The song, “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell comes to mind as I sit in my office listening to Alexa play my favorite songs and hearing my husband in the next room watching his favorite televison programs.
Does it feel like Somebody’s Watching You?
AI or Artificial Intelligence along with IoT which I previously wrote about does make our lives a lot better and more convenient, but at what cost?
According to a recent article in the New York Times, entitled How Smart TVs in Millions of U.S. Homes Track More Than What’s On Tonight, “The growing concern over online data and user privacy has been focused on tech giants like Facebook and devices like smartphones. people’s data is also increasingly being vacuumed right out of their living rooms via their televisions, sometimes without their knowledge.
I remember before Smartphones my employer at the time provided our team with “tracking devices” better known as “pagers”. Even though a pager wasn’t intelligent enough to track our location via GPS, we knew to make that callback within minutes after it beeped so that our employer knew we were on the JOB.
It was the same thing with relationships when pagers became mainstream and were no longer just carried by physicians and employees in Corporate America.
I bet if your boyfriend didn’t answer his page within a few minutes, there would be hell to pay afterwards, “I paged you and you didn’t answer – where were you” and then the argument began!
Alternatively, we used to get paid to provide viewing information to advertisers via a Nielsen Ratings box connected to our TVs. Today, we just give away that information, most times without compensation! Think about it, advertisers can gauge your interest by just prominently displaying a hashtag or invite you to a live Twitter Chat for the world to see!
According to the article, Smart TVs allows you to: “Interact with your favorite shows. Get recommendations based on the content you love. Connect your devices for exclusive content and special offers. By cleverly recognizing onscreen content, Samba Interactive TV lets you engage with your TV in a whole new way.”
Let’s Chat > What are your thoughts about Smart TV’s, does it make you feel like somebody’s watching you similar to this Twilight Zone Episode?
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Yikes!
My wife and I were cleaning the garage last year and I complained about how the new gas cans are terrible. I hate them because the spouts don’t work well, they drip all over, etc.
Well, the next day I started getting FB ads for gas can spouts that you can buy. They’re like the old ones that actually work.
Now mind you, the garage is 50 feet from the house and the electric was off to it. Soooooo… I concluded that my cell phone was “listening” to our conversation and sold the data to the company wanting to place the ad.
And now, I have an invention idea relating to CPAP machines. Talked about it with my wife and, lo and behold, FB ads for CPAP!
Next week, I’m supposed to have a non-disclosure agreement drafted. You can bet one of the provisions is that all “smart devices” must be powered off when any discussions occur.