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Communications Technology

With 5G, You Won't Just Be Watching Video. It'll Be Watching You, Too (cnet.com) 131

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: When most people think of 5G, they're envisioning an ultra-fast, high-bandwidth connection that lets you download seasons of your favorite shows in minutes. But 5G's possibilities go way beyond that, potentially reinventing how we watch video, and opening up a mess of privacy uncertainties. "Right now you make a video much the same way you did for TV," Dan Garraway, co-founder of interactive video company Wirewax, said in an interview this month. "The dramatic thing is when you turn video into a two-way conversation. Your audience is touching and interacting inside the experience and making things happen as a result."

The personalized horror flick or tailored rom-com? They would hinge on interactive video layers that use emotional analysis based on your phone's front-facing camera to adjust what you're watching in real time. You may think it's far-fetched, but one of key traits of 5G is an ultra-responsive connection with virtually no lag, meaning the network and systems would be fast enough to react to your physical responses. 5G is on the cusp of reality, with the first compatible smartphones set to debut next year.
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With 5G, You Won't Just Be Watching Video. It'll Be Watching You, Too More

With 5G, You Won't Just Be Watching Video. It'll Be Watching You, Too

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  • Piss Off (Score:4, Informative)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:03AM (#57535039)

    I'm paying you to entertain me, so bloody get on with it.

    • How is this so different from the capabilities of current spy apps?

      • In both cases it is overblown.

        One reason

        asymmetric upload speeds. Isps will cap upload speeds and latency such that this kind of spying won't work.

        • Re: This is already feasible with 4G, right? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2018 @12:02PM (#57535869)

          They don't have to send _video_ of you back. They only have to send back the results of the analysis of the video.

          Did scenes with fancy sports cars cause your eyes to dilate? Were you less likely to look away from the screen for a scene set in a coffee shop, or one set in a pizza parlor?

          Don't fool yourself that upload speeds will ever get in the way of spying.

      • Re: This is already feasible with 4G, right? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Pros_n_Cons ( 535669 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:45AM (#57535465)
        How is this different than spy apps?

        A thief may steal property but a liar may steal reality.

        Pair two technologies we know already exist. They have shown us video that has been altered that most people didn't catch like Obama making statements he didn't make just used his millions of audio data to make a false statement and edit lip movement to match.
        Now pair it with Google's assistant which can book appointments and interact in a way undetectable by most people. Good thing they don't have 15 years of you speaking, enunciating, divulging personal information over the wire...what you've been using Google voice for a decade? Google fiber too? OMG and your Gmail? Well heck mixed with customized video, your voice and knowledge of virtually everything you've said for two decades they could literally call your mama on Skype and tell her you'll be there for dinner.

        So what's the big deal? Reality has effectively has been stolen from you. Your choices, opinions, and personality are based on lies and that makes you what they want to make you.

        Or you may choose to still call us paranoid
        • Google fi I meant. Google altered my text with spell check. Kinda drives home the point though doesn't it?

        • Re: This is already feasible with 4G, right? (Score:5, Funny)

          by stranger_to_himself ( 1132241 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @11:06AM (#57535585) Journal

          How is this different than spy apps?

          A thief may steal property but a liar may steal reality.

          Pair two technologies we know already exist. They have shown us video that has been altered that most people didn't catch like Obama making statements he didn't make just used his millions of audio data to make a false statement and edit lip movement to match.

          Now pair it with Google's assistant which can book appointments and interact in a way undetectable by most people. Good thing they don't have 15 years of you speaking, enunciating, divulging personal information over the wire...what you've been using Google voice for a decade? Google fiber too? OMG and your Gmail? Well heck mixed with customized video, your voice and knowledge of virtually everything you've said for two decades they could literally call your mama on Skype and tell her you'll be there for dinner.

          So what's the big deal? Reality has effectively has been stolen from you. Your choices, opinions, and personality are based on lies and that makes you what they want to make you.
           

          Finally, a good reason to have an existential crisis.

  • Here is how fast high-definition videos would be if you could watch them, but oops, you can't, so...check your email or Facebook instead. Will 5G solve that? I doubt it. We'll be able to see commercials where people are watching gorgeous 4K video on their mobile device. But you...low-def video, now not too much, best just look at some web pages instead.

    • We flip back and forth from Networked applications to Device running application.
      Early computers, had no networking so a single person used a computer for it needs. When they were done the next person will use the system (or at least have their stack of cards to be processed)
      Then system got powerful enough, and was able to send and receive inputs from multiple sources. (Mainframe/Dumb Terminal) The user had a terminal, with a mysterious computer somewhere else doing the real work.
      Then we went to microcomp

      • Yup, it's almost comical that every 20 years the cycle is:

        * Fat Clients
        * Thin Clients

        Rinse. Repeat. Profit. False Promises.

        • I wouldn't say comical. Both have their pro's and conn's and are often the ideal technology of its time.
          Often when looking back we put on nostalgia blinders, We don't remember Windows 95 crashing when you literally look at the system wrong. Or saved your documents every few minutes, just because you wouldn't trust the system to go on to the next one. We do remember the cool games we had on it. and new features such as spell check and font selection.

        • That's because different technologies improve independently of each other and at different rates.

          For fat clients vs. thin clients, there are three general factors for which is better: available processing power on the desktop, available processing power on the server, and network bandwith and latency. Make up a number called the "Thinness Factor", where TF = (Server*Network)/Desktop. If server power is so much greater than desktop power that the performance loss due to the network doesn't make up for the

  • yawn (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:12AM (#57535069)
    Allowing public to pick the story is a terrible idea. The masses are a completely predictable force and will select the most stereotypical and obvious outcomes every time. I certainly hope 'good story writing' isn't becoming a thing of the past, because I sure haven't seen much of it lately.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 )

      The masses are a completely predictable force and will select the most stereotypical and obvious outcomes every time.

      Well, not always. [wikipedia.org]

      • Trolling. Your rom com will turn into a Super Hero themed horror movie starting CGI babies mid way into season 2 while your horror flick becomes a Ken Burns style documentary on bo weavils. It'll be glorious.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        If you found that unpredictable, you haven't been paying attention for the entire existence of the internet.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I certainly hope 'good story writing' isn't becoming a thing of the past, because I sure haven't seen much of it lately.

      Ah, the folly of nostalgia. The "good writing" of the past was the exception, not the rule. As a general optimistic estimate, "90% of everything is crap." Older things look a little better because most of the bottom 80% has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored.

      • Actually I go mostly by imdb ratings. Genre preferences aside, 7+ is worth my time, 6- is not. It sure seems that there are less 7+'s than there used to be that isn't a remake of a comic or book.

      • Ah, the folly of nostalgia. The "good writing" of the past was the exception, not the rule. As a general optimistic estimate, "90% of everything is crap." Older things look a little better because most of the bottom 80% has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored.

        The problem is, with writing, like music today....90% of the CRAP from the past is better than 90% of the "GOOD" stuff that is put out today.

        • 90% of the CRAP from the past is better than 90% of the "GOOD" stuff that is put out today.

          "Nature abhors a vacuum." "A gas expands to fill the volume available." As the pipes of today get bigger than the pipes of the past, producers will expand to fill the volume. That doesn't mean the quality will go along with it.

          For example, a favorite magazine of mine went from 10 issues per year to 6 "doubles". Twice the space to fill, right? Half the quality. A recent issue had a story about an old truck driver who couldn't drive trucks anymore on Earth because the highways were 100% AV. So, a company car

      • As a general optimistic estimate, "90% of everything is crap." Older things look a little better because most of the bottom 80% has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored.

        Fortunately, the very bottom of that 80% has been immortalized by MST3K.

      • I certainly hope 'good story writing' isn't becoming a thing of the past, because I sure haven't seen much of it lately.

        Ah, the folly of nostalgia. The "good writing" of the past was the exception, not the rule. As a general optimistic estimate, "90% of everything is crap." Older things look a little better because most of the bottom 80% has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored.

        We've been in a "golden age" of storytelling in the TV world for a number of years now. Movies may be bigger, but I attended a talk by Alexander Payne (Oscar-winning writer/director of Sideways, The Descendants, Election) where he said that much of the writing talent had switched from movies to TV, since cable companies were willing to invest in high-quality shows with season-long story arcs, and that lets you tell more varied stories, longer stories, more complex stories that you don't have to boil down in

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Good" is entirely subjective.

      Movie producers consider a movie "good" if it makes a lot of money. And they should, given how much they spend to make them.

      Movies like that must cater to the greatest possible audience. Obviously, your tastes differ from those of the greatest possible audience.

    • Idiots on 4chan will spam or hack the voting process for their own amusement. The results are anything but predictable and probably more amusing than anything else. See this example [twimg.com] of what you get and tell me that's an obvious outcome.

      Even then, I don't think this will ever replace a well-crafted story by a single author or a small group of writers. We've had choose your own adventure novels and other interactive forms of entertainment in the past (with many arising due to the internet itself) and they'
    • ...those 7 wacky castaways will finally get off Gilligan's Island! Will make for a very short season though.

      • ...those 7 wacky castaways will finally get off Gilligan's Island! Will make for a very short season though.

        I disagree.

        I think there are WAY more than enough of us that enjoy seeing Mary Ann in her tight shorts and crop tops......we'll keep them on the island for viewing forever.

  • Developers, devel... er, data, data, data. And ads (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:15AM (#57535081) Journal
    Big Data (as in Big Pharma or Big Oil) will love this. Of course they will not just use this data to provide interactive video but to provide all manner of feedback for other purposes as well (to "tailor the user experience"), while in the meantime your privacy is getting raped in a ditch. But such technology will most certainly also lead to ads that aren't just unskippable, but have to be watched as well. "RESUME VIEWING... RESUME VIEWING... RESUME VIEWING"

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SlaveToTheGrind ( 546262 )

      Of course they will not just use this data to provide interactive video but to provide all manner of feedback for other purposes as well (to "tailor the user experience")

      Ads, political content, news stories, and on and on. Just the next step in sculpting your own individual rendition of reality.

      • Re:Developers, devel... er, data, data, data. And (Score:5, Insightful)

        by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:43AM (#57535195)

        Of course they will not just use this data to provide interactive video but to provide all manner of feedback for other purposes as well (to "tailor the user experience")

        Ads, political content, news stories, and on and on. Just the next step in sculpting your own individual rendition of reality.

        Many people I know live in their own bubble anyway. My hunch is that might help everyone get along a bit better. I think that's why some are so surprised that some topics have more depth to them, they've only been hearing one side and didn't realize that there was more than one facet to the problem. It's not uncommon that both 'sides' of an issue are roughly stating the truth, they just focus on different aspects of the truth.

    • But such technology will most certainly also lead to ads that aren't just unskippable, but have to be watched as well. "RESUME VIEWING... RESUME VIEWING... RESUME VIEWING"

      Reminds me of that Black Mirror episode.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nnull ( 1148259 )

      Everything that Snowden revealed, nobody even cares anymore it seems. It just seems the typical consumer is either too dumb downed to notice this or they simply don't have the time to care. The outlash from the public has been very minimal, giving these companies enough leeway to pull this off without any outcry.

  • They would hinge on interactive video layers that use emotional analysis based on your phone's front-facing camera to adjust what you're watching in real time.

    by a bit of obscure tape over the front-facing camera.

    "it is quite safe" we will be told "just to tailor it for you". The next thing that we will know is that that amourous moment with your partner is spaffed across social media or someone is trying to blackmail you ...

    • Let's adress the real non-sequitur here. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:42AM (#57535189)

      How is a low-level data transmission technology in any way related to specific high-level application "features"?

      Will the standard comittee "i.p." the technology, and only license it to manufacturers that make devices with screens and cameras, and force usage of only specific software on them that only supports downloading videos while watching them (and afterwards forgetting where it downloaded them) (aka "streamin"), if the user is spied on too??

      That sounds more than silly.

      How would a 5G tower even check that? Or care...

      The whole thing is batshit insane. Full locked section of thmental hostpital level!

      • Re:Let's adress the real non-sequitur here. (Score:5, Informative)

        by laie_techie ( 883464 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:32AM (#57535423)

        How is a low-level data transmission technology in any way related to specific high-level application "features"?

        Will the standard comittee "i.p." the technology, and only license it to manufacturers that make devices with screens and cameras, and force usage of only specific software on them that only supports downloading videos while watching them (and afterwards forgetting where it downloaded them) (aka "streamin"), if the user is spied on too??

        That sounds more than silly.

        How would a 5G tower even check that? Or care...

        The whole thing is batshit insane. Full locked section of thmental hostpital level!

        I wish I had mod points! 5G is just a connection standard. In theory 5G connection speeds might be enough to support a new video technology with big brother watching video of you, but at this point it's all FUD

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Considering it hasn't happened yet with people watching movies on fiber connections I can't see 5G being all that revolutionary in what entertainment IS.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          I wish I had mod points! 5G is just a connection standard. In theory 5G connection speeds might be enough to support a new video technology with big brother watching video of you, but at this point it's all FUD

          5G isn't even that any more.

          It hasn't been a connection standard since US telco's decided to call 3.5G technologies like HSPA, 4G technologies.

          LTE hasn't even met the IEEE specifications for 4G, it was listed as a 3.9G technology. However the Telco's got their way and now all 4G, 5G, 6G, so on and so forth are, are marketing terms. I'm just waiting for Verizon or AT&T to claim they've got 9G because it's G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-Good.

    • I wonder how many phone case makers will have a physical shutter built in to cover the front and back cams when this technology becomes mainstream.

  • misuse of it is what have sides

  • In Soviet Russia ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Toad-san ( 64810 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:20AM (#57535107)

    video watches you!

  • 5G (Score:3, Funny)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:24AM (#57535121)

    49 metres per second squared

    a bit tough on the old ticker, eh?

  • I can't imagine making "self-adjusting movies" that play differently depending on your mood. The closest I can imagine is live theater, where the actors might slightly change their lines and the timing based on how the audience responds. But that is very slight, and not at all amenable to algorithmic analysis. Or maybe standup comedy, where the comedian definitely changes things based on how the audience responds. But there is no way you are going to have computers gauging the effect of a comedy show approp

  • Phrasing! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:30AM (#57535143)

    The dramatic thing is when you turn video into a two-way conversation. Your audience is touching and interacting inside the experience and making things happen

    Look, I know that most video technologies end up getting used for porn first, but you could have been a little more discreet in the description...

  • Black Electrical Tape (Score:4, Insightful)

    by foxalopex ( 522681 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:39AM (#57535175)

    Sooo... How much longer before I start seeing folks taping over their phone camera with a piece of electrical tape?

  • Maybe they could finally solve the worst issue of phone. videos, landscape vs portrait videos. Maybe they can add some spiffy 5G whiz-bang technology to shock the camera user if they're shooting in portrait mode.

    The other thing that could be beneficial would be direct save to some cloud service, so if the phone is confiscated or destroyed, the data would be "safe". Especially for something like police body cams...

  • Don't worry Americans, you're safe. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:43AM (#57535191)
    Our data plans won't allow the amount of data transfer that this requires.

    Most people will already blow through their phone's data allocations if they stream over it. The hotspot data? One sizeable file and you're done. Stream a couple movies? Done.

    So if you are some huge data plan where you can actually USE that neat feature, cool. But how will these companies justify suddenly give people 5 or 10x the data they current do? They already say that the infrastructure is too expensive to provide what we already get.

    So don't worry. We're safe....

  • Not specific to 5G (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wyzard ( 110714 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:43AM (#57535197) Homepage

    This is just saying that 5G will be fast enough for interactive two-way video with low latency. Sure, but that's already possible with the wired and wifi connections that people use at home. So it's not like this'll be an automatic and direct consequence of 5G; it's just a separate technology that happens to also be in development.

  • Just avoid the Blipverts.

  • 1984 Telescreens. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So essentially they're creating Orwell's Telescreen. The TV that watches you!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

  • 5G Cures Cancer (Score:4, Funny)

    by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:54AM (#57535263)
    Says guy in 5g industry.

  • Nope... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @09:56AM (#57535273) Journal

    Half the country has sub 200ms latency connections at 10+Mbps transfer rates to most well homed services now. In their homes. Plenty for responsive (whatever that means exactly) HD Video.

    We'd see this kind of entertainment already if there was really a market for it. "On cell phone" does not some how make the nature of why we enjoy video change.

    People consume entertainment video precisely because its passive. Its all about being spoon fed entertainment or information without having to work for it. Its also about shared experience; you want to be able to discuss what you saw with others. Not many really want a "choose your own adventure" movie. How do you talk about it with your buddies when each of your stories had a different ending? - You don't - its a video game at that point its a very different conversation - usually about play style etc...

    5G is just more data faster. Its not some revolution; and I suspect we are going find that for the vast majority of users beyond 4G is moving into the territory of diminishing returns.

    • Kind of like the choose your own adventure books a niche market...

    • Re:Nope... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @12:32PM (#57535985)
      I'm still trying to figure out what market demand 5G is trying to meet. The only use case I can think of which isn't already met by 4G data is pirating movies (downloading multi-gigabyte files in a short period of time). 4G is already fast enough for streaming, web browsing, email/facebook, video sharing/conferencing. It's already as fast or faster than the wired Internet speeds for anyone except people on fiber or high-end cable Internet plans. As people have joked, 5G speeds would let them blow through their monthly data cap in less than a minute.

      The only practical reason I can think of for switching to 5G is that it helps carriers free up congestion. By providing higher burst bandwidth, it gets users off their data network more quickly, leaving more bandwidth for users who want new data.

      • I'm still trying to figure out what market demand 5G is trying to meet. The only use case I can think of which isn't already met by 4G data is pirating movies (downloading multi-gigabyte files in a short period of time).

        AND doing it to your phone instead of your home computer.

        Don't worry. "5G" will be what the carriers call the next incremental improvement over "4G", because of course "5G" sounds more modern and hip and will sell a lot of phones.

      • I'm still trying to figure out what market demand 5G is trying to meet.

        Every market demand. You just don't understand the secondary benefits that generational steps have brought.

        Loading Slashdot in 100ms instead of 200ms may not mean much to your eyes, but it will half the active high-power time on the receiver of your phone. It will also reduce the time spent in backhaul. You forget that freeing up congestion has significant benefits to consumers.

        Then there's other features like multi-point connectivity to prevent dropouts, inherently lower power requirements on the radio whi

    • Tell Tale games did big business. The only trouble they had (besides getting screwed in some contracts with their investors) was getting folks to pay up front while the movie was being made. They ran out of cash while getting screwed by investors because folks were waiting until the whole "movie" was out.

  • Oh FFS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We already have two-way, lag-free user experiences in the real world. That's why I'm trying to escape into watching a mindless video.

    Now get off my lawn!

  • One benefit to living in the country (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:04AM (#57535315)

    Given the extremely short range of 5G, deployment to rural areas isn't likely going to happen much so this sort of foolishness won't be a problem.

  • Prepare for reeducation camp!

  • I'll believe it when I see it. My Verizon so-called 4G LTE "speed" is almost always measured in kB/sec when I can get data at all in the urban area where I live and work.

    • With 5G, they literally have to have more towers due to signal propagation issues. That will make it much harder, though not impossible to have very congested nodes. Some places in the city are so thick with people that even 5G won't deliver much per-user (they might finally get what was promised by 3G).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Its meant to appeal to your 5 senses. :) lol

  • Many security specialists already recommend covering the camera on your laptop when you're not using it. Perhaps it's time to do that with our phones as well.

  • This is why open standards should be codified by law. Encryption and DRM should NOT be allowed to be used to lock you into the PLAYER/VIEWER/APPLICATION software to use content. If the content was free'd to be used in any application by law, then this type of shit wouldn't be happening.

  • I hear what the article brings up every five or ten years or so -- we'll have more truly interactive content, it'll gauge your reactions, it'll be tailored for you. The problem is that leads to experiences that aren't written as well. It's much harder to bring everything together when you have to come up with so many plot possibilities. It will also make productions much, much more expensive.

    Remember the movie 1985 movie Clue, which had a different ending depending on which theater you went to? Why didn'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      I don't want tailored content.

      Netflix can't even manage to work out what kind of movies I like from a bunch of things created in the 80's, with a huge list of "thumbs up/down" ratings from me on other movies, and a complete record of my viewing history down to which second I turn the movie off.

      Literally, it has NO IDEA what I like. Top picks "for me" today include: Cradle 2 The Grave (no idea what that even is), Transformers (never watched such a movie in my life), Gotham (never watched the Batman stuff),

  • Wow, the story writer and OP have re-discovered one of the highest grossing forms of entertainment ever... video games! If only it weren't already a multi billion dollar industry popular the world over, then I'm sure this idea would really go somewhere.
  • Well at least we'll get to view the Rebus Tape when they start blowing people up with Blipverts. "Zik-Zak's new one thousand volt Christian Converter! Plug yourself in, and your friends will see the light! A very large flash of light..." - Max Headroom

  • Isn't that a story about a society where you were watched by your TV and it was illegal to turn off the TV (people through blankets over it)...

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