Comments Locked

10 Comments

Back to Article

  • Xajel - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Cool, we need a bracelet/belt that integrate this and using ANT+ & Bluetooth 4.0/5.0 LE it can connect to smartphones and exercise computers ( bikes, gym equipments, etc. )
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    You can infer a lot about what a person is thinking or doing based on their biometric readings. Combined with location data reporting and a window into their personality/thinking based on web surfing, the apps they use, and the texts and calls they make and you can probably predict how they're going to act or react to a given stressful situation. Systems like these could use a person's phone and existing network to call for medical assistance or alert police if a threshold of activities indicates a crime is probably being carried out by the person using it. The phone could be programmed to activate the mic and camera for evidence collection and we could catch a lot more people doing bad stuff as it happens. I mean, we might even be able to detect illegal drug use and help stop addictions and related crimes. Society could really benefit from this kind of thing.
  • 29a - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    I hope you're not being serious.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Pretty sure PeachNCream is just memeing. The only insane poster that actually believes what they say on Anandtech comments is ddriver.
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    My post was meant at as a sort of darkly humorous warning about the dangers of combining all that collected data from devices we take for granted and carry with us every day no matter where we go and what we do. I'm not at all advocating that we build a dystopian future where our phones monitor us for signs of discontent or criminal potential and proactively report us. I think we should all be a tiny bit distrustful of the smartphone fruit we've been offered and the "free" services available on them. Sometimes the best way to bring attention to that idea is to poke a little fun at what's possible. Then again, what can one Peach, no matter how creamy, do from a comfy armchair aside from happily poke away at the screen of a smartphone like everyone else?
  • asmian - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    " I think we should all be a tiny bit distrustful of the smartphone fruit we've been offered and the "free" services available on them."

    Why only a *tiny* bit? Did Snowden teach people nothing? I'm yet to be convinced of the need for a "smart" phone, and I'm waiting for a brand I can trust that won't track me geographically in real time, report everything I view to a conglomerate that will sell my interests to advertisers (or to others with shadier aims), nor be a closed code platform that I cannot trust is not being hijacked (including features like cameras) to spy on me and everyone in range. If a phone doesn't offer those features, I cannot care how fast "Geekbench" says it is. My old Nokia is doing just fine, thanks. ;) An umbilical cord to Twitter and Facebook is *not* a requirement of modern life.

    It's not tin-foil hattery to see exactly the potential being described here as the logical outcome, with alphabetic agencies rubbing their hands already at the possibilities of exploiting any such technology for covert surveillance by subverting devices, as they've been shown to have done already. Thanks, Peach, for pointing it out.
  • negusp - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Careful there- you're basically describing the complete relinquishment of any sort of privacy. Complete and open biometric/tracking/data collection is very easy to abuse.

    Though I do tend to agree that the society you describe will inevitably be the future as privacy rights continue to be eroded. Such a society may not even be a bad thing, but for the time being what you describe is very dangerous.
  • deepblue08 - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Tom Cruise would disagree
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Turn that around to "help people in need or who are being victims to a crime" to raise the acceptance of your suggestion.
  • asmian - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Of course that'll be the authoritarian spin when it's in the next bill Trump and the Republicans force through... if delegates even bother to read what they are voting on (unlike all the other stuff they've been passing recently). Yea for American "democracy". :(

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now