In March of 2008, Comcast’s Gerard Kunkel proclaimed that Comcast was experimenting with embedding cameras in your DVR or cable box, allowing the company to know exactly who is watching what, at what time. A privacy backlash incused and Kunkel quickly backpedalled. It’s worth noting that the company behind the system, Prime Sense, seems to be trying to position it for less “scary” apps, such as being able to do “virtual touch” interfaces, so users could interact with menus on the screen without a remote (features found in some video games these days). Prime Sense uses “3D-sensing” cameras to identify which users are in a room using thermal identification technology.

It’s easy to tell why Television networks are interested in this kind of technology, the idea is that it can show personalized ads and better target content.

Prime Sense, however, is in the hardware business, hoping to get its technology built into a wide range of set-tops and gaming consoles. It’s in the process of working with third-party developers to create apps for its 3D-sensing technology, according to Suneil Mishra, Prime Sense’s VP of sales and marketing for the U.S., who discussed the technology during a conference call earlier today. He says Prime Sense is ready to start mass production, with some undisclosed customers already in the pipeline. Cable’s New Dimension?

If you take a few steps back and look at what’s been going over the past few years this is just par for the course. All Digital TV boxes already spy on every remote button press, cellular companies record every phone call you make and they track you via your cellular phone, search engines sell anonymous data on every website link you visit. The real scary part is that we think it’s normal and giving up privacy is for our own safety and convenience, when in actual fact you are just an X or Y chromosome that fits into a demographic that in turn fits into an LSM, ready to be sold onto the customised Orwellian future that you really want.

I guess the only logical way to end this is with the moment that won Peter Finch his posthumous Oscar.

Related posts:

1. What Google thinks about your Privacy? You Have None
2. Facebook users: Here comes voice chat.