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Comcast Wants to Put a Camera in Your Cable Box
Quote
Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 11:42 AM PT

Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

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.

Perhaps I’ve seen Enemy of the State too many times, or perhaps I’m just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move. I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians?

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

Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Gerard Kunkel - Just put it in your own home and leave mine alone.

.

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Pooh-Bah
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Could see a lot of people moving away from comcast smile


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Lol, that's nuts... I only use their cable internet; they charge me for tv but i dont have tv hookups in the house lol


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My Comcast bill is almost $175/month for TV and Internet -- no VoIP, and only 2 premium channels. If they wanna watch what I do in the middle of the night, they should be paying ME $175! laugh

*Mental Note* Purchase my own cable boxes!


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I'll have to keep extra rolls of duct tape on hand. Whenever I buy anything that has a suspicious looking peep window in it, I'll just cover it up wink

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Carpal Tunnel
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It probably actually more like an infra-rd scanner and your Duct tape won't bother it. tongue

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Pooh-Bah
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A ball-peen hammer will do the trick laugh


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An icepick and a book to wack it through and to oblivion...


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Carpal Tunnel
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Then how you going to watch your Pay-Per-View/Movies if you break the device crazy

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Pooh-Bah
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...NetFlix! tongue laugh


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Giganews + newsleecher ..er Yah, netflix! tongue

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Welcome back SD

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Originally Posted by Sirdude
Giganews + newsleecher ..er Yah, netflix! tongue
It lives!


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