Intel boffins usher era of 'I know who you are' TV

But

How will the the system know whether it should be broadcasting according to my taste, or that of my butler?

After all, a gentleman of my standing is hardly likely to sully their own digits and strain their own sinews by holding a remote control themselves, is one?

Fail - until they incorporate a butler/man-servant/my man mode

Any Married Male ...

... already knows about this. The builtin control is called wifey and in some case kiddies.

What

Wow! Another totally useless and unneeded invention.

Whilst this may be clever (and it is, don't get me wrong!) it would be totally unrealistic for them to expect that tv users would actually WANT it.

TV's have enough controls already to limit access to (un)desirable channels, with pin numbers or whatever.

And who is to say that an adult would not want to watch a children's channel? Who is to say that an adult would not ask their child to change to channel 123 because they are currently slicing vegetables and dont want to mess up their remote control or miss their special program?

If they really wanted to progress with this then what would be so wrong with using existing technology - fingerprint scanners are now so compact they are used on some USB memory sticks - why dont they use one of those, and tailor/save any settings made to the user whose fingerprint is currently on the device?

multichannel lockout

I'm not a zapper, I just have a digital twitch.

Firstly

They track your viewing - then they use it supply you adverts...

Fail, because i am sick to death of bloody adverts.

Did I just see a fish on a pushbike?

So, the device will be so clever it will figure out who is watching and adapt content (or, to be more accurate, advertising) to match. Unlike the current raft of TV stations that figure out what demographic is watching a TV programme and sell advertising space to the most suitable companies to fill the slots....

..oh, hang on.

<sigh>

Wow, that's totally useless

The only potentially desirable use I could imagine for a remote that knows who you are is parental controls, but 70% accuracy isn't nearly good enough for that.

Explain that to the Missus!

So you watch a bongo-flicks while the Missus is down the shops. You forget to switch this gadget off, MIssus comes in, "Hello love, fancy a romantic evening watching a movie on the telly?". You pick up the remote and instead of watching some romantic cack and on a "promise", you get get Lusty Linda on screen and a spend the night kipping in your car!

Sorry but the once in a blue moon when I do bother watching TV, I spend 30 mins flicking and swearing at the ads, finally end up watching some documentary about the life of the shipping container ( That's actually true! Check it out on the BBC! ). Sorry but TV stopped being any use after Monkey Dust. (R.I.P. Harry Thompson )

Answer to a question no-one was asking

Considering how most of the worlds TV seems to be going digital/Cable - and all the various set top boxes that will happily record your tv show for screening when you want to...who the hell actually watches TV live anymore?

In the past 6 months I've watched about 2 hours of television as it was broadcast, all the rest was recorded and viewed later. So unless the algorthim can communicate backwards through time, its pointless.

In Soviet Russia...

...TV controls remote.