14th May 2007, 7:49 AM
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/st...61,00.html
I guess... What possible information can they get on our psychological state based on the games we make? Feel free to invent all sorts of hypothesees and then sell a book based on the unproven system, but in reality this seems about as evidence based as the great majority of all "psychological profile questionairs" they provide online. I'd be afraid if I thought this was a competent assessment.
But really the question I have is how the heck would they do this "covert monitering"? I myself don't even have the google toolbar, nor do I want it, as it's a memory waste that I'd never use anyway, so it wouldn't be through that. Other than that, how's it going to, for example, watch me play Counter-Strike or whatever online game? Unless it makes deals for all these companies to intentionally shunt the online network's bandwidth through Google's servers (which, among other things, could easily cause noticable lag, and would very much be rallied against by the user base), I don't see that happening.
I guess... What possible information can they get on our psychological state based on the games we make? Feel free to invent all sorts of hypothesees and then sell a book based on the unproven system, but in reality this seems about as evidence based as the great majority of all "psychological profile questionairs" they provide online. I'd be afraid if I thought this was a competent assessment.
But really the question I have is how the heck would they do this "covert monitering"? I myself don't even have the google toolbar, nor do I want it, as it's a memory waste that I'd never use anyway, so it wouldn't be through that. Other than that, how's it going to, for example, watch me play Counter-Strike or whatever online game? Unless it makes deals for all these companies to intentionally shunt the online network's bandwidth through Google's servers (which, among other things, could easily cause noticable lag, and would very much be rallied against by the user base), I don't see that happening.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)