He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
— Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Next step: Most TV’s are now Interwebitube enabled, so route this data on who’s sitting in front of what TV to, say, the FBI. To keep us safe from terrorists, of course. Crazy? Who’d imagine 10 years ago body scanners in airports or schools watching kids via their computers. On the other hand, you’ve got nothing to hide, right? RIGHT???
The next time you fall asleep in front of the TV, someone, or rather something, could be watching you – and all in the name of saving energy.
Sony last year launched a new addition to its Bravia range of TVs, which features facial recognition technology similar to that found in the electronics giants’ most advanced cameras. As a result, the TV is able to “watch” you and can turn the picture off if you nod off in front of Match of the Day, saving the energy used by the backlight.
The Bravia WE5 also features a heat and motion sensor that similarly allows the system to turn off the picture if it is left playing to an empty room, and an ambient light sensor that reduces the output from the TV’s backlight depending on the brightness of the room.
Or can shut off the Tv in case you die watching it and only be discovered three months later because of the stench.
This is all well and good, but I won’t enable these spying ports until the device can bring a blanket to the chair and cover me up quietly. And wash the dishes or do the laundry quietly in the meantime. In other words, when the technology is sophisticated enough to understand and respect the concept of privacy (apart from the intent of it’s makers or it’s makers shareholders), I’ll either be buying the dumber tech, or paying someone to disable the tech if necessary.
or will allow the MPAA to switch off the set to prevent you from further infringing copyright.
I was waiting for someone to make/market a full-fledged “telescreen”.
“Who’d imagine 10 years ago body scanners in airports”
They imagined that 20 years ago in the film total recall.
I know… that was a work of fiction, but future reality is a mirror of current/past fiction.
#4 N74JW
My sentiments precisely. At least it is not compulsory, yet.
#4: Appearing in science fiction and then appearing in reality are two different things. We can imagine many things, good and bad, but to actually have it is something else.
This just can’t be good.
So if your toddler runs by the TV nekkid, Sony has just made kiddie porn?
In Soviet Russia..
So far this just sounds like a glorified motion sensor. Or heat sensor. Nothing that can actually “watch us” in detail. A large dog could keep the thing running, for hours. Probably watching Animal Planet. Or whatever channel they moved all the Lassie shows to. Hardly necessary, since today’s Tv remote controls can signal not turn off the set, after it warns a preset idle time out has expired. And hopefully the viewer, hasn’t.
Aw, this is nothing. If you have digital cable, the cable company can tell what channel every set is tuned to, millisecond by millisecond. Do you think they don’t compile this information?
So, N74JW, how do you like your Bellanca Super Viking? My Bellanca Citabria was near mint when purchased and has given me many hours of aerobatic fun.
Bellanca Super Viking
Wow that’s my picture. Will be back in 2010 at Oshkosh, u2?
Absolutely Orwellian, it’s like in ‘1984’ (the book dummy, not the year), Big brother’s watching you from behind the screen. I used to believe that something like this could never happen, like back in the 70’s when I read it, and 1984 came and went and it all seemed like so much paranoia, but now, I just don’t knnow.
Sony can’t get enough of sodomizing itself, its customers and its stockholders.
#14, Connector, I won’t be able to make it this year. Do me and KD a big favor and take some great pictures and / or video, and I’ll help you post ’em onto Cage Match. We have about 400,000 page views / month there, so your work will hit a lot of eyeballs.
Really great photos and / or stories will post right here at DU.
Great looking airplane, BTW. Here’s a Citabria like KD’s, wood (spruce) and fabric (ceconite coated), same paint job.
Didn’t you know there’s a camera behind that dark red/black window on your cable box? Been there for years.
The picture of the guy with earphones is from the wonderful German movie “The Lives of Others,” (Das Leben der Anderen). It won the Oscar in 2007 for best foreign language film. A must see….
Holy Shit!, That is my idea! a couple of years ago I made up a sensor to turn of my TV, took one of those motion sensing switches and wired it to a powerbar, the TV turned off if there was no movement for say, 20 mins. It worked real well, but the sensor wasn’t sensitive enough and I had to keep waving my arms around every 10 mins!
Wait.. did I patent that?….