Speaking of Odd Googly Things…

Where there might be an ad market, Google has a possible patent (ars)…This one in games.

Imagine a small bit of code that runs on either a PC or a console and monitors user behavior in video games—everything from the sort of car that people drive in racing sims to the conversations that they have in WoW. Imagine that this code examines saved game files to see what titles are currently being played, and imagine that it could look inside those files to learn about a user’s game choices and abilities. Now imagine that all this data is relayed back to a central server, where it is sliced, diced, and deep-fried, then used to serve highly-targeted ads that appear onscreen. Sound like spyware? Nope, it’s a new in-game advertising system that Google hopes to patent.