New Ad Technology Tracks Consumer Movement

mingrassia writes "Over at CNN: New technology tracks consumer movement, flashes messages and calls out to passersby. Meet the Human Locator. It's a new technology developed by Canadian ad agency Freeset Interactive that purports to detect when humans are near, track their movement, and then broadcast messages directed at them on a nearby screen. Conspiracy theorists can relax, however. The Human Locator can't yet identify, say, obese pedestrians and then bombard them with images of a cheeseburger and fries."

Comments

No big deal

[MiKM]

I don't see why this is revolutionary technology. This could have been done for years, with basic motion-detector technology. I also don't see why this would make ads any more "localized" than any other print billboards. I don't see why people would mind a billboard talking to them either, it's not as if they haven't heard any other recorded voices being played back.

Anyways, this technology seems redundant and pointless. Researchers should spend their time working on something useful than coming up with a billboard that lights up when you pass.

Fine

[Lord_Dweomer]

You know, I read this, and immediately got pissed off. Then I realized something. If a company wants to make that special effort, wants to go that extra mile, just to PISS ME OFF, thats fine. Let them waste their money. When a company pisses me off, I remember that company, and not in a good way. Yeah, they got brand recognition all right, just not the kind they wanted.

I will just make sure I go that extra mile to avoid buying their products, and make sure I inform people of why.

So to all /.ers who will get up in arms over this...don't. It is inevitable that this technology will be developed. They will use it to intrude on our lives. But remember, ultimately you have a choice (until the law states otherwise) about whether or not they get your dollars. And if they don't, they just wasted all that cash on something that will just lose them customers.

If you really want to do something about it, write to the company (and the ad agency they use) and let them know that you will be buying the product of a competitor who uses less intrusive, annoying advertising. Its as simple as that, and you don't have to stress about anything.

great

[t_allardyce]

If companies (walmart for example) are willing to sell data such as who bought which product containing rfid tag x then the advertisers just need to scan for certain rfid ids and figure out what to try and sell the person. Just remember its your duty to make sure these sorts of databases are filled with the most useless crap you can think of!