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Mini Introduces RFID-Activated Billboards

Posted by kdawson on from the L.A.-Story-meets-Minority-Report dept.

frinkster writes "MINI USA has placed interactive billboards in 4 US cities (Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco) and invited a few hundred MINI owners in those cities to join their targeted 'advertisement' pilot program. The owners sign up on MINI's website and receive an RFID keyfob in the mail. When that MINI owner drives by the billboard, a targeted message appears. Each owner tells MINI what to show when they drive by, such as 'Jim, you are one sexy beast.' If the pilot program is successful, MINI plans to put up more billboards in more cities and allow every owner to participate. MINI swears that no personal information in contained in the keyfobs and that all communication between the MINI and the owner is subject to their privacy policy and thus the program is completely safe. But how well will they keep their billboard logs away from the prying eyes of law enforcement or private detectives? And what are they doing to prevent 'hackers' from changing the personal messages to insults, such as 'Jim, nice to see you finally emerge from your mother's basement'?" MINI calls the interactive billboards "Motherboards."

6 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. No, they don't. by RobertB-DC · · Score: 4, Informative

    MINI calls the interactive billboards "Motherboards."

    Um, the FA actually says:

    Look MINI USA to roll-out the Motorboard program to a wider MINI-owning audience later in 2007.

    Looks like somebody does need to get out of his parents' basement...

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  2. Re:What range? by man_ls · · Score: 3, Informative

    Active (Powered) RFID and a good antenna will net ranges much greater than 100 ft. You never hear about the Active sort terribly often, but it's out there, and is appropriate in a situation like this.

  3. Re:What range? by BlahSnarto · · Score: 2, Informative

    I just googled RFID longrange and
    came up with a few interesting links

    http://www.ela.fr/

  4. Correction... by eta526 · · Score: 4, Informative

    MINI is calling them Motorboards, not Motherboards. The article is incorrect.

  5. Re:Minorityreport tags by Bassman59 · · Score: 4, Informative

    What trolls tagged this 'minorityreport'? I fail to see the relevance. In Philip K Dick's dystopian future, you'll be followed by annoying ads that target you specifically. The trigger for the ads in the future is that you'll have some kind of ID implant that gets read by the adbots. The MINI keyfobs are an external version of that ...
  6. Freud strikes again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    They are called Motorboards not motherboards. Perv.