Slashdot Mirror
Smart Billboards
djdanlib writes "The New York Times ran this story Sunday about the Mobiltrak smart billboard system. It works by detecting what radio station you're listening to as you pass by a billboard, then displaying advertisements targeted at that station's demographic. It's kind of like a real-time Nielsen Ratings system for radio. And it's entirely passive, requiring no special hardware in your car - it receives the faint tuning signal generated by your radio." We've mentioned these before.
Is the Howard Stern show still on the radio these days? That could get dangerous.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Finally a way to get back at all of those stupid SUV driver!
Stuck in bumper to bumper traffic...SUV cuts you off.
Broadcast message to billboard: "Man in Silver SUV with license plate 12345 has no pants on, is currently drinking, and likes to beat small puppies".
Sig it.
uh, people who want traffic reports? People who want to listen to the news or weather?
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Umm..if my radio isn't on will I get a message.."Switch on your radio stupid moron! I am not getting any signal. I gotta play some ad for you"
I was thinking before I posted, "What happens when there's bumper-to-bumper traffic; how do you target every car when they move that slowly?"
But then I got to thinking: could you drop a radio next to the billboard and amp the faint tuning signal, so, say, all the people listening to top 40 see ads targeted toward NPR listeners?
I guess this is theoretically possible. Funny how every new advertising technology begs the question, "How can I subvert this?"
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
It would seem that a particular radio station or advertizer could hack the system and bias the billboard by leaving a box of cheap battery powered FM radios by the side of the road (or a weak FM transmitter). With all those radios tuned to the same station it would fool the billboard into thinking that the cars where tuned to that station. Thus the billboard would leave the same ad up and log high ratings for the station.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I lived right by the one they had in Roseville, CA. It was extremely bright, annoying, and dangerous seeming. While you are driving down the freeway (especially at night) it was so bright that you couldn't not look at it. Which I'm sure is the point. But when you have thousands of people flying by at 70mph, it just doesn't seem safe.
Oh man, you are so behind the times. I ripped all my news and weather reports to mp3's a long time ago. Now I can listen to peace treaties or car bombings, sunny weather or rain, depending on my mood on any given day! It's great!
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
This sign doesn't react to what it detects. It simply logs what stations people are listening to, so that the advertiser on the board can look at that info and decide who to target during different parts of the day. It works exactly like Nielsen ratings. The info gets collected and people look at it to make decisions, it's not reacted to immediately.
this way I could get the bill board to restrict its selection to topics. If my Ad was in that rotation then I probably just improved its visibility five or ten fold. I could sell that to people who place ads.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... driving is soon going to be much more hazardous with the advent of new, "Pop-up Billboards".
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Your radio has a component in it (an oscillator) that vibrates at the frequency of the station you're listening to. This is "tuning" into the station. This vibration is what emits the signal.
Is this signal broadcasted back through your antenna or is this just a faint signal inside your radio and they have really good receivers in their billboards? Definitely a result of good receivers in the billboard. Though I think the antenna helps.
Has anybody tried to create a radio that doesn't emit this signal?
Not that I know of. I don't think it's really been a major issue worth pursuing in the consumer market. The best way to do it would probably be to shield the box. But since you've got to have an antenna linking the oscillator with the emag signal, you can never completely isolate it.
Is this only something with FM radio, or also with AM?
Both AM and FM. You've got to have an oscillator to tune into either one.
Dumb Advertising...
1. Advertising is dumb.
2. Advertising works.
3. Marketers use adverstisements that appeal to the most people.
Conclusion: most people are dumb.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You are almost right, but not quite.
The way a modern superheterodyne radio works is like this:
You want to listen to a radio frequency at F1.
The radio creates a local oscillator (or LO) frequency of F2, such that abs(F2-F1) = F3, where F3 is a fixed, intermediate frequency (or IF). A common IF for FM radios is 10.7 MHz, and a common IF for AM radios is 455 kHz. By pulling the signal to a fixed frequency the rest of the radio's design can be better optimized and simpler.
Now, F2 can be either F1+F3 or F1-F3, it make little difference. So one way to confuse the system would be to retune the radio so that it uses "the other IF" - i.e. if the radio is using F2=F3+F1, retune the guts so that it uses F2=F1-F3.
Alternatively, replace the IF strip to change F2, and then retune the radio appropriately - if the sign's systems assume an IF of 10.7 MHz, and you are using an IF of 9.7 MHz, that will confuse the sign. The difficulty there is getting components designed for a non-standard frequency. If the radio is using the old "tuned slug" design this isn't so bad, but if the radio is using a crystal filter you are looking at custom crystals.
However, there is no need for the LO to be coupled to the world - the first stages of the radio can amplify the RF and decouple the first LO mixer from the world. It just takes a bit more work on the sheilding of the radio - you use a milled block of aluminum rather than foil sheilds. I know, since that is what I do for a living - design radios (well, radio test gear, which is a special case of the class Radio)
However, building a jamming oscillator at the needed frequencies to scramble this sign, while completely illegal, is also trivial - buy a cheap FM transmitter kit and retune it slightly. Of course, by causing interference you are in violation of FCC part 15 rules, and will get nailed if you get caught, so don't, 'mkay?
If it bothers you, just don't listen to the radio.
www.eFax.com are spammers