Can we hear you now?

[jimpeel]

Verizon has patented a technology that allows them the listen in to their customers and direct advertising based on the emotional state of the customer. If they are arguing it might direct ads for marital counseling. If they are "cuddling" it might direct ads for contraceptives.

Orwell didn't miss it by much.

SOURCE

They Can Hear You Now: Verizon Patent Could Listen In On Customers

December 4, 2012 11:43 AM

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Verizon has filed a patent for targeting ads that collect information from infrared cameras and microphones that can detect the amount of people and types of conversations happening in customers’ living rooms.

The set-top box technology is not the first of its kind – Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 that recommended content to users based on people it recognized in the room.

Google TV also proposed a patent that would use video and audio recorders to figure out exactly how many people in a room were watching its broadcast.

Verizon filed for the application in May 2011, but the report was published last week due to laws stating that all patent applications be published after 18 months.

FierceCable first publicized the Verizon patent that gives examples of the DVR’s acute sensitivity in customers’ living rooms: argument sounds prompt ads for marriage counseling, and sounds of “cuddling” prompt ads for contraceptives.


“If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words,” Verizon states in the patent application.

The patent goes on to say that the sensors would also be able to determine if a viewer is exercising, eating, laughing, singing, or playing a musical instrument, and target ads to viewers based on their mood. It also could use sensors to determine what type of pets or inanimate objects are in the room.

The system can also “dynamically adjust parental control features” if it detects that young children are present in the room.

There are several types of sensors can be linked to the targeted advertising system. These include 3D imaging devices, thermographic cameras and microphones.

Users are also given the option to link their smartphones and tablets to the detection system to directly increase its sensitivity.

“If detection facility detects that the user is holding a mobile device, advertising facility may be configured to communicate with the mobile device to direct the mobile device to present the selected advertisement. Accordingly, not only may the selected advertisement be specifically targeted to the user, but it may also be delivered right to the user’s hands,” the Verizon application states.

Verizon officials declined to comment to FierceCable about the patent application, but did release the following statement to CBS Radio in Washington: “Verizon has a well-established track record of respecting its customers’ privacy and protecting their personal information. As a company that prizes innovation, Verizon takes pride in its innovators whose work is represented in our patents and patent applications. While we do not comment on pending patent applications, such futuristic patent filings by innovators are routine, and whatever we might do in the future would be in line with our well-established track record of respecting our customers’ privacy and protecting their personal information.”

-Benjamin Fearnow

 

[jimpeel]

 

[catocom]

I'm the same by the phone as I am the internet.
Have been even before the internet.

Ya know here in Ga there use to be a laws that if you used profanity, much less threaten someone
over the telephone, you could be prosecuted.
That was also back when you could be arrested for disrespect to a police officer.....
but.....
times the are/have been a changin'

 

[Gonz]

Since it's not (yet) a government plan, you have the ability to change carriers. Let enough
people leave & see what they do with it. Remember that whole free market thing?

 

[2minkey]

imagine all the idiots that will opt into this kind of thing simply for enhanced convenience in picking a TV show.

 

[jimpeel]

The indoctrination has been going on for years acclimatizing Americans to the fact that you are being watched all of the time. The attitudes finally shift to "Well, they are going to do it anyway so what the Hell."

 

[2minkey]

so jim... how is that information usable to hurt them? other for excessive push notifications of "super savings deals?" (which marketers know you tune out once you've exceeded a certain volume anyway...)

maybe it's not so much "they are going to do it anyway" but rather "who gives a fuck?"

or is it opt in and four years later blue-helmeted death bots are clearing your living room?

 

[jimpeel]

As I have said in the past, the Digital Millennium Act is designed to force everyone on to cable. That opens the door for two way communication between the instrument in the home to anywhere in the world.

When we had over-the-air TV it was not possible to build a transmitter into the set that could transmit very far. The means of spying on the residents was not feasible.

However, with cable, and digital communications, it would be possible for authorities to monitor the residents in a home in Los Angeles from a facility in New York.

It will come to pass and you will accept it as the norm. You will still think that I am a nutcase even as you live what I have predicted. You will tell yourself "A good citizen has nothing to hide; and I am a good citizen."

 

[2minkey]

It will come to pass and you will accept it as the norm. You will still think that I am a nutcase even as you live what I have predicted. You will tell yourself "A good citizen has nothing to hide; and I am a good citizen."

you have no idea what i'm going to accept or prefer to keep hidden, but you can bet your ass that your dale gribble prophecies will take exactly the place they deserve in my risk calculus.

 

[Winky]

yes we are getting to the point where we will accept anything
soon piling tea party members into mass graves will be quite blasé

 

[2minkey]

i will stir their ashes with my dong.

 

[Winky]

that is one multi-purpose ding-a-ling

 

[2minkey]

yawn.

 

[jimpeel]

i will stir their ashes with my dong.

Ah, I see you've heard the joke.

 

[2minkey]

there's a joke about swizzling teabaggers with a dong? or did i miss the metaphor?

 

[jimpeel]

Three cowboys are sitting around a campfire.

The youngest cowboy says, “Last week, a mammoth bull gored 10 men on the range, but I stepped in and wrestled it to the ground with nothing but my bare hands.”

Not wanting to be outdone, the second cowboy says, “That’s nothing. Two days ago, I was attacked by a 10-foot rattler, but I caught it in mid-strike and ripped off its head with my teeth.”

The third cowboy just sat there quietly, slowly stirring the coals with his penis.

 

[2minkey]

nice.

 

[Winky]

"We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action
to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."