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Bluetooth Ads Beamed from Billboards
dylanduck writes "Billboards in the UK have been using Bluetooth to beam media clips at passing cellular phones. The system has been dubbed Bluecasting and 17,000 people accepted the ads. When billboards know your name that's when to really worry."
Watch out, when someone figures out how to hack your bluetooth automatically, grab all your personal information and talor its advertisements accordingly, thats when I'm going to be afraid.
This reminds me of Minority Report where the billboards were scanning peoples eyes and addressing them by name. Is this a case of life imitating art?
It would seem a lot more useful if they beamed you coupons or discounts that you could use for say the next 24 or 48 hours. Of course, that would also involve setting up the infrastructure for redeeming those coupons...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
However they have had interactive billboards on the Tube for some time.
They concerned the use of unlicensed faux-minicabs to lure women into situations where they are abducted and often sexually abused.
The billboards allowed you to align your phone's IR receiver with a flashing icon to receive information on how to better protect yourself if you happen to be a woman.
I daresay Bluetooth seems rather more invasive as a means of delivering content - particularly commercial advertising rather than citizen's advice.
This is exactly the same idea as email spam, sending off an advertisement to as many people as you can whether they asked for it or not. Forcing the user to have to click 'no' to get rid of it. We shouldn't have to cripple technology (IE turn off features on the phone) just to avoid being bombarded with a commercial for Dominoes Pizza. At least with a normal billboard if I don't want to see the message I can look somewhere else. I wish I lived there with a mobile phone just to be the first one to file a lawsuit against the companies sending out these ads.
LeoPolus Web Design: http://www.leopolus.com
Nope, it hasn't been dubbed BlueCasting, except by marketing twits in Italian suits and advertising twerps in Emo glasses.
The real world calls it SPAM. If you have to get trendy, BlueSpamming. Or if you want to get really wild, based on IM SPAM = SPIM, you get BLUE SPAM = SPLUE.
We let them use Hacker for Cracker, and we let them take Digital Rights Management for Digital Restriction Mechanisms. We control the names, folks, not them. A dog does not lay bioreclaimable fertilizer on the path, it shits on the sidewalk. "BlueCasting" sounds like a neat 21st century hip thing. "Spam" is a nasty annoyance that Russians get beat to death for. Give it the correct name.
We are having enough with Email spams. Now they want you get Cell phone Spams. Really, when this gets worse, people will stop using technology altogether.
Exactly. Low tech is the wave of the future.
In the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, one of the most wired and tech neighborhoods, many of us no longer wear watches or carry cell phones, because they're a nuisance. We let loose the electronic leashes and savor the joy of life.
And then we go home and use our wireless laptops and high-speed cable/DSL/internet2 connections to surf the Net, or drop by a free wireless fair trade organic coffeeshop.
You can either be a slave of the Man, or you can opt out of the Man's rules.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, of course. This is why we develop more advanced technologies, such as radio, the television, the internet, and bluetooth. We just want more ads! Thanks a lot.
I wonder if, for some people, disabling their phone/device from being discovered via bluetooth will be a viable option? Maybe they need that enabled for something? Too bad there isn't a "DO NOT RECEIVE ADVERTISEMENTS" setting.
Couldn't get why only Billboards will send these bluetooth messages? It can be anything - a tree, a transport truck, a building, a shop - they are all going to torture you with these advertisements till you disable bluetooth or upgrade to "premium" service offered by well, your friendly wireless carrier!
Explore your creative side
I wonder if a virus could be passed this way and if it could then you could have infected at least 17,000 people via blue tooth.
I think this could ruin any chance of toothing taking off - people will just get sick of the adverts and turn off bluetooth, that and the perceived risk of getting a virus.
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> Of course, how many /.'ers actually leave BT enabled on their phones/PDAs?
Me, for one. I've even got it broadcasting my name, so if someone around me finds it, they know who it belongs to.
I don't mind people saying "hi", in a matter of speaking. So far, it's been coworkers etc. who decide to send me files. When I start getting ads/spam on it, I will shut it off.
The only major uses for Bluetooth in cell phones I've heard of are chatting on a wireless headset, syncing or file transfer with a computer, and the aforementioned bluespamming (or splue, to quote another comment). But I would guess that the "killer feature" for BT-enabled cell phones would be a localized IM-type service; i.e., you could make a list of your friends' BT MAC addresses in your phone, and get alerts when they are nearby (or at least near enough for your phone to detect them). Sort of a "hey, Bob's within 100m of here; I should call him and see if he'd like to join me for lunch" type thing.
Would such a feature still be possible if your phone was not in "discoverable" mode to block the advertisements? Does a feature like that even exist (I am new to the world of BlueTooth)?
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The big 2 cell phone providers are Rogers and Bell (there's others but they're a lot smaller). Neither of them have a cellphone that has bluetooth yet. BTW the Treo 650 and Blackberry devices do have bluetooth but they're just glorified PDAs with cell phone capability that costs an arm and a leg.
I could buy a phone from the US and get it hacked, but why should I lose a warranty and pay a couple hundred dollars when I should be able to get one for FREE or close to it ($99 at most).
How long has bluetooth been an option on cell phones in the US and Europe and yet I still can't get one here.
All I want it is so that I can receive calls on my BT headset and use Sailling Clicker to control my iBook.
To make matters worse
Futureshop (owned by BestBuy), advertised a BT headset right beside the non-BT cell phones instead of in the computer section of the weekly flier.
Actually like Ethernet cards and the like, Bluetooth Adapters too have an unqiue 48bit MAC which can be used to trace people. I don't really know a hell of
a lot about Bluetooth and its protocols but I can
imagine that a device that sends a connection request might get a reply back of the like "I got your request to connect to application X, now hold on while I signal the user and ask her if it is okay". In this case the advertiser gets the MAC even though the user does not authorize the connectino.
I love the "Furthermore, there is no risk of downloading viruses or other malware to the phone, says O'Regan: "We don't send applications or executable code.""
Riiiight.
I find the whole notion of this distasteful. Billboards are bad enough. This is adding spam to them. I don't use Bluetooth now (see no real benefit from it really) and if enabling Bluetooth is going to subject me to spam, no thanks . . .
But, considering in 2000 the hot marketing gimmick was to mount Palm Pilot's around metropolitan areas (at least Manhattan had them) and have people point their Palm at it to sync up an ad . . . and that lasted like a month . . .
Even better, have them beam out virtual coupons. Either a simple "show the cashier this ad on your phone and get10% off!" or have the cash register be bluetooth enabled as well.
people seem to think that cell phones MUST be answered, and ALWAYS pick up.
Nah! That's what voice mail is for. Actually among my friends SMS is by far the preferred way of communicating. Not actually speaking to one another. In fact, in order of use, phones are probably used for...
- SMS/Test messages
- Photos
- Providing data connections
- Voice calls.
If work wants to contact me they can buy me a blackberry. They haven't so far and I wont give them my private number.
This reminds me about all of the buzz about targeting peoples cellphones that had GPS turned on. "Turn left here for great eat's at Identity Theft Cafe"
Fortunately, that has seemed to fade away. UNfortunately, Bluetooth ads are much easier, unless it comes to the US and they want to target Verizon customers, since Verizon sells "Bluetooth" phones with their balls chopped off.
Imagine being somewhere like a casino (where you can bet they already or will soon will use face recognition on everyone). Cameras could be positioned in certain places to automatically recognise a person and change all the machines and signs within the proximity to be more appealing.
Hell, I bet a system could pitch different ads depending on whether a man, women, or kids were walking past based on their smell. For extra sophistication it could even detect BO & perfume as giveaways of the person's wealth and status.