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Billboard Advertising Banned Products In Russia Hides If It Recognizes Cops
m.alessandrini writes: In response to a ban of food imported from the European Union, an Italian grocery in Russia hired an ad agency to create a billboard with a camera and facial recognition software, that's able to change to a different ad when it recognizes the uniform of Russian cops. Gizmodo reports: "With the aid of a camera and facial recognition software, the technology was slightly tweaked to instead recognize the official symbols and logos on the uniforms worn by Russian police. And as they approached the billboard featuring the advertisement for Don Giulio Salumeria’s imported Italian goods, it would automatically change to an ad for a Matryoshka doll shop instead."
"Billboard Advertising Banned Products In Russia Hides If It Recognizes Cops"
Can anyone translate that indecipherable gibberish into English?
In Soviet Russia, ad recognize you! Wait.. what?
I'm not even a native english speaker, but here you go:
"A billboard in Russia advertises banned Italian products, but switches to ads for Matryoshka dolls when its camera spots a cop."
Brilliant, until some idiot blabs about it.
At the bottom of the
As pointed out on a news website (which I can't remember where for the moment), the whole thing appears staged, and they 'police' are probably acting (or actors).
It is not illegal in Russia to sell the western goods, it's just illegal to import them, under the current self-imposed Russian sanctions. There is no reason why the shop can't advertise the food, and there is no law that the police can use to stop the food from being sold.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
specialize in Matryoshka dolls?
to make the corrupt look stupid. This is it. Facial recognition was once for police to find the criminal. Now it's for the entrepreneur to find the idiot police. I love science!
CAn I get a Russian police hat with an "adblock" badge on the front.
Putin will teach them a lesson : )
It's "una faccia, una razza" vlameno :-)
As "one of your neighbors" living in you country I second your advice, despite being more successful in doing business with the German rather than the Russians.
> it recognizes the uniform of Russian cops
Russia is full of FSB (ex-KGB) agents who are NOT wearing uniforms, because Russia is a secret police state, that is.
Many ordinary people become FSB informants voluntarily, just to gain fiscal or health benefits or help their dumb kids enter univ. They spy on neighbours and the neighbours spy on them, sending each other to siberian forced re-education camps, because the russian pysche is a slavic (slave-ish) psyche. They were never free and they are born to be oppressed and suffer. It's in their genes that russians need a dictator who mass-murders them and imposes unspeakable misery on them, so they can sincerely idolize him with all their hearts' content.
This is a never-ending vicious cycle that will only cease when russians are no more or they abandon the orthodox faith and join unity with the Bishop of Rome.
Actually, Vladimir Putin's grandfather was the personal cook of Isaac Blank, nome d' guerre Vladimir Lenin, the tsar-killing founder of the USSR, inventor of the "military-communism" misery. After said Lenin went to hell from syphillis, Putin's granddad then cooked for the heir, one infamous Josif Vissarionovich Judasfili, nome d' guerre Stalin Koba, the worst genocidor of all times who disappearated over 25 million in the Gulags.
But fear not, as long as vodka floods, russians don't care about spilling their and others' blood for the dictator.
If only there was some way for police to disguise themselves. Or if there was some way to see this advert from a distance. Thank goodness there isn't, or this advert would appear to be nothing more than an advertising stunt.
Gee, great idea, make your stealth marketing of BANNED goods go VIRAL.
About to be disappeared in 3...2...1.
Yeah, but they "cheat" a lot - for example, Belarus has made a mint serving as a reshipping platform for European goods. And for some reason they left Iceland off their list even though we supported the sanctions against them. Still, it's caused major food price inflation (unsurprisingly). Seems kind of a weird way to punish Europe, it seems obvious it's going to have a lot more effect at home than abroad - Russia's trade in food goods with Europe makes up far more of its imports than Europe's trade in food goods with Russia makes up of its exports. But I guess they didn't have a lot of options for "retaliation". I mean, Gazprom is already nearly going broke as it is, turning off the spigots would have rapidly ensured that it did. Oil and gas make up half of their government budget and 2/3rds of their exports - it'd sure punish Europe, but it'd also be economic suicide.
I think they're really hoping that the sanctions will just expire and they'll be able to go back to raking in western capital again. Because if they don't expire, barring some huge unexpected oil price surge, those reserve funds are going to dry up. They expect it to be down to under $40B by the end of this year. What they're going to do when it runs out, I have no clue. They need dollars and euros to buy the goods that their undersized industrial sector can't manufacture. China's a help but not a solution; they don't have the lending power of the US or EU to begin with, and their goal seems to be more exploiting Russia over the situation than offering friendly aid. For example, they got Russia to agree to the cutthroat rates on the proposed "Power Of Siberia" pipeline that they'd been trying to get for years and to let them own greater than 50% stakes on fields inside Russia. They got Russia to sell them their most advanced air defense system despite the objections of the defense industry over concerns that China would do what they always do with new technology - reverse engineer it and then produce it domestically. But who else are they going to turn to? China's basically becoming Russia's "loan shark". And at the end of the day, if it came down to it and China had to chose between the Russian market and the 20-fold larger market of the US and EU? It's not even a contest.
"Who the **** put an emergency exit in the interrogation room?!" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
We call it a boycot, they call it a ban on foods imported from EU?
"These aren't the salamis you are looking for.."
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The import ban for food was supposed to hurt Poland - the loudest supporter for sanctions - first and foremost, and I think that worked out pretty well. I still remember Poland begging other EU countries to buy as many of their apples as possible. It also hurt Greece a lot, making this a problem of the whole euro-zone.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
This story is a load of horseshit. Granted, it's imaginative horseshit.
If they detect a police car parked behind the billboard, they switch to a large picture of a policeman parked behind the billboard.
Have gnu, will travel.
Mod parent up - "funny".
I don't know why so many people have a fetish for overstating Rusia's power or general potency on the world stage.
Economically they're a backward 3rd rate nation. They're not even on par with any one of the larger US states.
They've completely gutted all advances made in the post-soviet era by essentially murdering/stealing and consolidating all major holdings under some really awful amalgamation of government run by oligarchs. Whatever it is, it's grossly inefficient and mis-managed.
They based their economy entirely on hydrocarbon exports, which can be happily manipulated by the Sauds and the US, sending their economy in to the shitter.
The Chinese and the Russians /hate/ each other. I cannot overstate this point. China's not going to lift a finger to help Russia unless they see massive benefit.
They place is a damn mess and it's not going to improve anytime soon. Probably not without some nasty, bloody regime change either.
Yes because police are in uniform 24x7. Additionally, all it takes is for someone to see the ad who knows it's not legal and reports it because they're a loyalist. I smell BS.
don't fell bad china lone sharked the usa then bought it.
well eh usa is using the same tactics and diving head first into 3rd world status. we just have more very ritch to give the illusion where doing well
In Soviet Russia, cops hide you!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
The U.S. could apparently start by teaching people to spell.
hey expect it to be down to under $40B by the end of this year [rbth.com]. What they're going to do when it runs out, I have no clue
They'll start slashing welfare to stabilize the budget. That's why the rhetoric about how the evil West is once again trying to destroy Russia is still in full force... so that when they start starving the more vulnerable parts of the populace, there's an established external enemy to blame.
The other option? That would be war, the ultimate excuse.
Of course #1 does not preclude #2. It might just defer it.