<nettime> consumer detector

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Xbox team’s ‘consumer detector’ would dis-Kinect freeloading TV viewers
November 3, 2012 at 5:35 pm by Todd Bishop

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/microsoft-diskinect-freeloading-tv-viewers/

A newly surfaced patent filing from Microsoft’s Xbox Incubation team 
details one of the new innovations they’ve been thinking about. This one 
could be very popular among major movie and television studios. But it 
probably wouldn’t generate much excitement among Xbox users.
The patent application, filed under the heading “Content Distribution 
Regulation by Viewing User,” proposes to use cameras and sensors like 
those in the Xbox 360 Kinect controller to monitor, count and in some 
cases identify the people in a room watching television, movies and 
other content. The filing refers to the technology as a “consumer detector.”
In one scenario, the system would then charge for the television show or 
movie based on the number of viewers in the room. Or, if the number of 
viewers exceeds the limits laid out by a particular content license, the 
system would halt playback unless additional viewing rights were purchased.
The system could also take into account the age of viewers, limiting 
playback of mature content to adults, for example. This patent 
application doesn’t explain how that would work, but a separate 
Microsoft patent application last year described a system for using 
sensors to estimate age based on the proportions of their body.

Inventors listed on the latest application include Xbox Incubation GM 
Alex Kipman, who led the development of Kinect. The others are Andrew 
Fuller, Xbox director of incubation; and Kathryn Stone Perez, executive 
producer of Xbox Incubation.
Also notable are references in the application to a glasses-style 
head-mounted display as one of the viewing options — another possible 
clue to the types of things the Xbox Incubation team is working on.
The patent application, made public this week, was originally submitted 
in April 2011. Filings such as these provide a sense for what a 
company’s engineers and researchers have been contemplating, but it’s 
not clear if Microsoft actually plans to roll out the “consumer 
detector” as part of the next generation of Xbox or Kinect or anything else.
Even if the technology were introduced, it seems like there would be 
endless ways of avoiding it, unless a broad base of technology and 
content providers were on board.
But who knows, maybe someday you’ll need to be extra careful how many 
people you invite to your big Super Bowl party … unless you’re willing 
to pony up a few more bucks.



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