Beamed Sonic Advertising Is Coming 396
newtley writes in with a story from Ad Age a few days back. "Advertisers are determined to get into your head by one means or another, and Holosonic Research Labs has found yet another way of invading your privacy in the name of forcing you pay attention. You're walking down a street in New York when all of a sudden, a woman's voice whispers 'Who's that? Who's There?' No, you weren't having a psychotic episode; you were being subjected without your permission to 'sound in a narrow beam, just like light.' It was coming at you from a rooftop speaker seven stories up."
Pandora's box (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I find this advertising practice offensive and a little ignorant of where the possibilities may lead to. Furthermore, I am disappointed that A&E television would engage in this sort of thing, but A&E has been sliding down the slippery slope into crass, base appeal lately, attempting to go for shock factor at the expense of cultural sophistication. Back on topic: Would the advertiser consider it offensive if their message was sonically blocked via interfering sound waves? Would they consider someone else beaming messages into the same "acoustic space" unfair competition? Would they consider it vandalism? What are the liabilities if in the very unlikely possibility, a paranoid schizophrenic were to become violent in response to such messages? (note: only a very small percentage of paranoid schizophrenic patients are outwardly violent)
If I lived in NYC, this would be a call to me for a little social experimentation with A&Es advertising campaign. But beyond that, think about the possibilities for social filtering, or even the surreptitious delivery of information, allowing the legal (or illegal) routing of people, goods and supplies via temporally discrete windows of sonic delivery.
Only one reasonable approach... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Psychosis ahead ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm stable, as far as I know, and it might just cause me to fucking kill someone if I happen to hear it. Thus, I'm not so certain that it's limited to those who have fragile psyches.
But Imagine This In The Hands of the People (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, by targeting the microphone itself, just speak directly to their audience?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Only one reasonable approach... (Score:1, Interesting)
but now they are common... as people gave up.
So I hope you don't give up and keep destroying them
you know... defacing a billboard can be considered a terrirrst act now.... so...
yeah...
the world of enforced advertising...
argh.
It's more penetrating than that (Score:1, Interesting)
Woody Norris, the inventor of the device, spent some time spooking people at the mall. He claims he always told them what he'd done afterward, but you can see how someone might abuse such a thing. Easy to convince someone they're crazy.
I'm glad the device is in Times Square. I hope as many advertisers use this as quickly as possible. Right now, only a tenth of the populace at most knows about these things. Everyone else is as vulnerable to trickery as the natives in any colonialist short story about explorers pretending to be gods.
"Johnson, show the Ugabi your flashlight again!"
Natives: "EV-ER-ED-EE! EV-ER-ED-EE!"
Once enough companies are advertising this way, it'll be more like Scooby-Doo.
"Farmer Stoutworthy was using this projector to beam a ghost onto the barn wall, and for his swamp-thing mask he used phosphorous paint."
"I would have gotten away with it too, if you meddling kids had never been to a movie theatre or had a glow-in-the-dark toy!"
Re:Pandora's box (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Psychosis ahead ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The trouble is that "stable" is a relative term, not an absolute one. "Stable" means stable in a given environment. The question we ought to consider here is how far this particular initiative is going to move the definition of stable away from the current baseline.
The worrying thing is that stability is most likely a bell curve. Which would mean that a small shift could result in a huge increase in instability in urban populations.
I think this is a valid cause for concern
"to spare other people" (Score:2, Interesting)
What the interviewee is conveniently omitting to mention is that putting a loudspeaker to blare all day in the street would be obviously illegal, so nobody is being "spared", we're just being forced to listen to advertising which is so invading that it would be illegal in normal circumstances.
Under Existing Noise Laws (Score:4, Interesting)
So you could just sue them (if you could find them - the law really needs to require anyone doing this unsolicited to identify themselves with every message, like a traditional speaker does) under the existing noise complaint laws, if not harassment, etc. Of course, your lawyer would have to realize the physics of transmitted vs received sound power, but every lawyer reads Slashdot, right?
Boycott any business that uses this (Score:3, Interesting)
Stand outside their doors at opening and closing times and shout at their employees with megaphones. Helpful, inoffensive things, like looking both ways before crossing the street and buckling up while driving.
Use public records to find out who is responsible for ad campaigns and beam audio at their children telling them to beg mom and dad for a pony.
Re:Pandora's box (Score:4, Interesting)
You're both right.
Weirdly, on the DVD it's Jesus and the version you see on tv generally says it's god.
Re:Pandora's box (Score:3, Interesting)
The LED strobes on school buses, trash trucks, and all manner of construction worker pickup trucks are very distracting to me. Even from a long distance away, they drag my eyes away from what I *should* be paying attention to: the vehicles and pedestrians near and ahead of me.
Re:Pandora's box (Score:5, Interesting)
As they believe they will? I suggest they drive up I-95N between the Delaware border and rt 476 during any time in which there is a medium level of traffic. There is a very large, active LED that changes advertisements every few seconds. On several occasions, I have watch traffic drop suddenly in speed from 55-70 down to 40-55, depending on the time of day (with accompanying panicked tromps on the brake pedal that is most people's first response to confusion). Now I guess that there's no proof, but the only thing in the location immediately prior to the speed drop has been that obnoxious billboard.
Hell, it distracted me the first time (though I didn't pant my foot on the brake or even slow down) because when I saw something that was in motion as part of a sign, I thought that clearly something that was actively trying to get my attention was probably a message from DOT or something, warning of construction or traffic. Alas, no. It was an advertisement for a local radio station.
But once a few people are dead, I'm sure they'll consider that the ridiculous thing may have been a contributing factor. Politicians are quick that way.
Re:Pandora's box (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pandora's box (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only one reasonable approach... (Score:2, Interesting)