A new Microsoft patent targets overweight gamers. The idea behind the patent is that gamers who don’t fulfill certain health requirements should play less and improve their health instead. Of course, it’s just a patent, but the idea is pretty scary if they extend it to other areas as well. Welcome to the future?!

They even go so far as to think about an avatar that will reflect your body weight and if your avatar is too fat you will simply not be able to play. We’re living in the 21st century, so it only makes sense to think about ways how to use health data that is stored digitally. Is this patent a first sign of a new Microsoft service?

Considering that Google recently launched their service “Google Health” (https://www.google.com/health), we can assume that soon many people will store all their health related information online or on their PC’s anyway (I for sure won’t!).

But this Microsoft patent is also pretty scary. Let’s say they extend this avatar. Do we really need a virtual avatar that collects all of our information (occupation, age, sex, IQ, education, relationship, etc.) ? I’m not saying that it might have many advantages, because people tend to forget that there are real people behind every avatar in virtual worlds, but there are way too many disadvantages.

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