Estimating Age With Kinect's 3D Camera To Filter Content 102
theodp writes "Hal in 2001: 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that [open the pod bay doors].' Kinect in 2011: 'I'm sorry, Dave Jr. I'm afraid I can't do that [tune in to the Spice Channel].' A Microsoft patent filing made public this week proposes to restrict access to TV, movies and video games by using a 3D depth camera to estimate viewers' ages based upon the dimensions and proportions of a person's body, such as head width to shoulder width, and torso length to overall height. For adults with short arms or other seemingly childlike proportions, settings can be overridden by someone with an administrator password."
Re:Christ. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was wondering how they intend to handle problems related to individuals that look young. The current hardware is just not good enough for this to work, but even in the future if they manage to get it to see the people, I can't imagine it coping with teens that are heavyset with beards or people that look like they're teens even though they're adults.
Ultimately, if even bouncers and police officers sometimes get it wrong, I'm not sure how we can hope that an electronic device is going to do any better.