Now a company called Mindflash has a new technology to make sure you pay attention to your computer screen. It is marketed to companies who have on-line training programs. The software, called Focus Assist,
uses the tablet’s camera to track a user’s eye movements. When it senses that you’ve been looking away for more than a few seconds (because you were sending e-mails, or just fell asleep), it pauses the course, forcing you to pay attention–or at least look like you are–in order to complete it.
On the one hand, this sounds like a convenient way to deliver information with some assurance that the information is received. On the other hand, the paternalistic flavor is pretty evident. Now the $10,000 question: how many ways could this technology be abused?
I guess you’d have to pay attention during the two minute hate.
What George Orwell couldn’t anticipate is that Big Brother would be a commercial enterprise. We are rightly concerned about the NSA reading monitors our mail, but we blithely accept that Google actually reads it, and sells the information to corporate marketeers.
“We are rightly concerned about the NSA reading monitors our mail, but we blithely accept that Google actually reads it, and sells the information to corporate marketeers.”
That “we” would be me. I’m intensely opposed to the former, not especially worked up about the latter.
“We are rightly concerned about the NSA reading monitors our mail, but we blithely accept that Google actually reads it, and sells the information to corporate marketeers.”
I’m less concerned with the former, and increasingly distrustful of the latter. The former, at the end of the day, answer to us. It’s a cumbersome, slow, imperfect system, but all in all it’s the best anyone’s seen. The latter, who are just looking for a buck? Who controls them?
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