http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Your-Comcast-DVR-Is-Watching-You-92830

Comcast senior VP of user experience Gerard Kunkel tells New Tee Vee Comcast is experimenting with embedding cameras in your DVR or cable box, allowing the company to know exactly who is watching what, at what time. In theory this would allow them to dial up user age/gender specific ads depending who is in the room (the "holy grail" of advertising, says Kunkel). Kunkel sold the idea of the technology being useful as a parental control mechanism, and says it would use facial recognition:
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.
It's hard to think that any consumer in their right mind would consent to Comcast watching them, watching Comcast.

3/21/2008 10:41:32 AM

holy shit im switching to Verizon FiOS ASAP

3/21/2008 10:42:17 AM

fuck this shit. this is bullshit. before long you can't have anything that is not watching you.

3/21/2008 10:47:34 AM

yea this is pretty ridiculous

3/21/2008 10:48:59 AM

will it still watch if you decide to jack off to a flick or fuck your wife with a flick rolling?

3/21/2008 10:54:45 AM

so if you are watching skinamax at 3am or an adult channel will all the comcast people watching their monitors switch to your channel?? And watch you???

yeah this isn't going to work.

[Edited on March 21, 2008 at 10:56 AM. Reason : big brother]

3/21/2008 10:55:44 AM

comcast will lose so many customers. if all cable companies did this i swear to fucking god i will never have cable again. this is just too invasive.

3/21/2008 11:03:12 AM

yup and just think of the little annoyances. for instance, midgets will probably get children ads all day. how annoying would that be. or really tall children will get adult ads

3/21/2008 11:05:20 AM

it says face recognition, but would you have to tell the box the age of the face? :/ just more fucking unnecessary info to give up. what a bitch. i think i am ready to die since the world is so invasive now.

3/21/2008 11:07:27 AM

Obviously, you would have to give consent for them to install this. They would probably pay the customer/give a discount. WTF is the big deal???

3/21/2008 11:27:39 AM

are you serious, or do you work for comcast?

3/21/2008 11:31:53 AM

this is fucking retarded

3/21/2008 11:31:53 AM

^^Umm, you would ELECT for them to put this in....

3/21/2008 11:33:45 AM

if they'd pay me, i'd take the money....and put some tape over the lens

3/21/2008 11:34:41 AM

Uhh, seedless, this isn't really going to go through. You know that, right? Way too many issues with privacy protection, et al.

3/21/2008 11:39:19 AM

i sure as hell hope not.

3/21/2008 11:43:29 AM

Lawyers would be ready to pounce right away assuming it happened. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own home, not to mention someone elses.

3/21/2008 11:46:47 AM

i'd like to see data results

"41% of midgets/children enjoy watching Monk"

3/21/2008 12:12:15 PM

I mean, if someone agrees to it then I'm not so sure there's much you can do about it.. They could of course jack prices up ridiculously though for those of us who refused which might bring along some big brother issues, that shit would be ridiculous any way you look at it

3/21/2008 12:20:08 PM

By the name of the website, don't you think DSLReports should be a subsidiary of AVN?

3/21/2008 12:23:49 PM

this will just be a new hobby for revengeful computer nerds that don't get any - hack your box and watch, and maybe even hold some naive people hostage in their own homes via a cable box hahahaha isn't comcast already a piece of shit company?

3/21/2008 12:33:06 PM

I like the idea of putting tape over it.. or just a dvd box in front of the lens... Granted it would be annoying.. but I'm pretty sure there would be easy ways around it...

3/21/2008 12:43:07 PM

shenanigans.

this is bullshit. you people believe this?

New Tee Vee?

the author of the cited article had a video of his interview. unfortunately he didnt get this embedded camera stuff on video.

Quote :

"Kunkel ... spoke on camera with me about fixing bad Comcast user experiences, the ongoing BitTorrent battle and VOD. But he mostly towed [sic] the corporate line on these issues (the monitoring your living room came up after my camera was put away)."

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


and Bill Gates will give sick kids money for every email you forward. dumbfucks.

3/21/2008 2:12:17 PM

yes guy

i bought into it 100%

with gold

3/21/2008 2:18:47 PM

Quote :

"By the name of the website, don't you think DSLReports should be a subsidiary of AVN?"

By the content of the reporting, don't you think DSLReports should really be called DNLReports?

3/21/2008 6:19:09 PM

australia's been doing this for years

3/21/2008 6:22:47 PM

really??

3/21/2008 7:05:59 PM