If Facebook privacy is a concern to people, then advocates could go nuts over Samsung’s new patent application.
Samsung has filed a patent entitled “Apparatus and Method for Generating Story According to User Information.” It’s a pretty fancy title for basically saying that Samsung wants to record all of your activity from your phone.
But wait, it gets better. Samsung then wants to take that data to create a daily story based on your life. Check out the language of the patent: “The analysis unit analyzes the log information collected from the information collection unit and decides at least one topic representing the user’s daily life information.”
The patent application goes on to say that, “The story generator generates at least one sentence representing the user’s daily life information using at least one topic decided in the analysis unit.”
No detail on how the unit will decide which aspects of your day will be considered most interesting, but it certainly brings scores of questions to mind. Who determines what’s useful? Will I agree with what’s most useful? Will I want to keep a record of that day?
Look, it’s one thing to have Facebook stand as a representative of all the data that we mostly choose to share. (Sometimes the data collected is more than we’d like, but it’s mostly optional.) It’s quite another thing to have a device in a default mode recording each and every pageview, text message, phone call, and check-in. I’m sure that future devices would have to have an opt-out mode for this kind of recording, but would non-savvy users be aware of it?
Sure, it’s great to have your own little diary of everything you did for each day as long as you are the only to have access to that information, but what if your phone gets stolen? What if a snoopy spouse or parent is concerned about a loved one? Will they be pleased with the data recorded in that personal diary?
Let’s just say that there could be problems along the way.
What do you think? Would you want a device that created a daily story for your life?
Source: CNET