Microsoft hopes to use the voice recognition features of the new Kinect to deliver targeted advertisements to individual users.
If you already have concerns about the Kinect 2.0 being able to “spy” on you and record your habits, this news from the Technical Account Manager for Xbox LIVE Advertising probably won’t help. “With the new Xbox One, the technology and Kinect has improved a lot, so that actually the voice recognition, the way you speak to your Xbox and the transition between gaming and watching TV is a lot smoother, and hopefully we can transpire that into advertising that we do.” He went on to say that the new Xbox One dashboard was designed “with advertising in mind.”
The attending Xbox LIVE Advertising Developer did, however, assure us that the Xbox’s API has plenty of restrictions for advertisers in place in order to protect the end user. “[Microsoft] is very keen on protecting the user from any sort of abuse so we can’t do certain things.”
The Xbox One dashboard will also change how ads are displayed to users. “On Xbox [One], the ad is part of the actual experience, it’s not something that is outside. The only difference is that the advertisement we have is quite small and not disruptive so people are not aware of clicking on the banners because they know this is a part of the whole experience on the dash.” Sounds to me like they are deliberately trying to trick people into clicking on ads by making them seem like they aren’t ads, but an official part of the dashboard.
It also seems that despite Microsoft’s big push into tablets and Smartglass, the advertising team is having none of it. “We already have two controllers that we have to deal with, [Smartglass] is just an unnecessary obstacle.”
Source: Stick Twiddlers
