In a technical twist that could be interpreted as either pragmatic or downright Orwellian , a San - Francisco - found inauguration has collaborate with television company to land you a telly that keeps tab on what you ’re watching in an unprecedented style . Using the data it collect , your TV report your viewing to websites and online advertisers in real time so as to personally sew your web - browsing experience . ( Or enslave you to The Man . One of those two things . )
The engineering behind this operation is called “ Sync Apps . ” Developed by a company address byFlingo , Sync Apps is expected to be featured in television by the oddment of the year ; and the company is aim for some serious market saturation .
The first unit of ammunition of the mellow - tech sets is already being mass - produced , and will retail for less than $ 500 — which , compared to a lot of other televisions currently on the market , is likely to sound jolly appealing to a deal of consumers .
Here ’s a speedy rundown on how it all works . A television equipped with Sync Apps keeps chit on everything you ’re watching in tangible fourth dimension ( this could be anything from cable television goggle box , to DVDs , to video files shared over your home meshwork ) . Then Sync Apps sends the info to a server that identify whatever you ’re determine . electronic computer , laptop , tablet , mobile twist — anything sharing the same mesh connection as your television — can then exploit into that data to expose relevant web content on the fly ball . If the channel on your idiot box changes , so does what you see on the vane . And here ’s where the money is : information collected and analyzed by Sync Apps will also be made available to social networking sites and advertising party .
David Harrison , cofounder and CTO of Flingo , explains how he project consumers might apply the engineering :
Any nomadic app or web varlet being used in front of your television receiver can demand our waiter what is on right now … For example , you could go to Google or IMDB and the varlet would already live what ’s on the covert . retail merchant like Amazon or Walmart might want to show you thing to buy colligate to a show , like DVDs , or what the great unwashed are wear in it .
Consumers will have the selection of deactivate the “ watch - you - catch - me ” feature of speech provided by Sync Apps , which think of that this technology still shack in the acres of “ divine service feature , ” as fight down to one of social restraint . Still , the line distinguishing the the two is becoming a little less distinct , particularly when you see that many drug user may not figure out how to activate these privacy feature .
It ’s not hard to guess how technologies like Sync Apps could keep you trapped in online“filter bubbles ” — personalized browsing experiences so tailored to our individual tastes that we drop out on content that can challenge and engage us in new ways .
ViaMIT ’s Technology Review
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