XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Tuesday 4 December 2012

They Can Hear You Now: Verizon Patent Could Listen In On Customers - in customers’ living rooms -

They Can Hear You Now: Verizon Patent Could Listen In On Customers -  in customers’ living rooms - 



Verizon has filed a patent for targeting ads that collect information from infrared cameras and microphones that can detect the amount of people and types of conversations happening in customers’ living rooms.

The set-top box technology is not the first of its kind – Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 that recommended content to users based on people it recognized in the room. Google TV also proposed a patent that would use video and audio recorders to figure out exactly how many people in a room were watching its broadcast.

Verizon filed for the application in May 2011, but the report was published last week due to laws stating that all patent applications be published after 18 months.

FierceCable first publicized the Verizon patent that gives examples of the DVR’s acute sensitivity in customers’ living rooms: argument sounds prompt ads for marriage counseling, and sounds of “cuddling” prompt ads for contraceptives.

“If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words,” Verizon states in the patent application.

The patent goes on to say that the sensors would also be able to determine if a viewer is exercising, eating, laughing, singing, or playing a musical instrument, and target ads to viewers based on their mood. It also could use sensors to determine what type of pets or inanimate objects are in the room. The system can also “dynamically adjust parental control features” if it detects that young children are present in the room.

There are several types of sensors can be linked to the targeted advertising system. These include 3D imaging devices, thermographic cameras and microphones.

Users are also given the option to link their smartphones and tablets to the detection system to directly increase its sensitivity.

“If detection facility detects that the user is holding a mobile device, advertising facility may be configured to communicate with the mobile device to direct the mobile device to present the selected advertisement. Accordingly, not only may the selected advertisement be specifically targeted to the user, but it may also be delivered right to the user’s hands,” the Verizon application states.

Read more -
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/12/04/they-can-hear-you-now-verizon-patent-listens-in-on-customers/

Pizza Hut debuts pizza-scented perfume - smells like dough with a little bit of seasoning added -

Pizza Hut debuts pizza-scented perfume - smells like dough with a little bit of seasoning added - 



It’s the ideal gift for perfume loving foodies — Pizza Hut’s new pizza-scented perfume.

The idea for the fragrance began as a Facebook joke, said the company’s ad agency Grip Limited.

When Pizza Hut’s community managers posted a joke to the social media site last August about bottling the smell of fresh-made pizza fans reacted positively, garnering the post the month’s highest engagement rate, Grip’s managing director of digital, Adam Luck told Marketing Magazine.

Within half an hour, “a few thousand people” had responded saying they’d like a bottle, he said.

On its Facebook page Pizza Hut said the perfume has been shipped to 100 winners and fans are clamouring for more.

The scent “smells like dough with a little bit of seasoning added,” Luck said.

Read more - 
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1297391--pizza-hut-debuts-pizza-scented-perfume

Amsterdam to create ‘scum villages’ - nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city -

Amsterdam to create ‘scum villages’ - nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city - 


Amsterdam is to create "Scum villages" where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision.


Holland's capital already has a special hit squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six month course in how to behave.
Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness.
Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam's Labour mayor, has tabled the £810,000 plan to tackle 13,000 complaints of anti-social behaviour every year. He complained that long-term harassment often leads to law abiding tenants, rather than their nuisance neighbours, being driven out.
"This is the world turned upside down," the mayor said at the weekend.
The project also involves setting up a special hotline and system for victims to report their problems to the authorities.


The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."
Whilst denying that the new projects would be punishment camps for "scum", a spokesman for the city mayor stressed that the special residential units would aim to enforce good behaviour.
"The aim is not to reward people who behave badly with a new five-room home with a south-facing garden. This is supposed to be a deterrent," he said.
The tough approach taken by Mr van der Laan appears to jar with Amsterdam's famous tolerance for prostitution and soft drugs but reflects hardening attitudes to routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality.
There are already several small-scale trial projects in the Netherlands, including in Amsterdam, where 10 shipping container homes have been set aside for persistent offenders, living under 24-hour supervision from social workers and police.

Read more - 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/9719247/Amsterdam-to-create-scum-villages.html