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You already knew your Kinect was watching you, but perhaps not like this. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing by Microsoft reveals that the company is devising a means for your Xbox peripheral to count the number of people in the room and even identify who they are in order to assess licensing fees for content based on the number of people in the room.... It could even use facial recognition to determine the approximate ages of those people present and halt playback of mature material if there isn’t an adult present.
Your Xbox could then automatically collect fees for the number of people watching, or it could refuse to play the content until you top up your Microsoft Points account with an adequate sum--or until you kick all your friends out.
Originally posted by SpearMint
Why is the night vision thing a reason not to get one? It's a very clever way of tracking movement.
Originally posted by wiandiii
www.tomsguide.com...
The article states that the Kinect 2 accessory will be capable of reading lips, deducing emotions, and voice recognition. It will be paired with the next Xbox system and there's a possible Windows version. If that is a feature in a game system, one can only assume this same tech is available for government or private use already. Considering malls wanted to track you by your phone, which just got shot down, maybe something like this could be there next try to market and advertise to you. I could also see the TSA installing something like this to look for "terrorists". What about those smart poles I've been reading up on? I'm sure this could be integrated into them as well to spy on the people. Accompanying links below.
consumerist.com...
www.tsa.gov...
hubstreetequipment.com.au...
Originally posted by bwcawaterbear
reply to post by AQuestion
In the olden days we did something that was called letter writing. We would actually hand write letters to each other and send it through the mail and it would show up three to five days later, and then we would write back and it was rather exciting to think that someone took the time to post it to you. We paid for a stamp to send it so I suppose they will impose some kind of "stamp" use for the internet everytime you use it. Back to letter writing for me, probably going to get rid of the phone later too. This of course means more quiet time, and actually having to talk to someone face to face and maybe actually going to each others house to do so.
Originally posted by bwcawaterbear
reply to post by AQuestion
In the olden days we did something that was called letter writing. We would actually hand write letters to each other and send it through the mail and it would show up three to five days later, and then we would write back and it was rather exciting to think that someone took the time to post it to you. We paid for a stamp to send it so I suppose they will impose some kind of "stamp" use for the internet everytime you use it. Back to letter writing for me, probably going to get rid of the phone later too. This of course means more quiet time, and actually having to talk to someone face to face and maybe actually going to each others house to do so.
From the patent:
A content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis ... Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.
The patent, submitted on April 26, 2011, and passed on Nov. 1, 2012, essentially allows the company to remotely turn on any cameras, be they mobile or from something like the XBox Kinect, and count the number of 'consumers' watching licensed content.
What Microsoft dubs 'complex algorithms' will not only count how many people are consuming that Mixed Martial Arts Championships, but also for how long they consumed the content, paving the way for charging users for half or even quarter uses of content.
From the patent:
In the case of the mobile display device, the display 105 is generally designed for use by one person but it is possible that more than one person may be able to view content on the display 105. As such the consumer detector uses data from the camera or capture device 102 to determine the number of consumers. In one example, camera 102 is an RGB imaging camera and the consumer detector analyzes one or successive images from the camera to ensure that the licensed number of users per view is enforced.
"Enforced" means the patent also gives licensers using Microsoft's surveillance 'product' the right to 'shut off' content if an unauthorized amount of users start to watch.
So you may want to tell the folks you invite over for the next fight to shut off their cell phones and remove the batteries prior to beginning the show