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Big Brother Mickey Mouse

posted by mattie_p on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the we're-just-as-not-evil-as-google dept.

fx_68 writes:

Bloomberg Business Week reports that Disney is investing $1 billion (or milliard) in guest tracking. From the article:

Jason McInerney and his wife, Melissa, recently tapped their lunch orders onto a touchscreen at the entrance to the Be Our Guest restaurant at Florida's Walt Disney World Resort and were told to take any open seat. Moments later a food server appeared at their table with their croque-monsieur and carved turkey sandwiches. Asks McInerney, a once-a-year visitor to Disney theme parks: "How did they know where we were sitting?"

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:10PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:10PM (#13592)

    1) Print a QR-code or similar (with information that allows the Skynet to identify the corresponding rfid-chip) on the receipt and on the _inside_ of then band.
    2) Create an app that can photograph and parse said QR-code
    3) Have that app notify the Skynet of the id-number acquired from the QR.
    4) Give that app a lightweight map (zoom-able) of the enclosure/park
    5) Have the app periodically (and on startup/manual refresh) poll the Skynet for the latest locations of the bands registered
    6) Allow groups of friends and families to finally find each other easily
    7) Also implement a mode that show the queue-lenght of different attractions, restaurants and toilets to allow people to pick places with shorter queues.
    8) Make sure the app is available from google play, apple store, microsoft store, etc..

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cmn32480 on Sunday March 09 2014, @04:58PM

    by cmn32480 (443) on Sunday March 09 2014, @04:58PM (#13636) Journal

    All of this already exists for Disney. Totally creepy, but exceptionally useful in the event you lose a child, or, God-forbid, of a kidnapping.

    This is why the customer/audience experience at the Disney Theme parks is as good as it is for the people that go. The wife and I are taking the kids later this year, and the privacy implications trouble me a little, but it is a part of the cost for seeing my kids go bat shit over the experience.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Rivenaleem on Monday March 10 2014, @06:29AM

      by Rivenaleem (3400) on Monday March 10 2014, @06:29AM (#13816)

      This might be an unpopular view on this and similar sites, but I can see no issue with this. Disneyland Themeparks are private property, and when you go there you are effectively opting in to tracking while on their premises.

      If you came to my home and I asked you to wear a tracking device while there, you can simply refuse and not enter my house.

      I'm all for privacy, but just like you have no expectation of privacy in a public park, or out on the street, why should you expect a home-level of privacy while at Disneyland?

      Now I don't want to build a strawman or some other logical fallacy (like saying that since a school is public, you should have no privacy and thus we should be able to track kids), but I feel that in this specific case, when you go to somebody's private property, and they want you to follow certain rules, and most importantly, you are not FORCED to be there, then I don't see why we should consider it creepy that they, in a place where having a child go missing is a very real and terrifying threat, use a simple thing like a tracking device, which only works while in the park.

      • (Score: 1) by cmn32480 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:31AM

        by cmn32480 (443) on Monday March 10 2014, @07:31AM (#13826) Journal

        I 100% agree with what you are saying. As a "guest", you volunteer for the tracking.

        The creepy factor comes in when the customer/audience doesn't understand the tech behind it. I (and probably many others on this site) have a pretty good knowledge of how it works. Hell, I have the ability to set up a similar (though MUCH smaller scale) setup in my office for demo purposes. The tech aspect to this is pretty neat. and is a lot more common than most people realize.

        • (Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday March 10 2014, @11:42AM

          by Aiwendil (531) on Monday March 10 2014, @11:42AM (#14031)

          Care to throw me a keyword or five for "readers" or similar to implement such tracking? I'm actually looking into doing something like this for the next place I move to (mainly since my girlfriend and I have _very_ different preferences on aircondition, airtemperature and light, so I plan on automating the living daylight out the place) but due to not knowing the proper phrases to search for I find very little* (and I would prefer not to having to reinvent the wheel)

          * = other than setups that require contact, for my plans I require a distance for reading of at least 2ft)

          • (Score: 1) by cmn32480 on Monday March 10 2014, @02:24PM

            by cmn32480 (443) on Monday March 10 2014, @02:24PM (#14158) Journal

            Look at Motorola Solutions readers. LLRP is the language that they need to be programmed in. Alien Readers makes good gear too.