Everyday consumer objects are being redesigned as behavioral data sources

Evidence

Examples of products determined to render, monitor, record, and communicate behavioral data proliferate, from smart vodka bottles to internet-enabled rectal thermometers, and quite literally everything in between. The business developer for a spirits company thus cites his plan for a “connected bottle”: “The more we learn about consumers and their behaviors, the better services we can connect to them.” Many brands are determined “to give packaging a speaking role in an increasingly interactive marketplace.” Global spirits distributor Diageo promises “smart sensor-equipped bottles” that can track purchases and sales data, and, most importantly, “communicate with consumers’ devices and switch gears—recipes versus sales promos—once the bottle is opened.” A producer of bar equipment states the case plainly enough: “It really is all about… allowing these [bar] owners to see stuff that they couldn’t see before and maximize their profits.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 748

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘connected bottle’ and smart-packaging angle could seed an essay on how even mundane consumption objects have been turned into data extractors, tracing the cultural shift from product to surveillance surface.
• XREF: connects to: Apps now colonize even trivial bodily functions like thirst into trackable social data — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 23; Continuous connection converts lived activity into machine-readable data and a branded, conditional ‘truth’. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 401; Physical space is being redesigned as browse-able environments of sensor data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 647 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Computer-vision modules are being embedded in appliances and toys to sense human behavior #exemplifies (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 752
• Machines can treat everyday digital traces as psychological test items #expands (0.88) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2375
• Objects and media messages interrogate consumers rather than being consumed #expands (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 256
• Industry discourse framed data exhaust as a benign by-product recycled to improve services #qualifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1873