WFW: Make Winston Smith Proud: The Skype Telescreen

Wed, Jan 6, 2010

This news just blows my mind. Like Blippy, I cannot believe that people would think this is all a good idea!

Skype has made a deal with LG Electronics and Panasonic to make televisions with video-capturing capabilities. A LOT like the telescreens in George Orwell’s book, 1984.

Both television makers will embed the Skype technology in television models with Internet connections and will sell separate Web cameras that have built in microphones for television viewers who want to use Skype.

Skype said Panasonic will support Skype in its VT and G series televisions in the United States, with screen sizes up to 65 inches. LG will embed Skype in 26 new LCD and plasma screen TVs, which will also come in a range of sizes.

Both LG and Panasonic are expected to demonstrate the service this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual gadget showcase in Las Vegas.

Oh sure, this stuff is being marketed as a way to “keep in touch with friends and family,” and for the convenience of it all. But I think it’s horribly creepy, having a television screen that can watch YOU.

For speaking great swelling words of flattery, they entice you by feeding on your…. unbridled lusts… promising freedom, though they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom anyone has been overcome, even to this one he has been enslaved. 2 Peter 2:18-19

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness…? You, therefore, since you know these things beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked…” 2 Peter 3:14-18

Yeah, yeah, you can supposedly shut it off (although certain companies like Cisco had admitted to the (so-called) “lawful intercept” surveillance users of their VoIP (unConstitutional, by the way, so not lawful at all); and hello have you ever hear of Echelon?).

Or you can toss a blanket over the telescreen… for now. We’re being systematically pushed into our own surveillance and slavery, and guess who’s footing the bill? We are!