Clear Channel turns digital billboards into 'store fronts' The CEO of Clear Channel says there will be fewer billboards in the future, but that those which remain will be screens, and able to sell you stuff too, the Financial Times reports. The move away from paper posters shouldn't be any surprise: in city centres screens are already replacing paper posters and Clear Channel reckons …
We are within a handful of years from walking past an advertisement (this example could be Tesco) which on scanning your chip on your phone/digital wallet/ implanted into your hand, and it saying "Good morning Mr Rogers! Did you enjoy the steak you bought from us last week?" <press button or voice recon response> "Well then you'll love this offer... ...Don't delay, buy today!" which you can then buy and either collect from the shop of have delivered directly to home while collecting your clubcard points with your clubcard number associated to your NFC chip.
Privacy will be loooooooooooooooogggggggggg dead.
I mean they ALREADY have all that data stored on you. They know what you bought, at least on your credit card and/or if you used a Clubcard.
So the actual data stored doesn't change. It just makes it more public- so after a few leaks and the resulting court cases you'll find that companies have to secure their data more.
So if anything, Privacy has been long dead and it'll take Tesco shouting about it from billboards before anyone realises or cares.
I've actually been thinking for ages that something wireless coupling information to a location wasn't a bad idea. Of course it'd be used for advertising, but you could equally well make a local community noteboard out of it, making use of the fact that interested parties would be in the vicinity anyway. Then it's not so much pushing otherwise unwanted crap onto "consumers" as a form of milking the populace, but enriching people's lives by threading things together in a new way. And if NFC can do that easily, well why not?
Now just HOPE it doesn't interfere with all those other "applications" whole industries are trying to fob off on you the "consumer" milking cow using NFC as the vehicle to do it. Like how they really do like to gain direct access to your bank account or "electronic wallet" under pretext, using RFID tags. The thing is, industry backing is nice, but if all the industry is thinking about is milking cows or geese with golden eggs, then they're not properly adding value to society.
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