a TV at all. I expect things I buy to adhere to common sense rules without reading license agreements before buying, I don't like having surprises like big brother watching me or things like movie stopped because grandma entered the room and she is looking at the TV.

antihero 14y ago

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

lucian1900 14y ago
On the other hand, pausing a film/game automatically when you leave the room would be a nice feature, if configurable and overrideable.
- Buzaga 14y ago
  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...
stevewillows 14y ago
You could trick it with a picture of a happy family watching TV in front of it. Bathroom breaks all around!

br2325 14y ago

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

Gring 14y ago
Don't buy the product?
- lignuist 14y ago
  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.
Roboprog 14y ago
Great, then the whole family can watch "Sherlock Holmes" :-) (the Robert Downey Jr steampunk version, where he does just that in one scene)
stevewillows 14y ago
like Frank on It's Always Sunny? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTZ_ZPIEqBw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTZ_ZPIEqBw

kaolinite 14y ago

Prior art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

brazzy 14y ago
Uncomfortably close, but of course abstract ideas can't be prior art.
- kaolinite 14y ago
  Yep, it was just a joke, but trying to make a point at the same time.
DanBC 14y ago
The "popular" tv personality Noel Edmunds had a tv show on BBC tv. A small part of that was to prank (willing) viewers by hiding a camera in their TV. They'd watch the show, and suddenly BAMN they'd be on live TV; and then get invited to take part in a quiz or something.
finnw 14y ago
No, this is prior art: http://www.eqcity.net/microsoft/micro58.htm http://www.eqcity.net/microsoft/micro58.htm It's from 2001, shortly after the announcement of Windows Genuine Advantage.
- meaty 14y ago
  You've obviously never had to deal with TV licensing in the UK then if you think that is prior art :)

yyyt 14y ago

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 14y ago
>In Corporate America, the TV watches YOU. Fixed.

DanBC 14y ago

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?

forgotAgain 14y ago

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

eloquence 14y ago

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

Osmium 14y ago
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.
meaty 14y ago
Seriously, it will. All it takes is a vision and suitable marketing and an alterior motive and it'll be out there quicker than you know it. If there's a penny to be made, it will happen.

chollida1 14y ago

Well at least no one else can do this now. Microsoft, Please don't' license this patent:)

vixen99 14y ago

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

TeMPOraL 14y ago
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.
Tsts 14y ago
Than you can't watch movies, which may mean you can't communicate with regular, standard, movie-watching people, which may mean you can't get any business/job, which may mean you die of lack of money/healthcare/etc.

LarryMade 14y ago

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

jofo25 14y ago

Maybe unplug your Kinect?

monochromatic 14y ago

Sigh. Here we go again. This is not a patent. It is a patent application.

bcRIPster 14y ago

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.

eco 14y ago

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.

RawData 14y ago

Ah telescreens....