Update: Comcast Responds to Camera Story
The story of Comcast’s desire to know who’s in your living room has certainly touched off a web-wide frenzy, starting in our comments section and finding its way into The New York Times.
Gerard Kunkel, Comcast senior vice president of user experience, and the man interviewed for the original story, responded in our post comments section. In the interest of fairness, we wanted to give Mr. Kunkel’s response more prominence.
Chris,
Your article on “Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You” portrayed some assumptions that require correction and clarification. I want to be clear that in no way are we exploring any camera devices that would monitor customer behavior.
To gather information for your article on Comcast’s exploration of cameras you picked up on my conversation with another conference attendee. The other attendee and I were deep in a conversation discussing a variety of input devices offered by a variety of vendors that Comcast is reviewing.
The camera-based gesture recognition device is in no way designed to – or capable of – monitoring your living room. These technologies are designed to allow simple navigation on a television set just as the Wii remote uses a camera to manage its much heralded gesture-based interactivity.
We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple – a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.
As with any new technology, we carefully consider the consumer benefits. In fact, we do an enormous amount of consumer testing in advance of making a product decision such as this. I’m confident that a new technology like gesture-based navigation will be fully explored with consumers to understand the product’s feature benefits – and of course, the value to the consumer.
Sincerely,
Gerard Kunkel
I responded to Mr. Kunkel in our comment with the following:
Hi Mr. Kunkel,
Just to further clarify. After you granted me our initial video interview, you brought up the topic of Comcast knowing who was in the living room in a conversation between you, myself and another conference attendee.
I actually left and came back to follow up on this point while you were talking with that same attendee. At this point, you were aware that I was a reporter and I took handwritten notes in front of you as we talked to make sure I had an accurate accounting of what you were saying.
I’d love to talk further with either you or someone else at Comcast to follow up on this story.
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Chris–
Gerard used the exact same response Comcast’s PR director Jenni Moyer used in another blog. Check it out: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2008/03/comcasts-creepy-experiment-puts-cams.html. You’d think Comcast would at least know to mix it up a little. Oh well….
Ooops: try this link: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2008/03/comcasts-creepy-experiment-puts-cams.html
LOL @ everyone thinking Comcast is going to be watching you in your living room. Takes a pretty stretched imagination to actually believe that. Gullible, anyone?
GMC lost me by pushing OnStar spy system in all their vehicles.
Marriott lost me when they played big brother and told me I could not smoke in a hotel room
Comcast has lost me now just be Proposing this kind of technology.
No thanks comca(spy)cast
People are very stupid to think Comcast is putting a
camera in your living room.
What you will see…..is a 2-way video telephone that will be displayed on your TV. You will be able to make a phone call
to a grand-child or your mother in a different state and be….able to see them and they see you.
2 way video phone is the next step but I can hear the critics
now…..what is Comcast up to now?
These were the same people….when radio and TV came out to the public for the first time and called it witchcraft.
Grow up people.
The PATRIOT acts gives an unlawful green light for the government to spy on you by whatever means they choose, withourt a warrant. Are there really any people so naive that think this is just a benign “feature”?
When you don’t want the camera to see what you’re doing, put a piece of tape over the lens. . .
To be sure,when they come out with a cable box that can respond to voice commands, it could always be listening. But this will be the golden opportunity to tell them about the aliens! And they’ll have to listen!
The last thing we need is a “individual outside” company like Applied Digital Solutions working closely with communications companies.
“We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple – a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.” – From a Comcast spokesperson regarding an article about comcast watching the consumer. Here is my response, instead of putting movement/gesture biometrics into it’s cable boxes to “Improve user experience” why doesn’t comcast work on fixing it’s current technology to “improve user experiences”. Comcast took over Insight’s operations here in my home town and since it has taken over I have had nothing but problems. When insight was still running it’s own show in my town I never once had any problems or complaints. Weeks after the take over was official I have had nothing but problems with my cable, and my cable internet.
Too often I am subject to an enormous amount of lag regarding the internet connectivity, and odd problems I’ve never seen with cable television. On occasion the television will black out and at the top left of the television “Low signal” appears (keep in mind I am a cable customer, not satellite/dish). Too often the picture will pixelate and freeze. Other times after a commercial break the last ten+ minutes of a show will completely repeat. Lets say I am in the middle of a show and I seen a few specific scenes already, the commercial break kicks in, when it goes back to the show I will be re-watching scenes of a show that I have already seen. At one point I recorded a show and all that recorded was the first half of the show twice. I know this sounds odd, but it has happened so many times I lost count. I told my wife about it, but she said she hasn’t seen it happen. Then the other night she was watching a movie, after the commercial break a previous scene already aired replayed and she said “Am I going crazy or did we already see this part”, at which point I said “I told you so”. The amazing thing is not once when this happens is it ever caught, because you have to sit there watch the previous ten minutes or so that they already broadcasted just so you can watch the rest of the show/movie, and that is if the ending is not cut off because of their rebroadcast of previous scenes. It’s f*cking ridiculous and the user experience is quite literally shit.
If they are really worried about consumer experience I would suggest they work on their present technology, stop purposely slowing connections to the internet (slowly than advertised up/down) and fix what the hell they are doing when replaying portions of a show/movie more than once, fix the pixelation problems, and total video signal losses. I believe this camera/movement biometics has very little to do with user experience and more to do with some ulterior motive (whatever it may be).
Is anyone surprised?! They would be watching in a heart beat if it were legal and I am not totally convinced that is a bar to anyone now a days.