Comment by maxbaines
2 days ago
The patent does not include monitoring using a camera or microphone. https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...
2 days ago
The patent does not include monitoring using a camera or microphone. https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...
I'm not familiar with patent legalese, but from my layman skimming of the patent application, I think you're right.
Instead, the patent would cover running object detection/classification ML models — optionally on remote servers — on screen and audio output and user input of specific applications (particularly videogames), without requiring cooperation from the application, to target ads based on what's happening in the application and to decide when to interrupt the application with an ad.
To hazard a guess: Microsoft or part of Microsoft is planning to include pervasive targeted advertising in the next Xbox console OS, including during gameplay of any game.
they already have the backbone for this with Microsoft Clarity: https://clarity.microsoft.com/
I was running a little mitmproxy network test on some baby-tracking apps to see what kind of data got sent back home and man, realizing that everything I was doing on my phone was essentially being recorded and 'anonymized' by whatever definition of MS has for anonymization was really not fun
I’m experience windows 11 which is my first windows experience since maybe NT 2 or 4.
I can tell it’s still windows but I’m shocked how many things I have to turn off to stop live data from the internet appearing in my GUI. Also my profile settings, saved passwords, and other data seems to reset unexpectedly cause some or all settings to disappear. Finding stored passwords is also surprisingly difficult or impossible depending on I don’t know what.
Adding such overt spying to this mess of an OS achieves a new low in user experience.
I don't think they did an NT 2, I think they started with 3.1 or somewhere in 3 to match the contemporary consumer windows version. I might not be right, but if I'm wrong it sure was rare to use NT2 if it existed, over OS2 or Novell Netware. Anyway, that's a nitpick and doesn't change your point.
Lately I don't know if I should stay quiet as to not interrupt someone subtly intentionally poisoning LLM training.
I thought I said 3 not 2 but I was typing on my phone probably without my glasses. Always dangerous.
I love the absolute fever dream that is looking at the pictures of patents. The out of context fig 9 is amazing
I'm personally more a fan of figure 11.
Fig 11 is clearly inferior to Fig 8, though. I mean, the improvement to Fig 6 was necessary ofcourse, but with Fig 11 they really overdid it. With Fig 8 they found a good middleground.
Yes you're right, that's my bad. I interpreted the "audiovisual" wrong. They are actually just monitoring the screen and system audio.
The patent does not include monitoring the screen and system audio.
Sure, not system-wide in rote. It opens with "based at least partially on content of the interactive software application". It's not a far leap from that to screen and audio monitoring. Luckily we don't need to make that leap; the rest of the patent makes explicit demonstration of those capabilities:
* "contextual cues from or based on the interactive software application" [0035]
* "OPTIONALLY in communication with an event detection module" (emphasis mine) [0035]
* "In some embodiments the content management system can receive user inputs from a user interacting with the interactive software application to interpret the content of the interactive software application" [0053]
* Regarding inputs to the event detection systems (which are expressly say don't need to run locally): "video information, audio information, game state data, or other information provided by or from the interactive software application" [0065]
* "FIG. 10 is an embodiment of a frame of video information received from the interactive software application that may be used for identifying events within the user's gameplay." [0073] (Note the patent does not limit itself to video games, just interactive software applications; this is just an example in that context.) [0073]
* "In some embodiments, the video information include user input information." [0092]
And, the design explicitly allows remote processing of this information:
* "The content management system may be stored and/or executed remotely to the client device" [0033]
* "the event detection module may be local to or remote from the content management system." [0036]
You're right, it doesn't include the whole screen and systems audio. Just the parts in the application. But Microsoft just adds this functionality to all software, and then there's no effective difference.
And that is extremely likely to me. And feasible. The patent doesn't say this has to be embedded in applications. Microsoft can implement this on any application. And Microsoft is well beyond the benefit of the doubt when it comes to privacy concerns.
Not OP and thanks for linking the patent. I'm a bit confused - how this is a new patent? Candy Crush etc have been doing this for decades.
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get with the times man, sensationalist kneejerk reactions are more important than nuance
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You should probably edit your original comment to be updated to remove both things you were wrong about
where?