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Can Kinect's Sensor Gather Consumer Data For A Customized Experience?
At the BMO Digital Entertainment Investor Conference in New York, Microsoft's Dennis Durkin had a few interesting things to say about consumer data collection that involves Kinect's recognition capabilities.
Here's an excerpt of Durkin's statement:
"Kinect actually brings a really interesting opportunity as it relates to (customer data), because obviously with Kinect when you stand in front of it, it has face recognition, voice recognition. We can cater what content gets presented to you based on who you are. So your wife, in the future, may get a different set of content choices than you because we have a smart device that knows that your preferences are different than hers. And over time, that will help us be more targeted about what content choices we present. What advertising we present. How we get better feedback and data. About how many people are in a room when an advertisement is shown. How many people are in a room when a game is being played. How are those people engaged with the game? How are they engaged with a sporting event? Are they standing up, are they excited, are they wearing Seahawks jerseys, are they wearing Giants jerseys? ... But those are the kind of things that when you add this new sensor into the equation, there's a bunch of business opportunities that also come with that."
Now before you start reconsidering the clothes you wear or the actions you take when interacting with Kinect, all of this as it stands is theoretical. The statement obviously raised some concerns. While it could be cool to have personalized content based on actions and attire, there is a question of privacy as well. Microsoft released the following statement: "Xbox 360 and Xbox Live do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes. Microsoft has a strong track record of implementing some of the best privacy protection measures in the industry. We place great importance on the privacy of our customers' information and the safety of their experiences."
So if this does get implemented in the future, you can expect Microsoft to ask politely for your permission first.
[Via Seattle PI]
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