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Track a Soda Can with GPS?
I am Kobayashi writes "According to the Indianapolis Star Online, next summer Coca-cola will feature a promotion in which winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices implanted in the winning cans.... Hopefully they track you fast before you throw-away (or recycle) your winning can...." And in another bit of Coke news, they've got a new high-tech billboard: jhkoh writes "Reuters/Yahoo is reporting that Coca-Cola has unveiled an 'intelligent' billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus -- at 99 feet wide, the world's biggest -- that supposedly will respond to weather, movement, and SMS text messages. The billboard itself is 52 square meters of LED display. How soon before someone hacks it?"
but does it run linux?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices implanted in the winning cans....
Is this where my 1.25 goes each time I buy a 20oz. Coke? Funding expensive marketing ploys? How about the old way? Why can't that be the way we do contests?
"Excuse me ma'am, I see you are holding a Coke, you won the contest, now come with me into this dark alley to claim your prize." - that scares me, there ARE people out there that would do that...
Well, as a Coke lover, it looks like I am not going to be drinking Coke anytime soon. I would rather lose (or be dead in the case of GPS in cell phones which I have complained about before) a contest than be tracked by a third-party.
Oooh, it's just for the promotion. Oh, it's just to make sure they don't leave the store w/o being bought. Oh, it's just to see how many ARE leaving the store w/o having to track the money. Oh, it's for your own good. Oh, wait.
No thanks.
no, really.
So...will each can have the tracker, or just hte winner? That scares me that now coke might be able to track its drinkers, its bad wnough that my call phone will heave to have GPS in it...
As if RFID tags weren't enough, now I can be found just out of pure thirst...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
What an odd bastardization of Geocaching!
Geocaching is exploring for objects other people have hidden using GPS. It's a blast and very addictive.
However, GPS does not send signals... it only receives... How are they going to track people?
Davak
Tracking my Coke is one thing, but please don't track my beer
.. I get a 2 lts bottle everyday and drink on my nice caffeine mug... guess I won't get the winning can
Hmm... GPS reception inside aluminum cans? Seems a bit sketchy if you ask me.
AND it will have to transmit as well, thats going to be a nice piece of technology.
But seems you could possibly cheat - there are devices to detect semiconductor material (used to detect "bugs"), so with a bit of tweaking you could possibly figure out which can has something inside.
"When it's raining, big drops will appear on the screen and when it's breezy, the Coke sign can ripple as if it's being blown by the wind," a spokeswoman for the company said.
Well, it sure is good to see technology used for the benefit of humanity, and not just a stupid gimmick.
Reuters/Yahoo is reporting that Coca-Cola has unveiled an 'intelligent' billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus -- at 99 feet wide, the world's biggest -- that supposedly will respond to weather, movement, and SMS text messages. The billboard itself is 52 square meters of LED display. How soon before someone hacks it?
ALL YOUR BILLBOARDS ARE BELONG TO US!
they're going to have to dig that can out of the backseat of my car themselves.
"All your sleep are belong to us!"
this reminds minds me of when bart gets a metal spike krusty O in his cereal.
Not to stereotype, but if a coder is staying up all night in front of the computer, there's a fifty-fifty chance that he does NOT want a camera crew bursting in to film him.
Uh, you can't track anything though just a GPS receiver, you also need some sort of transmitter! So we not just walk through the warehouse with an RF spectrum analyzer and see which can is transmitting?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Coca-Cola and the Howard Dean campaign are new slashdot advertisers?
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
yeah, that'll certainly grab a lot of attention.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What's next? Tracking Pringles cans? I hear that they make great antennas!
Mmm, 52 square meters of full goatse glory! Remind me to avoid London...
Hate me!
How long till someone hacks it
Well, since it was supposed to be a Pepsi billboard, I'd say not long at all
ha, ha me make funny
I like my beverages with warning labels!
New York Bum wins $17 Million by picking up other people's littered cans.
If it displays random SMS messages, why bother hacking it?
Unless constantly flooding it with references to RANDOM CRAP(tm) is considered hacking...
To hell with hacking it. Where's my pellet rifle?
Summer 2004: Anusol Win-a-Hawaii-Vacation contest
(8h on the subway)
Anusol guy: Congratulations!
Joe: For what?
Anusol guy: You won our Win-a-Hawaii-Vacation contest!!!
Joe: How did you find me?
Anusol: YOU GOT A GPS UP YOUR ASS!!!
winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices
Why? Because when people opened their old cokes and it said "you win a car!", they were too lazy to go to the redemption office?
Can't wait to build my tracking device.
"Not in that store..."
"Seems to be somewhere to the south..."
heh. Exploitable I think.
Does this mean that the first person who hacks the transmitter's signal to track down the winning can gets to claim the prize? I don't think this will ever work because most cans are stored in places that don't get good GPS reception (buildings, steel machines, trucks, etc...) and the transmit out (presumably a cell connection?) is another matter entirely.
plus it's a little creepy having Coke track down the winners like that. What's next? A tiny transmitter in the cola itself that the "winner" swallows so Coke can track them even if they put the can down?
I read the internet for the articles.
I'm not up on GPS technology but I'm sure there are ways to detect this from outside stores. Looks to me next year, once I figure out how to cheat, will be the summer of me driving accross the country with coke can winners in the back of my car. Why not have a little fun...
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
I wonder if it would be possible to somehow locate those winning cans with sensor equipment. Are those GPS units entirely passive? ;-)
You know, kind of like Fry and Bender using Professor Farnsworth's X-Ray thingy to spot the winning can of Slurm.
Oh well, too much TV I guess
Why do I see something on the horizon in the vein of Prof. Farnsworth's F-Ray that was used to detect the winning Slurm can on Futurama?
Will it give people cancer/make them sterile too?
If you start glowing green, people call in and report your location via the GPS units in their cell phones.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Also keep in mind that attempting to interfere with the insert, or thinking about interfering with the insert, or questioning the "Constitutionality" of having a tracking device inserted into you so that your every move may be monitored by John Ashcroft personally if it amuses him, means that the terrorists have won. This is being done to protect your freedom. Stop spoiling things by trying to actually exercise it.
Now I'll need to buy some more tin foil. A lot more.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Hurray since the GPS receiver will have to be small enough to fit in a can it will probably use a PLL synthesised reciever. A sensitive frequency scanner wanding over unpurchased cans might improve your odds.
Number of time "GPS" appears in this story: ZERO!!! Not all satelite tracking uses the US Government's GPS system!
ATLANTA -- Here's a way to really target a consumer.
Next summer, Coca-Cola plans to use satellites to find U.S. buyers who happen to purchase special cans of Coke products.
They will be winners in a giveaway that will feature Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicles. The giant vehicles will be presented in person, using satellites to locate the recipients. And in a promotion tied to the Summer Olympics, Coke's prize is likely to be $1 million in gold, again awarded on the spot.
The promotions, described in a proposal that has been circulated within the Coke system, are a twist for the beverage maker, because of both the technology involved and the splashy prizes.
Coke spokesman Mart Martin declined to provide details about the promotions, which remain months away. "We are still in the process of finalizing our plans," he said.
But U.S. Coke bottlers have learned quite a bit about them. Last week in Australia, Coke unveiled a similar plan. Dubbed Thrill Seeker, it is tied to the Rugby World Cup finals, scheduled for October and November.
Thrill Seeker uses satellite tracking to locate winners. The prizes are Peugeot cars and $10,000.
Summertime prizes are common in the soft-drink world, given that they help stir interest during an important selling season. This year's summer promotion from Pepsi, for example, touted a potential prize of $1 billion. (It wasn't won, by the way.)
The oddity of Coke's promotion revolves around how winners will get their prizes. The cans used will be equipped with Global Positioning System transponders.
In Canada, Coors used a "Tracker Bottle" in Quebec in 2001 and 2002. The program spread to all of Canada last summer.
That experience should indicate the tracking system will work. Coke doesn't want a repeat of 1990, when the much-touted "Magic Can" promotion turned out to be a mess. In that case, Coke put cash in cans, but many malfunctioned.
These cans will have to transmit their position to Coca-cola. The article does not say how they do this. I assume that GPS enabled cell phones use the cellular network to transmit their positions. Will the cans use the cell phone network? Some other radio transmission?
Also, for info on how GPS works, click.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Was very amused passing through Times Square the other day to see one with a Windows dialog box alerting the user (presumably several million viewers) that SWITCHER.EXE had attempted to execute an illegal instruction...
at least it wasn't BSoDing.
But I'd say a smart billboard is a *bad* idea, until they succeed in making it smarter than everybody watching it.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
I would find it VERY funny if someone 0wns the billboard, and it shows up on the BBC reading "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
they'll track down the winner while they
are cheating on their spouse in an SUV
parked in a industrial complexes parking lot.
They are the closest thing to a unified caffeine distributor. We're as likely to take down debian.org as anything coca-cola.
("Will code for caffeine" replacment billboards are quite another matter...)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Wow!
All this while assinating union leaders in developing nations.
Those cola loving fellows are hard workers.
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I didn't read the article, but, generally speaking, GPS receivers don't transmit, and GPS satellites don't track.
First it was lemon flavoring,
then it was vanilla flavoring,
now it is GPS.
I bet Pepsi GPS is on the horizon.
Oh wait, that's a different subject entirely.
What on earth could Coca-Cola possibly be thinking of using for receivers? Any transmitter is going to have to be small enough to fit inside of a can of Coke, which means it's going to have a pretty darn small range. (There's a reason that Iridium phones are so bloody big.) That'd mean that receivers would have to be essentially ubiquitous. The only thing I can think of that might come close to fitting the bill would be cell towers.
Add to that the fact that both the receiving and transmitting circuitry as well as the battery would have to fit inside a small metal can, and you're not looking at much power or battery life. Also, to get a GPS signal, you pretty much have to be outside or next to a window. In short, I have no idea how this could work, and given the restrictions above, this seems like a vaporware ad campaign.
if this is run like "under the cap" type contests, the gps angle is just for hype/publicity. The company will know exactly when/where the winning can is bought. That's because one of their reps will place it on the shelf in a predetermined retail location, and wait in the store for someone to buy it. Only thing random is who the buyer is.
Approximately 30 seconds before "Breaking News: Tony is GAY" appears on the screen and the entire high school soccer team falls over laughing.
at 99 feet wide, the world's biggest -- that supposedly will respond to ... SMS text messages.
World's biggest message board?
Those who use the Coke can as a makeshift lota may be in for quite a surprise.
hee hee hee.
why were going to see people walking around the supermarket with radio frequency trackers...
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
The price of a can of Coke just went up to $7
Hammer of Truth
Would be a can a Mountain Dew that could direct the drinker to the nearest urinal.
In general, in the US, it is illegal to have a sweepstakes-style contest that requires a purchase for entry (because it is technically gambling).
[Cameraman] So that coke drinker is INSIDE?
[Coke ad-man] Yeah, inside.
[Cameraman] I can't believe it!
[Ad man] We've got 5 satellites on to him.
[Cameraman] That's not what I meant.
[Ad man] Oh you mean you don't believe how he could be living in a room this small?
[Cameraman] Of course.
[Ad man] Go in and see!
[[[[[ They break down the door and rush in. The room is really tiny, and is filled with brooms and messy pails. And down in a corner by the trash, is a crushed, discarded coke can. ]]]]
[Ad man] But the satellites can't be wrong!
There is no such thing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Hopefully they track you fast before you throw-away (or recycle) your winning can...."
....
People won't throw away the cans: they will hoard them, "just in case".
Hell, some folks will carry their cans in a belt pouch, as next uber-cool-post-cellphone status symbol.
I suppose the cans could be (gently) crushed, for easier storage "until I win that contest"
This is a brilliant marketing gimmick: sell sugar water at fantastically inflated prices, while persuading consumers to idolize and hoard the package.
-kgj
up here in canada maybe in the usa, coors light did the same thing were they had a gps unit inside a beer bottle and they tracked the person to his house and he won a bunch of stuff, stereo system, etc.
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONGS TO US!"
Boy, Coke sure is getting wierd with its ad campaigns.
According to the Indianapolis Star Online, next summer Coca-cola will feature a promotion in which winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices implanted in the winning cans....
My god - you know what this means?
It means that this damned thing (throws aluminum-foil beanie on floor) doesn't work!
Chip H.
The oddity of Coke's promotion revolves around how winners will get their prizes. The cans used will be equipped with Global Positioning System transponders.
Did I miss something or did you?
Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La
Avoid London.
-kgj
Once again, the English system proves superior. 560 square feet sounds way more impressive than a mere 52 square meters.
From the Coke site...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Reuters/Yahoo is reporting that Coca-Cola has unveiled an 'intelligent' billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus -- at 99 feet wide, the world's biggest -- that supposedly will respond to weather, movement, and SMS text messages. The billboard itself is 52 square meters of LED display.
99 feet wide, 52 square meters??? What, does jhkoh work for NASA?
Ow ow ow ow!
Don't they know they're supposed to use a Pringle's can?!?!?
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
"In general, in the US, it is illegal to have a sweepstakes-style contest that requires a purchase for entry (because it is technically gambling)."
They'll implant a GPS tracking device in your neck, FREE!
Reuters/Yahoo is reporting that Coca-Cola has unveiled an 'intelligent' billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus
When it rains, it simulates being wet. Yeah, that's just brilliant.
I think, anyways.
Now imagine the giant hoard of empty soda cans people will have in their garage for the duration, being afraid to throw them away and all.
do() || do_not();
can pinpoint a tin foil hat to within 12 inches, man? That's why I've got on my Slab-O-Concrete (tm) Hat now. Sure, it's a bit more heavy then the old tin foil hat. But it not only blocks the messages from the CIA telling you to kill all those people, interferes with space aliens attempting to uncover the combination to your school gym locker AND shields you from harmful UVA, UVB, Gamma, Zeta and Thorian radiation. Also pick up the new Slab-O-Concrete (tm) Cover to protect your procreative abilities (assuming that you'll find a member of the opposite sex who will allow your attempts).
"The promotions, described in a proposal that has been circulated within the Coke system.... "
A proposal, it seems, written by someone who doesn't understand how GPS works.
GPS is a passive system, so the can would need a GPS reciever, and a transmitter of some kind (cell phone I would assume) to "phone home," and some way to tell when it has been sold. Assuming that the baterries don't die, that the winning can can get a GPS fix at the right time while able to reach a cell tower and succesfully dial out after it had been sold but before it had been thrown away all while within the vicinity of the "prize team", this sounds like a great idea.
Pat that intern on the back for coming up with such a brainstorm.
And how will they know if the can has been purchased or is just sitting on a store shelf or in a vending machine somewhere? Opening it perhaps?
If I take it home and it sits for months before being opened do I forfit the prize?
Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that. Probably they'll mail you a piece of tin foil for free if you ask for it or something like that.
Drink the Coke, ingest an unknown transmitter, scratch your digestive tract like keying a car, poop it out, have a seagull choke on the discarded can and it can add another ounce to the silicon trash heaps in the third world.
Can we stick to plastic caps? Please?
Not that any of this discussion has to do with the article since they only talked about satellite tracking, but while everyone else is spinning out of control, why not join in?
Where's my SCO news, dammit?
This space for rent.
Hopefully they track you fast before you throw-away (or recycle) your winning can....
Maybe they would just award the prize to the trash can. But, how would a trash can spend a million dollars?
I'd imagine he would just waste it.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Back to the drawing board...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This technology will be rolling out much sooner than next summer. Coca-Cola will be running the same promotion in Australia in conjunction with November's Rugby World Cup. Here's an article on the forthcoming Thrill Seeker promotion. Australia is a big, empty place -- I wonder what happens if someone in Mt Isa or Kalgoorlie picks up a winning can? It's gonna be hard for them to instantly find the winner then...
"How soon before someone hacks it?"
Depends on who built the embedded OS.
Microsoft, you say? In that case, it was hacked before they even turned on the juice.
blog |
Personally, I'd rather they bring a check made out to me. They already know where I am. I may not be able to drive a second vehicle away, or want to risk getting hit over the head carrying that gold to a safety deposit box or pawn shop.
Imagine, if you will, walking up to a soda machine to buy a can of overpriced carbonated corn syrup, and around the corner you see this geek holding a receiving device pointed at the machine. As you leave the machine, the geek exclaims, "It's moving! Track it!" and a hoard of marketing people and flashbulbs surround you. A dude walks up with the proverbial briefcase full of gold bullion and gives it to you. (The revenue agent comes right behind and takes half back, but nevermind that.) It sounds more like a flashmob than a promotion.
My point is, it would be pretty hard not to notice a mob of people intently watching a particular vending machine waiting for the winning can to dispense. I would hope the machine would be in the middle of the desert, in mid-summer, and it takes weeks for someone to buy the winning can.
Even if you managed to hide the mob awaiting to surround the winner, there's only a short amount of time between receiving can and disposing of can. The prize patrol awards the prize to the convicted felon picking up trash on the side of the highway, or the out-of-work dot-com bum living under the bridge.
There would need to be careful planning and preparation of the winning site for that can, especially considering the prizes to be given away (subject to change). That much planning for location is not terribly random, is it?
saddam drinks coke and not pepsi
Read the article, Coors has already done this in Canada. So, while you may not see how it can work, apparently it does.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
It's the Coke can with a Pringles can attached to it.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
I'd like to see one of the lucky winners try to get on an airplane with a specially modified can in their carry-on baggage. She's got a bomb!
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Uh... tracking someone with GPS?!? Not likely. GPS is a system that provides satellites in earth orbit, sending out time-stamped signals. A receiver picks up those signals from 3 or more satellites (even 4 or 5) and calculates the position from the time differences. Other sources of information, like wireless network base stations (GSM etc.) enhance accuracy. [end of very rough description]
Bottom line: GPS does not work within buildings. You need to see the sky - or to be more exact, you need a line of sight to at least 3 satellites.
Now, even if you assume that everyone is running around outside holding their cans high up over their head... the coke can would be able to find out its own position (and I'm not even convinced that there are GPS receiver small enough to fit inside a can...) That does not mean that Coca Cola will know the position of the can, because how will the can transmit it's position back to the company? Are they going to fit a cell phone into the can, too??
No, I honestly don't believe the story right now, I need to see that can first.
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
I'd say they'd be the losers if he's tracked them down and has their dismembered bodies in his back seat!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
RF field meters can be had for about $100 time to go and find loud boxes of coke and buy them.
Just Great.....
Now all those Coke Can Modders out there really have a valid reason to be paranoid.
I can see it now....
Hey man, don't smoke any weed outta that Coke Can, Use the Pepsi one......You know with all these satellites that are tracking Sodacans these days, you can never be sure you aren't a "Winner"
Only Users Lose Drugs,
SuperGlue
I have a weather rock that utilizes similar technology. When the rock is wet, it is raining; when the rock is white, it is snowing, etc.
Sometimes I am amazed at the relentless march of progress. This is not one of those times.
Tonight on CNN: Yes, the lucky Coca-Cola GPS winner was identified today as Mr. Unlucky. Coke officials report that the GPS can was purchased from a vending machine in an "adult toy store". The Coke officials tried to catch the man there but apparently missed him. They caught up to him at a neighborhood drug house where he was picking up a few hits. Unfortunately when they came to the door and yelled "You have the coke! Bring it out!" shots ensued. They retreated and followed the man to a whore house where he was apparently having an ongoing affair with a local entrpreneurial woman.
Yeah, that guy is sure lucky he was tracked down by their GPS system!
Come play Moral Decay!
http://www.joltcola.com/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/282e/
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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I guess that's the ultimate test of a hypothesis, isn't it? :)
I've still got to think that this will have a high failure rate. GPS signals simply don't make it inside very well, and I suspect that a large proportion of the beers that are drunk in the U.S. are drunk inside.
coke drinker innocently packs can of coke in carry-on, then gets arrested by airport security for trying to smuggle "electronic device intended to interfere with aircraft navigation" onto airplane.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
What the world needs is a website with detailed howto ideas and maybe a forum on tracking gps coke cans. I want to drive by a Coca-Cola bottlers and see a dozen cars in the parking lot with geeks with laptops sitting on the hoods of cars waiting to chase the delivery trucks. Heck, I just might be sitting there, too!
That article too, is light on details, but it claims that Coors Light was able to use a GPS based device in a bottle to locate winners and give them their prize.
Does anyone have any more details on how this system works? Does it only work if I decide to drink my Coke/Coors outside in an area with a good cell phone signal, and then only if I don't move for a minute after activating the GPS receiver?
-- It is too late for the pebbles to vote, the avalanche has already started.
In very small print, at the bottom of every can, it will say 'No purchase neccessary, steal can to enter contest'.
The usual solution is for there to be a mail-in option to get a "gamepiece", the majority of which will say "You lose!", but have an equal chance as any can does of saying "You win!".
More likely than not, that gamepiece will also be bundled with the specially marked can to confirm the non-winningness, the GPS device will just be a fancy way to either plot winners on a map quickly or so they can claim "There are 7 winning cans still unclaimed somewhere in Boston."
For those interested, the coke billboard is linux driven. I happen to know one of the guys who works on it. In fact, I even stood at the back of the old version of it and saw the hardware behind the scenes and he explained how it all worked. Pretty cool stuff really.
Come on guys. ;-)
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
How soon before someone hacks it?
What I am wondering about is how soon before someone puts on the goatse man?
I think looking into a 52 square meters version of that would be the earthly equivalent of staring into the abyss of black holes.
Oh the humanity!
Head of the Dorks
break into coca cola's marketing department.
steal all their files on external contractors.
Find the idiot who figured out how to put that thing in a can without it looking different.
Then go to his house, knock down his door, and ask him for $100,000 directly, because he's probably good for it.
Suckers.
Let's unofficially make this thread be the nexus of all other good ideas. That way it can't get slashdotted. GENUIS!
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Here's a simular Coca-Cola promotion that went horribly wrong:
The idea was called "Magic Can", you'd open up your Coca-Cola can and real spendable US dollars just might pop out. Of course, the cans with the money in them wouldn't have cola, but instead a device powered by chlorinated water that would propel the bill.
However, the device often got damaged in shipping, and this lead to several cases where a "winner" didn't look before they drank, and ended up digesting the chlorinated water before realizing that their can didn't really have any cola. Their $100 bill would end up getting spent in the emergency room...
Coca-Cola found itself reduced to putting out ads that instructed "winners" how to safely extract the bill in the event of a failed device....
how they make sure that this contest (and others like it) are not rigged (say, by somebody at the production plant 'accidentally' taking the cans and giving them to friends, like it happened in that huuuge McDonald scam a little while ago)?
How are they going to ensure a random distribution of these cans across the whole country?
-- the cake is a lie
So, where's my Coke for life? =P
-insert a witty something-
Once I figure out the system, I'll know EXACTLY where to find that "lucky" million-dollar winner...
I wonder if we could track the cans on our own, any engineers with any ideas?
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
How clever: Get people to be excited about being "tracked" with technology!
Check out this site for more information on how your privacy is being invaded today...
... will be *overjoyed* when Coke pulls up in an H2 with $1M in gold to give him in exchange for a Coke can in the pile in his shopping cart...
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
As for the GPS reception, perhaps it would be able to detect when it got a good signal and perform the 'phone home' then. So, it wouldn't bother trying to transmit when it is sitting in the warehouse or store, but it would call when you bought it and were carrying it with you in your car. It wouldn't be a perfect scheme, but it might give the company a general idea where the can is.
GPS is likely only a fall-back feature of their can tracking device. They should know what store the winning cans wound up in just by consulting shipping records. Part of the promotion includes "chase teams" who will give the winner their prizes on the spot, so the device just has to have enough range for the team to detect it as it leaves the store/machine and follow from there...
Quote not found in linked document.
quite right mate..
This kind of far-fetched crap is just right for a publicity stunt to gather media coverage (remember, the majority of modern journos are lazy and uninspired, and are quite happy to print press releases and fluff instead if investigating issues..), but it would be insanely expensive to put a GPS device in every can. Do you have any idea how many cans of Coke are sold every single day?
No feast for the paranoids in this..More interesting is the question of how easy it will be to find their winners. Locating a particular individual by GPS is fairly easy in places like Wyoming or the north of Scotland. but in areas of higher population density like major cities it could prove tricky..
Say for example you are drinking a can of Coke in an office block in central Manhattan - the accuracy of the civilian GPS system would make it hard to pinoint exactly where in such a building the person might be.
Are we going to see Coca-Cola hitsquads rampaging through several floors of the block as they seek the holder of the blessed can? Might be a few hiccups with this, but I don't imagine Coca-Cola being too bothered about the odd prize not going out..
I buy a can of coke, I drink and the can immediately goes into the trash compactor.
Even those who don't smash their cans, probably pitch them right away.
The winning cans are going to be found in a land fill somewhere. This is not a very good contest if you ask me.
This meens that i cant hawe sodacans deliverd to my secret underfrund lear annymore. dammit !
the casio gps watch can barely stay working for a few days on its batteries, ditto geko and emaps... ok they can pulse it etc... and then there's the faraday cage issues and i think i can tell which can has the $1K of electronics in it and not 12 oz of actual sloshy fizzy coke... sounds like someone made them a promise that's going to be hard to keep... and if they can track down a unit with this much stuff coming out of it, seems it should be easy enough for some others to do the same, then it turns into 'it's a mad mad mad mad world' just not as funny.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
See, what coke forgot to mention, is the gps is done by nano machines in the coke, so after you drink it they can track all you movement for marketing research. --The Titanic was built by proffesionals. --The Ark was built by Amatures.
--The Titanic was built by proffesionals. --The Ark was built by Amatures.
I just designed a GPS-based delivery tracking system, and I kind of doubt this will work exactly as advertised. For one thing, your options for transmitting GPS information are limited: you can use cellular data networks, which have limited reception, or satellite networks (which the article implies), which are expensive and require larger transmitters. All of the combo xmit/gps devices I've seen are larger than Coke cans. Though a cellular-based one could be concievably made in about that form factor with existing technology, it would almost definitely be heavier, especially if you plan to put batteries in it.
The other issue is that GPS typically require a clear view of the sky. In testing my system, the antenna had to be hung out my office window, because the signal could not be recieved through one story. In a vehicle, they do not recieve beneath metal (hence roof-mount antennas).
There are other issues that design would need to get around: aside from weight, the RF transmitter would be easily detectable. This could be prevented by using a timer or signal to 'wake up' the devices on d-day.
I am suspicious this is another Microsoft Loo. That said, I hope it's not- I could really use a small, inexpensive GPS transponder.
I have had this argument many times, and am still very skeptical about GPS transponders.
GPS (if that's being used, which is likely) is a one-way system, which means a passive device receives timing signals from a constellation of visible satellites, and uses the timing differences to estimate location and speed of the receiver.
The critical question is what happens next to that data. It can't be transmitted back to the GPS satellites, since they are only able to receive control signals from their operator (Loral?). In fact, it's unlikely to be any satellite-based system, due to the power requirements to punch a signal up to above the atmosphere (such as a satellite phone or VSAT terminal.) Such requirements mean a big heavy battery, and a very carefully aligned directional aerial (in most cases.)
So, what's the back channel? One example of a GPS transponder uses GSM to send the coordinates to a local cell network, probably via SMS. A European system (Galileo) being developed for tracking vehicles on roads throughout Europe, using UMTS or similar technologies.
Note that all of these devices so far require a package that is somewhat large than that which can be hidden inside a can of Cola!
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Two ideas:
1. It only dials home when you open the can.
2. Perhaps it won't be full of soda. The GPS device doesn't have to fit in the aluminum skin of a normal can - it could have a false bottom or something. Enough liquid in the can to splash around, and it would weigh the same as a regular can.
GL
Not only is GPS a passive technology, meaning it is a receiver not a tranmitter that requires an omni directional 1.575ghz antenna, it also does not work indoors. The whole system would also need a battery and additional transmitter to report position information. While it is possible to fit all this within a coke can, there would be little room for soda and it is unlikely that it would function inside an aluminum container.
..they won't be transmitting!
They only transmit when opened. They would need to conserve the battery power so that it had enough juice to last while the promotion administrators track the winning can down.
This is probably something the marketing boys came up with and released before they figured out it was not feasible. Here's why:
:)
1. The GPS satellites don't tell you where you are. A GPS receiver figures out where it is by triangulating its position by measuring how far it is away from each satellite. This takes some pretty advanced electronics which would barely fit in a soda can.
2. GPS does not track. Nothing is beamed back to the satellites, and even if it were, it would not reach them without a lot of power and a high gain antenna. The most common ways to get realtime tracking information on a GPS receiver is to couple it with ground-based radio or cell network. This would have to go in the soda can along with the rest...
3. GPS (generally) only works outside. The signals that GPS uses are very high frequency, weak, and thus very prone to attenuation due to obstacles. They COULD use the can itself as an antenna, but even that probably wouldn't give you enough gain to get the signal indoors.
4. Power source. None of this stuff works without power. How are they going to propose to keep this thing powered while they have this thing stored in the back of a warehouse for god knows how long before it gets put on a shelf and bought? Even if you didn't have it activate until you, say, opened it, there's still a pretty good chance you will not be in a location where GPS signals can be acquired.
Pepsi, please stick with the damned instant win cards.
Oh, and you are planning on going though with this, it may not be a good idea to fill the can.
-R
http://www.dpie.com/news/gpscan.html
Coca-Cola is already running this competition here in Australia. Open a 500mL plastic bottle and it says to look under the cap. If it says 'Winner', you activate the tracking device and within hours a Coca-Cola representative will find you.
Would be interesting to sit outside a Coca Cola bottling plant with the equipment necessary to listen for GPS broadcasts. Likely, the can could not be bottled on the factory line, but rather would be done en-masse offsite and the radio cans distributed to individual bottling plants. Ever note the local/regional labeling of cans? Sure would be funny to find out the mechanism and put one in a Pepsi can!!! (any Pepsi bottlers interested in this???)
It was this summer, up here in Canada, that Coors light, or maybe Kokanee, put on an almost identical contest.
They would track you down, via a GPS in the can, then install a home theatre system for you.
Pft! The first mistake that amateur paranoids do is go outside their home. If they just stayed inside, like me, nobody could possibly know what they're doing. My home is fully TEMPEST shielded as well as having all the windows painted black, boarded up on the outside and bricked over on the inside. To combat those infrared spy cameras, I've managed to achieve an R value of 60 with layers and layers of newspaper stacked up to the ceiling against all of the outer walls. I don't even have a computer, this is being typed by an undisclosed person that I communicate with via ham radio in the only room that is not completely shielded from the EM spectrum.
I wonder if they'll make cans that aren't winners heavier to cancel out the weight of the GPS device...
just like every other under the cap game....you can send in for a chance to win....
no purchase necessary, just steal a can.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Do you think the Devo Energy Dome protects you better from aliens and the gub'ment than a tin foil hat?
And isn't it really aluminum foil anyway?
Are we not men?
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
The billboard would read "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of ME!"
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
"When it's raining, big drops will appear on the screen and when it's breezy, the Coke sign can ripple as if it's being blown by the wind," a spokeswoman for the company said. So uh, yeah, dont worry if it looks like its gonna fall over, its supposed to do that! really!
They let anyone enter a drawing for the unclaimed prizes or something, most likely.
Same as every other contest I've seen that says "No purchase necessary, see store for details. Offer not valid in states X, Y and Z."
Then all the Coke cans in the USA, including the ones in landfills, slowly start to form an alternative network... the Cokenet.
They'd be able to bounce signals from can to can, in order to locate the "winner."
The only problem is powering it, especially if we're going to use it for Internet-type activity (i.e., file sharing ;-), which is bandwidth-intensive. But it sounds like a neat idea to rapidly move new, low-cost tech into the countryside.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
officials at the Pentagon are scrambling to replace all vending machines with Pepsi
How soon before someone hacks it?
Back in January, I was staying at the Hilton Times Square, and while hurrying back inside one night, I looked up at all the monitors over top a neighboring shop, probably Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Sure enough, three of the monitors were displaying pop-up spam right over top of their regular advertising!
Who could imagine having that much tech and throwing it all away by directly attaching Windows boxes to the Internet without a firewall. Have they no shame!? Its been several months since I've looked, but I'm sure someone has had their way with those machines by now. Now THAT would be a fun box to 0wn. Pair that up with a laptop on wireless and you can have some serious fun with passers-by.
Intelligent Life on Earth
I wonder if someone will then decide to sue: "I paid for 12 ounces of Coke and was ripped off!"
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Didn't Johnny 5 do the orignal billboard hack?
Coors Light beer had a similar promotion this past summer in Canada if you bought a 15-pack of cans. If you cracked open a winning can, it would beep and the instructions said that Molson (Canadian importer for Coors) would track you down, so they could give you a home entertainment package.
I tried and tried....
Very afraid.
Big brother is watching.... and he's making it OK because the spying is disguised as a contest.
This is the start of something bad. Once Joe Q. Public starts to think that this is cool, he won't mind having every single thing he buys trackable by satelite. He won't even think about it, and thus he'll be a little less free.
wbs.
Huh?
...and had my right to privacy violated instead!" Perhaps we'll see an invasion of privacy suit over this (unless they have a huge disclaimer on the side of the can).
GL
For the upcoming Rugby Worldcup 2003 in Australia, Coca Cola has this system already in use for their current competition (one could win in total about 50'000 AUS Dollar (10'000 Visa, Peugeot 206 XTR and VIP Final tickets) if he has the right bottle).
..."How soon before someone hacks it?"
But rather, "How much free publicity will they get when someone does?" Don't get me wrong, making the world's largest billboard will get them enough press (especially with its "Smart" aspects), but when someone DOES hack it? They'll no doubt take some sort of winkwink-nudgenudge pro-geek-community stance on it and rake in the street cred.
Ain't capitalism grand?
--Obyron
Coke is running the "thrillseeker" comp in conjuction with the rugby world cup this month. Looks like Australia is the guinea pig again!
I passed piccadily cicus on the bus today and noticed the coke screen, the first thing that went through my head was "what a total waste of a really cool screen just to advertise coke" (thinking on the lines of quake here;) the second thing that came into my mind was "mmmm i want a coke" also i noticed that the frame rate was crap at times (when it was moving large graphics around that looked suspiciously like a flash animation) i didnt notice it doing any cool interactions but i was only there for a minute...
:P The hacking potential would be too cool to pass up
in the end i got a pepsi
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I havnt looked at the cans, but The current Thrillseeker competition in Australia is in the bottles. These are definately big enough for a cell-phone like device and arent made of metal. From the label:
Look under the cap and if you've won, you'll find "Winner" and instructions on how to activate your winning Thrillseeker bottle. Once activated, we'll be able to find you using the latest satelite technology, so our Thrilseeker Squad can deliver your prize to you in hours
There is also a disclaimer, which includes:
Subject to satelite reception and
You must keep all parts of your winning bottle to claim your prize
Hope this helps all the pedants debating the satelite tracking angle. *grin*
Personally, when I go to the store, Im gonna keep a look-out for the bottle which has a satelite dish and a hefty power pack attached.
"If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4... " -- Wil Wheaton
As a gimmick it's relatively harmless. You lose the winning can or throw it away and somebody else finds it they're the winner. Although what a sewer rat is going to do with a widescreen plasma television I don't know.
It only becomes a problem when the item is linked directly to the purchaser, possibly via a credit card transaction. Or the government suddenly decides that the product is a danger to society and use the GPS information to track down product and take it from you.
Worth having a look at Bootleg, a very clever kids program from the Beeb, to see what happens when chocolate is declared illegal.
and the werewolves came...
and they ate him...
and they drank his beer...
Search for "indoor gps" on google.
OK so maybe they won't spring for one of the newer GPS chips, but it's possible. It still won't work anywhere, but it shouldn't have any problems working in a typical single family home.
Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise.
Just because you (soda) can do something, doesn't mean you should.
[o]_O
Not all that ripples and is pretty is high-tech.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
They aren't necessarily using some super-cool soda can with GPS & transmitters and such, it just says that they'll use GPS to find the winnner. Maybe the winner just get's a can that says 'you win!', calls it in, and the people dropping the h2 off use GPS to find the person's place.
don't Ass-u-me.... you know the rest.
So now they can track EVERYBODY who drinks coke. They can compile this data, give it to the government, use it for marketing purposes etc....and ultimately, their final plan is to......errr.....what's that red van doing outside my house?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I would be truly surprised if the GPS transponder was actually put inside the can. Coke makes softdrinks, not advanced electronics. It would make sense if they stuck up a deal with a company like motorola or nokia, and a cellular provider (verizon, sprint, nextel, etc.) that used AGPS (assisted GPS) to accomplish the task.
Secondly, I highly doubt Coke will go through the trouble to integrate the device into a coke can itself. With what little information this article provided, I have a feeling that Coke will probably plant the tracking device in a 24-pack case. I will be truly surprised if they go ahead with putting a device in a can and have it actually work.
Tinfoil stocks have skyrocketted today as millions rush to shield themselves from the ever prying eyes of Coke(c) for fear of GPS laden nano probes secretly added to thier products. The spokesman for Coke(c) had no comment.
Coca-cola will feature a promotion in which winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices implanted in the winning cans....
You'll never look at the guy picking pop cans out of the trash the same way ever again...
I just hope the "winner" isn't a can being served by a flight attendant onboard a plane...let's watch the can's transmitter screw the plane's sensitive electronics.
Million dollars in gold, crashing into the Pacific...
Then you got to haul ass through the woods looking for your markers. There would be a bunch of markers, each punching a different pattern on your card. Most of the time you didn't have to get every point on the map, but you had to get a certain number of markers (e.g. 10 of 12, 18 of 20, whatever).
You would be surprised how hard it is to find something, in plus/minus ten meters. Plus/minus ten meters is a bigger deal than you may think, and we didn't have fancy schmansy GPS to fool with. (Though I sure would have loved one!) Anyway, even though they were hunter orange and white they don't just jump out at you.
Of course, some where just plain hard to get to - plus you were running against the clock AND other smart folks - most of them military brats, many of them Boy Scouts to boot. (Yeah, I did that too.)
Making sure you know what the crap you're doing with a map is obvious. You're given grid coordinates - you have to plot them quickly, and accurately. It's something you want to do at the outset - you have to choose your path from teh get-go. Then you haul ass.
You don't necessarily want to go to (or pass up) the nearest or fartherest marker. It totally depends on the terrain, weather (we cancelled if weather sucked - light rain was no biggie), and your buddy (on duo runs).
Some points would have folks wandering all over the place looking for it. You could solve it together if it was a pain to find - better for both teams to get it done quick and move to the next point. You punch your cards and go.
Of course, nowadays I'd do the whole thing with PDAs (you'd still have to plot points yourself, input your data into a map) and decide how you're going to run based on the terrain, points, etc.
It could be a hell of a lot of fun. I'd make the marker be a computer - with a wireless link of some sort - preferably with webcams scattered around to entertain the parents and friends who hang around and barbecue to watch the action.
Marker would perform some kind of wireless data exchange between the PDA and the marker. That would update the big board back at the finish line (on the web, whatever) - you might even update the runner with some limited information, but I dunno. It would be discouraging if you knew someone was way ahead, had X number of points, whatever. Also could make someone slack. Keeping the runner in the dark is best.
Also, in case of some kind of emergency, you would at least be able to tell the last place/time somebody was. You could also call people back if something was up (like when the USAF decided to start practice bombing a coupla miles away from where they'd been informed we were staging an air-rescue field exercise).
You could use video clips for the journalism web site, for your JROTC squadron, battalion, whatever. Photo-finish.
As a geeky challenge, you could even have the data you're beamed by the markers comprise some kind of message or whatever. A quick and dirty method of doing this could be to have each marker contain all data sets you need to capture.
So say you get to marker 1 - the marker knows who you are (key exchange), that it's the first marker you've gone to, etc. So it sends you part 1. So on for each marker. You want to keep the all the data with each marker. That way, if a marker loses connectivity or fails then you can go to plan B - scan a bar code, punch a card, otherwise prove you were there.
A punch card and physical map would be a good backup in case your PDA gets fragged on the journey anyway. Something always happens - so nobody can complain it's "not fair" that their PDA failed or whatever - stuff happens, sometimes for good or ill. It's just a fun, healhty contest - whiners and lamers need not attend.
I'm sure fellow geeks could come up with far more clever stuff - if you think of any, post away. :)
Jim from Joe's Sanitation
Kelly from Kate's Recycling
Henry from Haul-U-Garbage
OK, so the guy who runs the local landfill will get all the prizes. Nice one.
Lumpy (I think was his name) has posted a link to dpie who have a device devloped for Budweiser (of USA) to use in promotions ... if you read the linked article (which I posted an excerpt of elsewhere) then you'd find answers to many of the questions you have.
Won't I just be able to find the can using a "bug catcher"?No, the transmitter is activated on opening the can.
The batteries will be flat real quick!?See above
They can't fit a GPS receiver and a UMTS/GSM transceiver in a coke can, can they?Yup sure looks like it www.dpie.com/news/gpscan.html (<-- that link again).
GPS is reception system, how'll they find me?The GPS coordinates (or possibly raw data?) will be sent via GSM (mobile phone carrier) signal, alerting some marketing hoodlums to come and rough you up!
Wow, what a cool item!?Yeah, they can even respond to the 'coke can' and query it for more details.
Isn't that a waste of technology/resources?Undoubtedly. What a twisted society we live in. Next thing we know we'll all be buying PCs instead of sending food and medical aid to the starving and downtrodden of the world ....
The winner gets a GPS unit
Thank you, thank you...
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I think it was Pepsi that was researching a pop can that had some kind of coating on the inside so when you open the top, the coating reacts with the oxygen and instantly cools the can down. Why don't Coke and Pepsi do something useful like that instead of stupid publicity stunts :)
Wait, I know, because it would mean less per-product profit, and higher customer satisfaction. Wouldn't want that.
52 m^2 is a lot when laid out. In comparison, my old (and probably quite a few others') student flat was about 19 m^2...
This is outrageous. As if we are not exposed to enough cell destroying radiation, Coca-Cola now intend to assault our bodies with deadly GPS radiation. These foul pests with no regard to human health must be stopped now!
The can will emit 3G wireless signals providing the Coca-cola company with your location. This may make you nauseous and give you a headache, but look on the bright side, your memory and reaction times will be much better with the caffeine and the side effects of the 3G signals!
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/cokecan.asp
...
Relevant quotes:
To prevent consumers from identifying partially-filled Coke cans as winners by discerning differences in weight or listening for sloshing sounds, Coca-Cola added a chamber of chlorinated water to these special cans. This special water was doctored with the addition of ammonium sulfate, a foul-smelling yet harmless substance placed there to prevent anyone from mistaking the chlorinated water for Coca-Cola. It also served to alert the lucky consumers that they were holding winning cans, not just misfilled ones, if they somehow failed to notice their prizes and managed to gain access to the sealed-off liquid in the cans' bottoms.
In May 1990, 11-year-old Zachary Gendron of North Andover drank from one of the defective cans. His parents took a whiff of the clear, bad-smelling liquid and felt a foreign object inside the can. "Knowing nothing about the promotion, we thought it might be a case of product tampering," said Robin Gendron, Zachary's mother. The Gendrons handed the can over to the local police, who dissected the can back at the station and contacted state health officials.
Young Zachary had gotten a winning can that misfired. His prize, a soggy five-dollar bill, was duly retrieved and presented to the him (although his mother threatened to have it framed), and Coca-Cola also sent along coupons good for free product. Despite the confusion over his find, the boy had never been in any danger -- the potential harm from drinking the doctored water was limited to possible nausea.
It wasn't the chlorinated water. It was the ammonium sulfate that caused the nausea.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
1) It's a competition in Australia
2) The device exists in bottles only
3) The person finds the word 'winner' on the cap, then has to activate the device in order for it to transmit
4) Profit