Big Business is Watching You.

We are all aware of George Orwell's novel "1984", in which he foresees a future in which government, a.k.a. " Big Brother", broadcast propaganda while simultaneously watching every citizen through "telescreens" in every home.  Aldous Huxley in his 1932's Brave New World, government pushes the virtue of consumption as necessary for a strong economy. Citizens are also expected to take a hallucinogenic recreational drug as the universal form of amusement and escapism, but which also serves as a way to pacify and socialize everyone. Well according to an article in ComputerWorld by Mike Elgan we are on the verge of achieving such a world.

He describes how two recent inititives have emerged that when put together, realise both Orwell and Huxley’s visions. The first one according to Elgan is Microsoft’s Kinect, which is a special camera system for the Xbox 360. Kinect enable players to control game play with body movement, and it also uses ‘facial recognition’ to’ log on’ to the system. Microsoft have told investors recently that Kinect can be used by advertisers to see how many people are in the room when an ad is on the screen and further to be able to custom tailor content using ‘facial recognition’, a scary thought I think. So when you buy a Kinect, you're bringing into your home a "telescreen" that can recognize who's in the room and interpret body language -- and eventually even facial expressions.

The second one according to Elgan is that researchers at the University of the West of England and Aralia Systems have developed a system to monitor the facial expressions of theatre-goers while they watch movies and the ads that accompany them. The idea is to gauge the collective response to whatever is onscreen and also collect demographics. Are people fidgety and uncomfortable? Is everybody laughing? Are people losing interest? Are people sitting in, family groups, couples or alone. Both Kinect and the Aralia-UWE system ultimately will identify and monitor the facial expressions and body language of people as they consume content on a screen, all for the purposes of knowing who you are and what you are thinking?

Elgan argues that these two recently announced technologies when combined, which is inevitable, will give one system which gauges audience reaction and collects audience demographics, and in real time, giving the advertising industry its Holy Grail. Such technology, he argues, will revolutionize contextual advertising. Combined with other technologies, it will enable advertisers to serve up exactly the right ads for individual people at just the right moment.

Elgan further argues that end users will accept such technology and he sites Google's Gmail, as an example, which reads all your e-mail and serves up advertising related to the topics you discuss with family and friends. He says, ‘if this doesn't bother people, then an improved video-enabled version shouldn't either’. He predicts that next year, the idea of cameras monitoring your face and body movement to serve up contextual ads and collect demographics will go mainstream. Camera monitoring will try to figure out what you're thinking while you're watching a screen as it entertains you, while getting you to buy more stuff at the same time.

Orwell and Huxley didn't see it coming -- separately, at least. But together, they pretty much nailed it.

The thought of this is indeed scary, but Elgan’s view that we will accept this type of technology has to be taken seriously, we seem to have accepted much already and I am inclined to agree with him that with many small steps already taken a few more will not be much of a barrier.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9196333/Elgan_Big_Business_is_watching_you