Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing

An anonymous reader writes "According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished." From the article: "Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."

Comments

Re:Another patent will prevent this

[advocate_one]

The future England presented in the novel is one where Soviet domination has succeeded by first appealing to youth.

the future England is now... Tony Blair's England an absolute nightmare for decent law abiding folk as gangs of youths run rampage in the streets knowing there's an miniscule chance of ever being caught and if they are, they'll only get a slap on the wrist at most... the Police ignore crime happening in front of their own noses as it would require hours of paperwork for a caution at most... meanwhile they hammer ordinary folk for driving at 33 in a 30 zone... (that one's easy as they've got these marvelous cameras that never lie...)