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Mini Introduces RFID-Activated Billboards
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."
This has good idea written all over it.
"Jim, I'm finally glad to see you emerge from your mother."
This could be fun to put out fake terror warnings on billboards to get people to drive faster :)
today is spelling optional day.
Great. How soon until it says "Jim! You are being detained."
Believe it.
Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not an billboard trigger.
I am, therefore you think.
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.
I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me.
I think I'm getting The Fear.
"Jim - You should have got a Hummer!"
What range are they imagining for RFID? I have always heard that driving past a billboard (unless it was *really* close) wouldn't be close enough for the transmit distances of RFID.
If RFID is readable at distances of 50-100 feet or so, that's opens a bunch of issues people have been saying can't happen.
Anyone with any more detailed knowledge about RFID care to chime in on this?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
"Owning a MINI does not make you gay Jim"
"Jim! You Could Have Had a V8!"
mod me funny
MINI is calling them Motorboards, not Motherboards. The article is incorrect.
Included in the MINI motorboard manual:
"The wrapper may be MINI, but the package is Jumbo."
"Hummers suck."
"I drive a MINI! I'm so fucking happy!!"
And to that tailgating prick behind you:
"Back off, fuckface!"
Of course, in the end, we all know this will primarily be used to advertise YouTube videos and phishing sites.
"www.p4yp4l.com! d4 sh1zn1tz!!11!!!!!11!!!"
-SB
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
This means that the billboards will display their messages whenever the MAIL DELIVERY TRUCK drives by. Nice. And I'm betting a number of tags will mysteriously get lost in the mail and end up on eBay. Other issues:
And there are too many ideas for mischievous messages... "Mini announces recall of your vehicle's braking system" for example.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I'm a MINI owner in Miami, I WANT MY FOB!!
insults, such as 'Jim, nice to see you finally emerge from your mother's basement'
What? Saying he's like a Slashdotter is an insult? No way! That's a compliment you insensitive clod!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Say these things caught on, and you got a discount off your car for using a keyfob. Surely the billboards (during heavy traffic) would only display said adverts for a second or less (due to sheer number of users)? Roadside strobe advertising, just what everyone needs!
And the question I have is, Why? Why would I *want* to be a part of this? Are they going to pay me to endure the targeted advertising?
This makes as much sense to me as signing up for a free poke in the eye.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I wounder if the RFID keyfob gets in the way of the RFID based I-pass used in the Chicago area
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Does anyone remember that insanely irritating scene in Minority report when every ad was calling his name.
Ugh, no thanks. I'll stick to nice quiet billboards that ignore me just as easily as I ignore them.
I can see it now: HEY CHRIS, APPLY HEAD-ON TO YOUR FOREHEAD, HEY CHRIS, APPLY HEAD-ON TO YOUR FOREHEAD, HEY CHRIS, HEAD-ON CAN BE APPLIED DIRECTLY TO YOUR FOREHEAD - HEY CHRIS, IT'S IN STORES NOW - HEAD-ON!
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
You know that scene in the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise just had his eyes replaced and has that bandage over his eyes that his doctor told him not to remove to soon or he'd go permanently blind and then those spider bots come in and he hides in a bathtub full of ice water but they find him and pull the bandage up and shine a bright light directly into his eyes but he strangely isn't injured at all except having to turn his rigamortis grin into a rigamortis grimace for a couple seconds?
This is just like that.
The enemies of Democracy are
Is there a cost for this service or deposit for the key fobs? Otherwise it sounds like a very creative idea. Mini USA has been exceptionally creative with there previous billboards. Check this one out: http://www.adrants.com/images/Mini_Billboard.jpg
A company is going to roll out advertisement for people who already own their product? This might be a good idea with soda-pop, fast food and other consumables, but how does it sell more cars? One might argue that it strengthens brand loyalty within their consumer, but if one buys a mini, I would have to believe that there's already a strong consumer loyalty present to encourage someone to buy an overpriced, lower fuel economy compact car.
I'd settle for a hack that would say "Stop looking to billboard for support in gloating over your car purchase and watch where in hell you're going instead!"
Any bets as to how long before we see a TV "reporter" with "breaking news" about the novel use of this technology in a marriage proposal?
GIGOwiz
The biggest problem is prank messages? I think all the messages will be prank messages - I think that's pretty much the idea.
I assume someone at Mini gets to review the messages and decide which ones are allowed, otherwise there will be obscene messages, threats, etc. This will be like when Nike had the shoes you could order with writing stitched into them and some guy wanted his to say "Sweatshop" and Nike said no.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Who could possibly care about this enough to go through the effort to sign up for something so retarded? If your life is running so short on excitement that your idea of a "thrill" is seeing some hackneyed catchphrase of your choosing displayed over the interstate as you drive by it everyday, you may just need to get out of your parents' basement!
Moreover, imagine the cases of road rage this could inspire. Some douchebag decides to have something offensive/annoying displayed as he/she drives past a billboard EVERY day in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic and some other poor soul who already hates his/her commute has to see the same message if they happen to commute home on the same route at the same time. I can definitely see how someone might snap like Milton after the 10,000th viewing of "Real men drive Fords" or "Know Jesus, know peace....".
Sounds like a dopey idea to me.
Using active tags and a highly directional antenna on the receiver, I suspect that you can probably "see" a tag from quite a distance away. Active tags transmit continuously, so they don't need a high-strength RF field to give them the juice to operate, like the passive tags inside SpeedPasses, etc.
Examples of active RFID already in use are the EZ Pass boxes used in cars in New England and the Northeast. They have toll gates in New Jersey that you drive through at full speed, and the receivers are up at normal Interstate bridge height (so trucks can go through them). And I doubt very much that they represent anything close to the state-of-the-art with respect to RFID. You can probably do some nice tradeoffs, like enhanced signal processing, when you're not receiving a bunch of tags every second.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
A friend of a friend once hacked one of those generator-powered message signs that the Highway Department leaves running, unlocked everywhere, with this message and the 800 number of the highway department:
YOUR WEB SITE HERE
1 - 800 - USA - MINI
(or whetever their number is)
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I feel I should mention that MINI coopers are hideous and so are the people who drive them.
Honestly, they're almost as bad as PT Cruisers.
Our society is well on it's way to looking exactly like the movie Bladerunner. There are a few megacorps running everything and advertising is everywhere; the sky, smart billboards, ads that target you(personally) as you walk by them, etc.
Scary. The future seems pretty bleak if things continue as they are.
Is there something about RFID -- or "active" RFID -- that allows only a certain set of RFID readers to be able to read the chip? What I want to know is: how do I get an RFID reader? I want mount an RFID reader in front of my house and log all of the cars that come by, when they come by, if they are staying within "view" of the RFID reader for a certain amount of time (like, say, arriving an hour after I leave for work and leaving an hour before I return), etc. Pretty much every car is going to have RFID tagging in the near future, if only by way of the RFID chips being placed in new tired these days, so the only "hard" part will be correlating the RFID to a person's identity, but if the RFID can trigger a video recorder then this challenge is narrowed down. Also, I want RFID stickers I can surreptitiously plan on the neighborhood brat's skateboard and bike so I can confront his parents and/or press charge with evidence in hand.
And above all else: I want an RFID jammer! Why? BECAUSE I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!
Doesn't really matter. All you need to know as a marketeer is the unique ID of the FOB. When the FOB was registered your name, etc. goes into the master DB in the sky and from that point forward any POS or PO-Advertisement that sees your FOB will have access to your personally identifiable consumer portrait.
The "see some stupid phrase on a billboard as you're driving to your lifeless cube" game is just a way to train various peons to be good consumers and hang onto their FOB.
They just got every egomaniac out there to carry around yet another 'MINI' branded keyfob on his keychain and show it off to friends, thus greatly improving their word-of-mouth brand recognition. And they've managed to make (some) people WANT to look at 'MINI' branded billboards.
Throwing a rod at 54,000 miles and having the dealer tell you that you drove it through water or overrevved the engine, and therefore it wasn't a "manufacturing defect." $8,100 later we can drive the car up to keyfob billboards again.
"This could be fun to put out fake terror warnings on billboards to get people to drive faster :)"
Or to get them to slow down: "...smokey on your right, 1/4 mile ahead, hiding behind the tree..." Like having CB in which few broadcast but many listen.
I think that I *would* carry a keychain if it could made me see mostly ads for things I've already expressed interested in. Give up my pharmaceutical and home mortgage billboards for anime and videogame billboards? Sign me up.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
The film Minority Report features personalised ads which include your name, suggesting products based on past purchases etc.
This is similar, just lower tech.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
I can think of at least a few bits of ASCII art that could be fun on a billboard...
Unpleasantries.
According to the linked article, the message isn't customizable by you at all - you simply have to give Mini USA typical marketing demographic info, sign up for their spam, and then THEY get to choose the message.
Bleah.
What happens when two people with mini keyfobs drive by at the same time? Or a husband and wife who both own minis, but are driving in one car? Does it only show the message for the first keyfob it detects? Or does it flash back and forth between the two?
How much is this costing them? Surely it's fairly pricey to make custom-encoded RFID chips for every Jim who signs up? How is this offset? Nobody is going to pay attention the ad subject, it'll all be focussed on the inevitable "Jim is gay" hacked messages.
Is that sig from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? or Withnail & I?
I bet insurance companies could have fun with this. For instance, you get into a little accident, and you just happen to get your car fixed at a shop on the insurance company's referral list. They slip an RFID tag into your car, and before you know it, right when you're coming up on that S-curve...
"Jim, quick! Look behind you!"
Instant money!
This isn't a normal RFID tag, Those only have a range for a few feet. For this to be of any use for billboards, it has to have a range of several hundred feet. Hence the much larger keyfob.
People who are worried that their new RFID tagged underwear will suddenly start broadcasting to billboards can just relax. That won't happen for a few more years yet...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
They are called Motorboards not motherboards. Perv.
Perhaps it won't need batteries, because it will only be on when you are actually driving, and it is in the fob. Unless the guys over at MINI didn't think to power it that way.
RFID = evil
"Motherboard" = Big Brother
Aren't you glad you're a Beta, Jim? Instead of an Alpha? And then you're much better than the Gammas and Deltas.
It's been a while since I saw the Minority Report movie (and even longer since I read the short story, though I don't remember this coming up at all there; was it in a different story?) but weren't these ads doing iris recognition? I seem to remember that he'd just had his eyes replaced so he wouldn't be recognised by security, but all of the stores started barking ads at him with the name of the person whose eyes he now had, and made it harder for him to run through the mall and escape.
MacDonalds buys a MINI and gets one of these keyfobs with the phrase "McDonalds - i'm lovin' it", and then either a) parks their MINI right under the sign and pays someone to sit there all day, or b) drops the keyfob right under the sign somewhere and leaves it there. Presto - free McDonalds advertising! (minus the price of the MINI)