Samsung are taking over the world. The Korean electronics giant have just flogged me two new phones (one for me, one for the Mrs) and so their profits are well up for the month. Even though I didn’t actually pay for them.

They also make tvs. And their new ‘smart tv’ has, as they all do, a ‘voice activation’ thing. So instead of having to push buttons on your remote to change channel or turn up the volume when Spurs score, you just yell at the screen and it’ll do it for you. Like wives used to do in the old days.

“Change to BBC1”

“CHANGE TO BBCEEEEEEE ONNNNNNE!!!!”

Oh fuck it, I’ll bloody do it myself.

And if you might feel in any way stupid, self-conscious or daft yelling at a screen, be assured; you are. Totally. Its a ridiculous thing to do and totally unnecessary. Because voice recognition is never very good at recognising words. Unless you speak them with a Korean accent.

“SKY SPOT FLEE!!!”

However, those Koreans are nothing if not wily, crafty and quite frankly, odd. Because its now been discovered (by the one person out of 500,000 buyers who actually read his ‘terms and conditions’) that Samsong is in fact listening to each and every utterance made at the tv and sends it back to Korea where an army of little people listen, analyse and record your every word, which is whizzed over to them via the internet connection.

The question is not about invasion of privacy, its a question of ‘why?’ What the fuck does Samsung want with instructions yelled at a tv screen? So they can work out how much sport I actually watch and blackmail me with the threat of telling my wife? So they know when I’m watching a little bit of Terminator 1 or 2, Kill Bill 1 or 2, Animal House, the Blues Brothers or so many of the others that I just need like a drug?? Or worse of all, so they can sell it to a marketing company who can then phone us on our Samsung phones while we’re having dinner and offer us tailor made deals.

“Hi Andy, this is Kenny”, spoken with an almost unintelligible Bombay accent, “we have a special offer this week for yellow, Uma Thurman cat suits, in your size, with a free Samurai sword!!!! Okayyyy?”

No, its not ‘okay’ actually; its a fucking intrusion; piss off ‘Kenny’ and go bother someone else. I already have seven Uma Thurman suits in yellow anyway.

Though Samsung have now pointed out that ‘information recorded will NOT be sold to a third party’. Oh, that’s ok then.

But it isn’t. We already have phones that track our every move and know where we are, Oyster cards that know where we go, credit cards that know exactly what we buy and when, and ‘loyalty cards’ which know when we take a sodding piss. And that’s all without the 60 million cameras in my street alone, watching me. And me alone…

When I finally get a new tv, when I decide that waiting for valves to warm up is no longer acceptable, and that having a tv the size of a compact car is a waste of space, I won’t be buying a Samsung.

Happy slightly paranoid Tuesday

A xxxx