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Facebook has just filed a patent that will allow it to secretly light up your mobile phones and listen to you when you watch commercials. Except that it is not really the case.
( Thomas Ulrich | Pixabay )
An interesting thing has just happened: a number of articles from various publications claim that Facebook has a patent that secretly lights microphones on users' mobile devices whenever it hears a signal from a TV. 19659003] The series of articles seems to have started when Metro UK took over the story by saying: "Facebook wants to hide inaudible secret messages in television commercials that can force your phone to record audio . "
The thing about the correct reading of patents
The Verge claims that all the titles of this story on Facebook are fake. Facebook has not applied for a patent to surreptitiously activate microphones when a hidden signal begins to be played on users' TVs. How did Nilay Patel of The Verge know it? Well, he simply read the patent, and he did not even contain the words "phone" or "microphone"
Patel goes on to explain that a patent is composed of several parts, but the "claims" section is the only one that really matters when it comes to interpretation. The claims section contains the object of the patent, and anyone who omits or focuses on a section other than claims will eventually misinterpret the contents of a patent.
Does Facebook plan to spy on people? question is available to read online. It is loaded with jargon and very technical descriptions, but the essentials of it illustrates a system that receives a user ID and an audio footprint, associates it with content, tries to determine if that content has has been played for a set period a counter to determine if this content has been played a number of times, as Nilay explains.
Reading the patent makes it hard to assume that Facebook is developing a system to visualize users' viewing habits, but even that would not be radically different from the existing smart speakers, which can listen to the triggers, record the audio, and send them to the servers for processing. It should be noted that Facebook is supposed to work on its own smart speaker, which should have been released now, so it's for the company's refusal after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
It is also important to note that patents are not always indicative that a company will push through with its ideas. Often, they are used as preemptive legal protections in the event that another company tries to copy or use assets without permission. In addition, Facebook says that it does not plan to use the technology described in the patent anyway. According to Allen Lo, of Facebook, it has been filed to prevent aggression from other companies.
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