Microsoft patent app reveals plans for monitoring group activities

We already knew that Microsoft had some mind reading technology (of sorts) in the works, but it looks like it isn't stopping there, with a recent patent application revealing some of the company's plans for "monitoring group activities." To do that, Microsoft envisions a rather elaborate monitoring system that'd consist of an array of "physiological or environmental sensors." Those would be used to monitor heart rate, galvanic skin response, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, facial expressions, and blood pressure, to name just a few personal details most folks would likely rather keep to themselves. That'll supposedly let the system detect when users need assistance with specific activities, and in turn offer them help or assign the task to someone else. But that's not all. As The Register points out, the patent application also makes it quite clear that the information would be stored away for future use, which would apparently allow for problems to be more easily identified and, you guessed it, allow for users' performance to be more readily compared with others.

[Via The Register]

[Flashpoint @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:11PM]

*Secretary walks in*

My Heartrate increases
Body temperatur rises
My pupils widen
My respiratory rate increases
Palms sweat
Spidey seense is tingling...

Microsoft software automatically reroutes my browser to www.pornotube.com

[DonatoM3 @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:18PM]

You're definitely right this is just another tool to nip sexual harrasment in the bud.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:28PM]

Or to fire someone for thinking about sex? Do we seriously need to go that far?

[Dextro @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:14PM]

Yes, but those patents filed by Apple are really off the hook!

[Zak @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:16PM]

Big Brother, thy name is Microsoft.

[Todd @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:17PM]

As Orwellian as that sounds, it assumes people will still be using Microsoft products by the time the 3 to 5 year patent process completes. Maybe similar to Friendster's patent portfolio, enforceable if they had any users...

[LegendZ28 @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:19PM]

Haha, figures Engadget would have a "Big Brother" patent article following an "Uber Cool and Hip" Docking patent from Apple. Come on guys.

[Dextro @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:47PM]

You have got to be kiddin' me.
I think the government is behind this! Give agent Scully a call, she'll be happy to help you!

[Ray @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:20PM]

I don't want it to keep wondering what Im frustrated about when I'm actually observing 'adult' material.

[Blaktornado @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:55PM]

Ok, I think spending £1000 on an iMac was worth it...

[fearlessleo @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:13PM]

someones a big fan of oceans 13 :)

[Brad @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:33PM]

Lets be real folks (though it sure is easy to scream "Orwell!" at the drop of a hat), sensors like the ones described in the patent aren't cheap or innocuous, and aren't going to be included in your next WinMo phone or Vista2 machine. Realistically, this patent is probably describing a highly specialized - and very expensive - monitoring room. It is probably an aspect of Microsoft Labs' enormous market research projects. Have you ever seen how they tested Halo3?
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:31PM]

That's ok, I was thinking Microsoft was up to it's usual tactics. If you don't like it, they zap you until you do. It's the Microsoft way and no other!!

[Brad @ Jan 3rd 2008 8:22PM]

A quick glance at your comment history shows that your anti-Microsoft vitriol has little basis in reality, and shows very little original thinking or objective analysis. Thus, from now on I will summarily ignore your comments.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 3rd 2008 9:25PM]

I don't hide it from anyone. I think Microsoft is bad for the economy and bad for computing in general. They force feed you an operating system with little to no customization and due to market share penetration, you have few choices but you accept it and use it.

Ignore me if you like. Continue thinking that Microsoft is the second coming and that they have your best interest in mind. "Ignorance is bliss" they say.

[Brad @ Jan 3rd 2008 10:11PM]

Why is it bad for the economy? Because they employ thousands of highly skilled workers, generate tremendous wealth, or because standardizing on the MS OS (and MS Office Suite) has allowed businesses across the world to collaborate and interact without having to worry about document formats or having to replace their entire hardware base because some new piece of software won't work on it? Or maybe it's because the thousands of companies doing billions of dollars of business each year as VARs (precisely by allowing you to customize your hardware/software needs) is somehow "bad"?

Or maybe they're bad for computing because in your computing elitism you've forgotten what it's like to be a normal business user, and because you don't like them somehow the countless millions of man-hours that have been saved by using the MSDN tool kits and the like somehow "hurt" your computing experience.

Or better yet, you can think that some OTHER company out there DOES have your best interest in mind, but that somehow, in some sneaky way, Microsoft has tricked the ENTIRE PLANET.

If ignorance is bliss, you must just be rolling in happiness.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 4th 2008 6:36AM]

Because they don't use STANDARDS that any company can use to allow competition and innovation. Competition to drive the prices down, quality up. Innovation to allow someone to create a better, faster, or smother user experience while at the same time allowing those business users (you talk about) the ability to save, open, and use those precious documents in any application without reverse engineering the format. How about opening the API to allow the community of developers you speak so highly of to create an alternative Excel without floating point bugs (65537, or 100000, who knows!) and issues saving to OOXML documents without corrupting the data by turning numbers like 45 into 44.999999999999?

How about opening those standards for interfacing with the hardware APIs allowing companies to create compatible and competitive APIs? Why doesn't Microsoft use and enhance already (defacto?) known standards (Java) instead of creating their own (.NET)? Why doesn't Microsoft compete fairly instead of abusing their market share to drive off or stifle competition by "packing in" their solution (Netscape, Firefox [still less than 15%], and soon Silverlight)? How about opening and documenting every API to give people a chance to interface with their systems (Active Directory/SMB/etc.) so that other operating systems may have a chance at competing with them in this business atmosphere you talk about on the same network. (Linux has to reverse engineer methods for interfacing with Microsoft systems tying up development time that could be spent enhancing the experience to provide a competitive alternative. Hell, I haven't checked recently, but can Macs access Windows shares over the network yet? Can they print to Windows server queues?)

I'm thinking about the normal business user here that have to pay high licensing fees for something that they have little control over. They can't seek out alternatives that may better service their needs because the alternatives have no ability to interface with the systems already in place. They can't transfer their application to another operating system because Microsoft APIs are undocumented and unknown.

Or how about the home user? How many of those people can take that game they just bought and run it on a Mac/Linux PC?

And you have the balls to tell me that Microsoft allows more hardware choices? More than just x86 systems? The Mac's ability to run on x86 or PowerPC? How about Linux's ability to run on practically anything from phones to mainframes? Talk about interoperability. Being able to run the same application on any device without complicated rewrites to some other form of Windows (CE/Mobile.)

Let's go back to that business customer a second while I'm talking about hardware. What about all these scientists that require the different hardware architectures to process large amounts of specialized data? You think they enjoy working around a Microsoft proprietary dominated world? The processing they need to be done requires machines of special build and your telling me that your precious Windows is allowing them to install and run Windows and your precious development tools on their hardware to suit their need?

Ignorance. Please.

[Brad @ Jan 4th 2008 2:53PM]

So it's clear from your response that you fall into the general category of pop-economists. You think that competition automatically equals lower prices and better user experience, and that monopoly automatically equals bad, totally neglecting destructive competition and user confusion. The problem is one can't really argue those points, they're fundamental assumptions and you either take them or leave them.

But lets take a moment to address the topic of "standards". Standards are a situation where a monopoly (which you so angrily argued against your entire post) is beneficial. The fact that there is one company setting a standard allows many countless others to standardize against it, even though it drives competing standards out of business and limits consumer choice to things based on a given standard.

Take USB. USB has effectively killed Firewire in all but the most specialized of applications. USB is the Microsoft of the peripheral world. Why not make their connector and drivers interchangeable with IEEE1394, a standards-body-endorsed option? Because every time USB gets stamped on a product or on the packaging, they get a little money. And it was beneficial to the consumer not to need multiple ports on the side of their machine.

You compare Java to .NET (my personal involvement with the two has been minimal, I admit), but by your own admission, having competition drives the two to constantly improve. You think that if JAVA wasn't constantly worried about being replaced by .NET, we'd still be getting JRE updates?

And what are these fictitious "STANDARDS" that you speak of, anyway? Is there one all-knowing, all-purpose programming language that does everything and I've just yet to come across it? Is there one body that has the best intentions of every developer and every project in mind when they hand down, chiseled in stone by God Himself, the perfect, all-encompassing, and ever applicable standard? No, your problem is that the standards that Microsoft uses aren't the ones YOU'D pick, or that YOU like. You like Java better than .NET. That's great. Plenty of people like .NET better. Plenty like the fact that in order to run their .NET apps, their users don't have to install a JRE, one that now on a weekly basis tries to get them to install more crap (and is starting to look a whole lot like malicious software, thanks to the constant "Install OpenOffice bubbles"). In fact, what people tend to like most about .NET is precisely that it IS a standard, that it "just works" on Windows (and Windows Mobile/CE) and you don't have to install extra environments. And why should it have been Java, and not Ruby, Python, or any of dozens of other languages?

But I digress.

I guess I'm not entirely sure what you expect here. Microsoft, like Sun, Apple, and all the other companies who's products you've mentioned, are profit-maximizing entities. Their goal is to get the highest return for their shareholders as possible, right? You argue that Microsoft should "unbundle" everything, shipping a barely-functioning OS (with no media player, internet browser, or application framework) so that users have more "choice". Why doesn't Apple let anyone use any software they want to put any kind of DRM on their iPod? Why doesn't McDonalds sell Jack-in-the-Box and Burger King burgers in their restaurants?

I think my problem is that you hold Microsoft to a double standard, and that makes you a hypocrite. You want them to be open to other people's standards (which those companies explicitly designed to corner a market and drive out competition), but develop their own protective standards, ones which they control for tighter integration, a smoother user experience, and not hoping that the company or standard gets changed next week and requires them to re-write entire packages.

Why does Sun make Java? Out of the goodness of their collective corporate hearts?
Why does Adobe make PDFs, to make sharing documents easier?
Why does Apple only let you run OSX on Apple's Trusted Hardware Platform, rather than any PowerPC or x86 machine?

Because they're all just like Microsoft. They've just been less successful in certain markets up until now. It's not like Microsoft started out huge and got bigger - every day users decide to go with Windows, Office, and a hardware vendor (Dell/HP/etc) that they know, trust, and gives them the options they need.

Isn't it kind of presumptuous of you to to assume that you know what will work better for ALL those people?

Oh, and for the record, I do almost all my development in Linux, and author primarily in Ruby these days. I'm just not so childish in my understanding of the way the world works (the REAL world, mind you) that I don't see every company trying every day to become a Microsoft.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 4th 2008 4:28PM]

My biggest problem with the Microsoft situation right now is that fact that they are market leader in a market subset (OS/Spreadsheet/Word Processing/Database/Presentation/etc.) If the world was truly run on an anti-monopolistic basis, any company that breaches 50% market share should be required to release their documents on their developed standards as market accept standards. The whole basis to capitalism fails when one company controls a market. Few exceptions to this are even now being deregulated (power, phone) because the need to keep them unified has been removed by the use of standards. The whole reason for monopolizing things like Power and utilities is so that you don't have 14 different power lines running down the street so that one company can use it's 120VA/C system and another can use 24VD/C. Since all US homes use standard 120/240V lines, all sharing the same grid, any company can use those lines and thus pay their share of the upkeep. This is what you were talking about when you think that Monopolies are required. If the US Government had required that any electric company willing to provide electric service pay for upkeep of utility lines (through a third party) and used a standard voltage, there would have been no need to maintain these monopolies for as long as they did. It was poor oversight.

I'm not saying the source code or procedures behind the creation of the service need to be exposed, just formats and/or interface specs. I don't care if it's Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Dell, IBM, or whoever. I'd be as harsh on any of those companies if they maintained the stance Microsoft has. It would actually entice companies to look for a competitive way to do business if they wanted to maintain "secrecy". The standards I speak of would either come from this process (defacto) or have been developed over the years like (FTP, HTTP, etc.)

To answer some of the questions:
Why does Sun make Java? Out of the goodness of their collective corporate hearts?
Sun has recently open sourced very much of Java and continue down that path. (Most likely due to Microsoft's .NET bundling, as I've noted is another dislike) For as long as I can remember, Java has been free. The development tools Sun creates have not always been. (Kind of like Word and the DOC format, but the language standard and method for compilation exists freely, editing tools are pay for)

Why does Adobe make PDFs, to make sharing documents easier?
Again, PDFs are free to use, but pay to author. If my suggested aforementioned "law" was put into place, this would be an open standard today as far as I'm concerned. (Honestly, Adobe's SWF player would be on my >50% list as well, along with Photoshop formats.)

Why does Apple only let you run OSX on Apple's Trusted Hardware Platform, rather than any PowerPC or x86 machine?
Apple has always done this, I can only assume it's to minimize the amount of bugs that can creep up. Since they don't have the ability to support all the different variations of hardware and they don't qualify as 50% of the desktop or OS market, so I could care less what methods they use to get the job done. I however, don't have a Mac.

Now, am I saying that bundling all those packages in Windows is bad? Yes and no. Because of Microsoft's hold on the market. There are methods that can be used to ensure a competitive playing field is maintained. One of them is component repositories like Linux uses, allowing users to download whatever package will suit their need. This could also be setup to charge for the items if your company so required. Offering cheaper operating systems that don't bundle these extra packages is another alternative. (Windows Lite) One should be able to buy just the OS if they so desire, without the added cost of IE, MP, or whatever. (Windows Base) OEMs should be able to install competitive products if the customer requests it as well. Current OEM licenses prohibit this. IMHO, Microsoft should be required to justify the cost of every application in Windows. How much are you charging people for Minesweeper and how to get a machine without that added integral cost?

" Because they're all just like Microsoft. They've just been less successful in certain markets up until now. It's not like Microsoft started out huge and got bigger - every day users decide to go with Windows, Office, and a hardware vendor (Dell/HP/etc) that they know, trust, and gives them the options they need. "

They go with that option because all their old documents are saved in a proprietary format and will only work with this solution. Again, the 50% rule would eliminate if not severely reduce this trend. Re-evaluating the patent system would also help. Having a patent for clicking a button with a certain icon is petty.

[bc @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:35PM]

Actually this is likely part of Microsoft's software interface research. They would use the tech in their labs to research how people react to new and existing interfaces so they can create better software in the future. I recall that the new MS Office interface began with this sort of scientific look at how people use and interact with the software...this would be an extension of that program.

[PhilW @ Jan 17th 2008 10:04AM]

I'm a little hesitant to post this given the (understandably) negative response to this patent app by Microsoft, but...
...health and wellbeing software doesn't have to be some big brother system if you're genuinely interested in helping people look after their health at work.

I've developed an award-winning software tool to help computer users look after their health called PostureMinder. It uses a webcam to continually check how you're sitting and provides reminders whenever you sit in a poor posture for a while.

It's based on the principle that we all know how we *should* sit, but very few of us do when we're engrossed in our work or play on the computer. In effect, PostureMinder acts as your posture conscience.

We took the decision very early on not to provide any sort of centralised monitoring or reporting information - PostureMinder's purely standalone and any posture statistics it gathers are there for you to review yourself, not for your boss to look at.

The reason we took this stance is simple - the moment you move away from the principle that the system is *purely* a tool to help you look after yourself, and start diluting that by adding monitoring of employees (even if you did it as a separate version of the software, or as a special for just one client), you lose all trust from people. Perhaps something that Microsoft should bear in mind if they actually develop the sort of product their patent suggests?

If any of you would like to try some health and wellbeing software that's genuinely been built to try to help people, please take a look at our website at http://www.PostureMinder.co.uk. I'd really love to hear your feedback on it.

Phil