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-- your TV is watching you!

Posted by AnotherWay83 on May-08-2003 20:06:

your TV is watching you!

well almost, and it's telling advertisers what its seeing

seriously, tho, this stuff is kinda alarming, read for urself

May 8, 2003 | Several years ago, Predictive Networks, a software company based in Cambridge, Mass., set out to determine what it could tell about a person based on how he or she used a television remote control.

Predictive discovered that by recording every button-press on a remote and analyzing the resulting data, the company could pick out distinct "channel surfing patterns." After learning these patterns, Predictive's software could determine which one of several members of a household has control of the TV at any particular time. Predictive found that men and women use the TV remote control quite differently; during commercial breaks, men engage in a kind of rapid-fire channel surfing, while women tend to switch to only one or two other channels, if they surf at all.

When the company combines this remote-usage data with information on the shows and ads that the person using the remote has watched, its software can guess whether a viewer is male or female. And, because your channel-surfing behavior is significantly affected by others in the room, Predictive can also tell whether there is more than one person watching the television.

read the rest of the article here:

http://salon.com/tech/feature/2003/...v/index_np.html (you can get the free day pass)

basically it sends the info it collects back to your cable provider thru the set-top box...

Posted by Subsonik on May-08-2003 20:11:

Posted by StalkerElmo on May-08-2003 20:31:

In Soviet Union, T.V watches YOU!

Posted by Essential1 on May-08-2003 22:33:

quote:
Originally posted by StalkerElmo
In Soviet Union, T.V watches YOU!

and HAMBURGERS eat PEOPLE!

Posted by UglyDave on May-09-2003 13:35:

that's absolutly amazing.

Who funded this research? Who's idea was it?

Posted by venomdx on May-09-2003 13:38:

sounds kinda... wierd

Posted by skip on May-09-2003 14:08:

quote:
Originally posted by Essential1
and HAMBURGERS eat PEOPLE!

Posted by Rocco on May-09-2003 16:17:

and this is what they tell us.. imagine the research they DONT tell us about

Posted by jonnycarcinogen on May-09-2003 17:57:

quote:
Originally posted by Essential1
and HAMBURGERS eat PEOPLE!

LMAO

Posted by AnotherWay83 on May-09-2003 19:27:

bleh i thought ppl. would take this more seriously cos of the privacy issues etc. but oh well

Posted by tu_face on May-09-2003 20:20:

quote:
Originally posted by AnotherWay83
bleh i thought ppl. would take this more seriously cos of the privacy issues etc. but oh well

i see your point, but to be honest i really dont care if a bunch of numbskulls know what i watch on tv

Posted by Ajay on May-10-2003 02:36:

lmao essential1

Posted by nic01445 on May-10-2003 03:02:

this aint so bad. i'll be worried when the tv's can tell researchers your height, sexual preferance and bra-size...

Posted by Freeza on May-10-2003 03:08:

Haha I live less then 10 minutes away from Cambridge, Mass. Anyways, I heard about this before, but never got a chance to read up about it, thanks for posting this

Posted by wackattack on May-10-2003 03:15:

i think it is kind of weird that people really want to know how we watch tv. i meen cant they just test themselves. what are we lab rats