Tokyo Rail Billboards Scan Viewer's Age, Gender 235
eldavojohn writes "The AFP is reporting on digital billboards in Tokyo that scan for a viewer's age and gender to tailor the message to them. It's a Digital Signage Promotion Project that 11 railway companies are debuting. The head of the project said, 'The camera can distinguish a person's sex and approximate age, even if the person only walks by in front of the display, at least if he or she looks at the screen for a second.' Philip K. Dick's Minority Report draws closer every day."
I have been to Japan... (Score:1, Informative)
...I doubt they get much accuracy in age, and probably a large number of "indeterminate" or false positives on gender...
Wasn't in PKD's Minority Report (Score:5, Informative)
The commercial eye-scanners were all Spielberg.
Re:This can't end well... (Score:4, Informative)
They could also do timed advertising as well. Some supermarkets play different kinds of musics depending on the day of the week and the hour.
The technology is already in use in the US (Score:4, Informative)
And this is different from signs with the same capability that have been in US Malls for a good while only in that they're actually actively acting on the info, whereas the US marketers, AFAIK, only so far use it to analyze who is viewing their ads and for how long. Next time you're out and about the mall, look for the small camera on top of the ad. They're out there/
!Philip K Dick. (Score:1, Informative)
If you actually read "Minority Report" you'll note that Philip K Dick didn't mention anything about fancy signboards. All of that stuff was added by the movie screenplay. So whilst Mr Dick was a pretty fair SciFi author, he wasn't able to predict THAT particular bit of technology.
Most of the movies that bear his name come from short stories that are really very little like the screenplay.
Re:OK, too far. (Score:4, Informative)
In general terms, the point of most advertising is to either introduce an unknown or new product to the public or to inform the public of benefits of using said product.
Maybe if it was 1880. The idea that "giving consumers information about a product makes them buy more of it" is easily the least effective and most simplistic type of marketing. This is sometimes combined with more advanced forms, but is often left out.
Modern marketing theory has its roots in the 1920s and Edward Bernays. At its core it is about associating a product with a person's desires at a subconscious level. It has long since gone much deeper and more manipulatively past this. Look up "Century of the Self" if you want a good account of what really went into forming modern marketing strategy.
Look at recent Corona ads or Dos Equis ads for examples of where this has gone these days. The ads have almost nothing to do with the beer they are trying to sell, and no information at all about the product. Yet it is still very effective advertising.
Re:Stop, Citizen! (Score:2, Informative)
heya,
If you're trying to paraphrase Hamlet, the "methinks" actually goes at the end, lol.
The original quote is:
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
But it's often mis-quoted as:
Methinks the lady doth protest too much
e.g. http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lady-doth-protest-too-much-methinks [enotes.com]
Cheers,
Victor