SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the a-new-life-awaits-you-in-the-off-world-colonies dept.
Passers-by on a London street were recently amazed to see a fleeting image of a pink tongue protruding from fruitily plump lips, seemingly suspended in mid-air. It was the famous logo for the Rolling Stones and was part of an experiment by tech start-up Lightvert. Its technology can produce images that appear to be 200m (656ft) high, but which only exist in the eye of the viewer for a fraction of a second. So could we be on the verge of seeing giant digital ads in our cities, similar to those featured in the seminal 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner?
Lightvert certainly hopes so. Its tech, called Echo, works by employing a narrow - no more than 200mm - strip of reflective material fixed to the side of a building. A high-power projector mounted below or above the strip beams light off the reflector directly into the viewer's eye.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday March 28 2017, @06:28AM
One more step to making advertising a capital crime.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 28 2017, @07:38AM (1 child)
You mean... like a some of beams laser projectors scanning/projecting on the surface of an translucent foil?
What a marvel technological advance!!! We are sooo deep into the future!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:32AM
A new life awaits you in the Off-World Colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. Lets go to the Colonies!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @09:27AM (1 child)
...for Blade Runner to come true. Looking forward to the Wakamoto ads!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:13AM
What? Chocolax [oldshopstuff.com] no good anymore?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:20AM (7 children)
Where do I opt out? Who can make an adblocker for those?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:35PM
They already have. It's called a missile launcher.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:35PM (3 children)
An adblocker is easy: Just wear black glasses. Of course it has the disadvantage that you also won't see anything else.
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday March 28 2017, @01:00PM (2 children)
Last time I put on black glasses all I saw were black and white ads telling me to consume, conform, marry and reproduce, submit, watch tv, stay asleep, and ugly ass alien looking people. No thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @08:28PM
For those who haven't seen the referenced work, you have missed a cool movie.
John Carpenter's "They Live" with Rowdy Roddy Piper [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [conspiracy-cafe.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:39PM
This is why I love soylentnews.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:23PM (1 child)
> Where do I opt out? Who can make an adblocker for those?
Move to Hawaii. Billboards are illegal there because it is bad for tourism.
That shit does not belong in paradise, these will never be allowed.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:46PM
Move to Hawaii. Billboards are illegal there
In the UK there are quite strict regulations about signage. What is allowed does depend on the location and the judgement of local authorities - eg in some places (famously like Piccadilly Circus and brash seaside resorts) they are accepted as part of the scene; in others like the open countryside you cannot put up any sign at all (though it is often flouted).
I very much doubt that this Lightvert thing has had obtained permission for where it is ("but the sign is only 200mm wide m'lord"), but they are pushing the boundaries no doubt. TBH I don't think they will get very far with it, except maybe at Piccadilly Circus.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jimtheowl on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:15PM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:31PM
Their image actually was chosen well. They poke their tongue out at all passers-by: "We blast our ads right into your face, and there's nothing you can do against it, ha ha!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:22PM (1 child)
Beaming porn directly into a viewer's eyeballs instead of just watching it lazily on your phone while riding the bus/train/airplane. The future has arrived!!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:57PM
Just wait until someone hacks the device and makes it show the goatse guy …
(Score: 2) by Fishscene on Tuesday March 28 2017, @01:28PM
Buzz off Lightvert. Ads are bad enough.
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday March 28 2017, @01:51PM (3 children)
Advertising took over newspapers -- yet you had to still pay a subscription.
Advertising ruined radio.
Advertising ruined magazines with excessive advertising.
Advertising ruined TV. Ads got longer and longer. More and more annoying. Less entertaining. Then much louder than the content. The content got cheaper and worse.
Then came cable tv. Promise of no ads, since you pay for tv. But ads invaded anyway. Then they got longer, more annoying, much louder. Etc. Content got cheaper. The curse of Reality TV. Ads embedded in content "product placement". After a long string of ads, characters walk out on screen over the bottom 1/3 of the content you are watching, sometimes obscuring important content.
There was the web. It was for information. Then came ads. They were okay at first. Then they got to be blinking. And deceptive (eg, punch the monkey, or fake alerts about a virus, etc.). Eventually each web page had one paragraph of content surrounded by blinking dancing animated seizure inducing ads. You would click NEXT to get the next page with one more paragraph of the article, surrounded by another truckload of ads. Then came ad blockers and ad blocker blockers. Etc.
Billboards are a blight on some landscapes. Then came digital ad billboards with animated seizure inducing ads and major source of light pollution for neighbors near these billboards.
Advertisers have absolutely no shame. They want to know the most intimate details of your life. They will stop at nothing to put ads in front of your face. Spam is just advertising in its true ugliness. It practically destroyed usenet. And email. Only the most sophisticated technical efforts have kept email usable. Robo calls, same story. There is no bar too low. They have no shame.
Back in the early days of spam, legislation was tried to combat the problem but the Direct Marketing Association fought this and won. Old timers might remember this.
I guarantee you, once the technology is available, advertisers will get congress to mandate implants at birth that show ads on the inside of your eyelids. Count on it. The MPAA / RIAA will get in on it so that these implants can automatically charge your credit card every time you incidentally hear or see anything copyrighted.
They will make the inside surfaces of your home into advertising billboards (but not entertainment).
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)
you could always, you know, start a website without advertising
or contribute to one like this...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 28 2017, @02:46PM
He just contributed.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @09:56PM
Advertising took over newspapers
Sorry to burst your bubble but it was always thus.
If you had to actually pay for the production costs, the price would go way up.
Advertising ruined magazines
When you pick up a magazine and all those damned blow-in ads scatter all over the floor, that's pretty vexing.
Advertising ruined TV
I got my first VCR in late 1979, when the first 6-hour units were available.
Time-shifting and skipping ads improved TeeVee greatly.
Watching TeeVee in real time sucked after that.
Recording is the only way to do TeeVee.
N.B. By the time TeeVee went digital in June 2009, I had all but weaned myself off of video.
I had a few months of recordings backlogged and then I was done with TeeVee.
cable tv
I never saw anything worth ponying up what they were asking for that.
Advertising ruined radio
Sorry to hear that you don't have a bunch of college stations where you are.
KSPC: "Forward into the Past" - My favorite show. Recordings from 1905 up to, but not including, Bop; Other Jazz and Blues and other stuff too.
KKJZ: Jazz and Blues
KSBR: Smooth Jazz and some other stuff
KUCI: "Howdylicious" - Twangy music; one of the few places to hear actual Country Music on the radio around here; "Darkling Eclectica" - A strange but good music mix.
KPCC: NPR. A couple of goofy quiz shows that I like; Prairie Home Companion.
KPFK - Pacifica Radio. Listener-supported news and commentary plus some music shows.
Webcasts available for non-music shows.
Archived streams for music shows.
Sister station KPFA in Berkeley has even smaller files for some of the spoken-word stuff.
...and "community radio" KOCI-LP (LP = Low Power; 43 watts) - Blues and Rock 'n' Roll.
Sometimes gets walked all over by KGB in San Diego when the atmospherics go wrong.
Commercials, but they're few and short.
A clock radio with an easily-resettable On time allows me to silence station breaks.
If it also has a programmable Snooze interval, that's nice too.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by ACE209 on Tuesday March 28 2017, @02:09PM
A high-power projector mounted below or above the strip...
Do not look into advertising with remaining eye.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)
Passers-by on a London street were recently amazed
I've never seen that spelling of "horrified because of yet another way someone else has decided that you must see something"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:16PM
The first time you encounter something new and different it is either amazing or horrifying, to various degrees. I would be pretty amazed myself, then horrified once I learned they plan to put them on public streets!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @03:44PM
I already avoid companies that use spam or popups as "advertising "
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Tuesday March 28 2017, @04:07PM (2 children)
Sounds like a great use for drones with spraypaint.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:03PM (1 child)
There are lots of problems with modern life which could be solved with enough paintball guns.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:19PM
Don't like your neighbors looking into your yard? Paintball the window!
Don't like your politicians lying to you? Paintball their face!
Don't like your spouse? Paintball them and watch them disappear!
Don't like life? Paintball your head! Then sit back and breathe a sigh of relief that you picked up a paintball gun by accident, then go about enjoying life.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:07AM
I can already imagine the shark ads [youtube.com] (1:02).
One can suspect ad-blocking augmented reality may become a future thing. Together with "laser beam guided" personal missiles [theregister.co.uk].
Advertisement found, (A)bort, (B)lowup, (N)UKE?
Obligatory.. Blade Runner - Geisha eating candy [youtube.com]