Microsoft is amping their ads offering by utilizing the power of Kinect – they want to offer ads based on users’ emotions or activities.

Though nothing has yet been announced by Microsoft, the expectations came from the patent entitled “Targeting Advertisements Based on Emotion” Microsoft filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent describes a computer system configured to execute a method to deliver advertisements based on emotional states.  This technology is presumed to be the Microsoft Kinect, which will allow advertisers to see their audience in  order to deliver ads based on their emotions or activities.

Advertisers would provide Microsoft with  a targeting data that includes the desired emotional states of users which they intend to target.  This technology would also allow advertisers to provide ads that vary with the desired emotional states.

“The computer system monitors online activity of users,” the patent application stated.  “The online activity is processed to identify a tone of content the users interact with during a time period. The computer system also receives indications of the users’ reactions to the content. In turn, the computer system assigns emotional states to the users based on the tone of the content and the indications of the users’ reactions.

Advertisements are selected for delivery to the users by the computer system. The advertisements may be selected based on emotional states assigned to the users or the emotional states associated with the advertisements. The computer system delivers the selected advertisements with the highest monetization values to the users that are emotionally compatible. If the assigned emotional state of the user is unavailable, advertisements associated with neutral emotional states are selected and the selected advertisements with the highest monetization value are delivered to the user.”

Kinect is Microsoft’s motion sensing device used for the Xbox 360 game console.  It allows users to put their moves in the games they play as the device sees what the player does.  It competes with the Wii remote and the PlayStation Move.

But the question is, won’t this technology violate users’ privacy?  Will advertisers be able to see you when they want or when you want them to see you?  Hopefully it would provide users with the option to turn off that feature because it would be really creepy if people could see your every move.  And Microsoft’s been rather consumer-focused as of late when it comes to opting out of ad-tracking, turning on the Do-Not-Track feature for Internet Explorer by default.

Targeted ads are evolving along with the rest of our online technology, across devices, networks and services.  As noted in an IAB report this week, online ads have reached their highest point in a single quarter this year, driven in part by recent trends in the social and mobile sectors.  As our social networks in particular traverse connected devices, smartphones, tablets and even game consoles are becoming points of interaction for marketing firms to not only target consumers but learn from their behavior.

This latest patent from Microsoft is another indicator of the type of technology that can be leveraged for targeted ads, and the Redmond, WA-based software maker isn’t the only one.  One of Google’s recent patents indicates an integrated mobile technology that will target ads, even beyond your smartphone, based on the ambient information it picks up.  There’s no telling when and where a targeted ad will hit you in the future, but be on the lookout.  They’re after you.