Dun, dun, daaah. Terrifying stuff. Could it get any worse?
I got that far before breaking into a big grin, just right for Friday, thanks.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden got tired of hearing himself referred to as a tech geek this week and told the world that, actually, he’s real-life James Bond type. Speaking to NBC News, Snowden said he wasn’t some lowly outside contractor, but a bonafide 007: I was trained as a spy in the traditional sense of the word in …
"That’s something that’s already happening in cars, which can be fitted with devices that monitor driving skills so that good drivers get better premiums."
More likely when you next hit a patch of black ice, the ABS system will inform your insurance company and you'll get an SMS terminating your policy just before you hit a lamp post...
They could even try something like the US health insurance companies who would give you a complex form to fill out. Take your money, and only check it if you make a claim.
What's that you have cancer? Oh dear it seems you missed one check box on page 7 of the forum so your insurance is invalid, here is your money back.
"Perhaps the marketers can get together with insurance companies and make certain that we’re all being watched and evaluated at every moment of every day using the Internet of Stuff?"
Why not? I mean, Google are doing their level best to ensure they are doing just that to everyone on the internet as we know it right now...
Eventually the prediction algorithms will notice this is happening, and Ford will be paying to insert GM adverts at the start of any youtube video you see.
If only there was a meatworld version of Adblock so that checkout assistants wouldn't ask if I had a Nectar card/Clubcard...you've been asking that for 20 years plus and the answer is still no.
>If only there was a meatworld version of Adblock so that checkout assistants
>wouldn't ask if I had a Nectar card/Clubcard...you've been asking that for 20
>years plus and the answer is still no.
<rant>
And in the same wonderful world they also wouldn't look a me (almost 50, male) and say pityingly "do you need help with your packing?"
Strangly enough, they never seem to ask my wife the same question.
The other one that bugs me is them giving me the "please enter your PIN" prompt. The same prompt that I can SEE ON THE SCREEN OF THE CARD READER!
I can read y'know. Despite the handicap of being male and 50-ish (see above)
</rant>
It's nice to think that rather than being just an old git who doesn't Tweet and has a Facebook account with some very odd personal info is no longer an out-dated dinosaur but actually ahead of the game for once.
Power to the (old) people!
(some of whom remember when they could go in a shop and by a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook and other subversive literature)
"And 'Dark Social' : I need a black T-shirt with that printed on it in about 12-point white sans-serif. I'd wear it with pride."
Now if Google or Amazon were really doing their job properly, you'd shortly get an email to say your T-shirt had been dispatched, and your authorised credit card had been charged...
Commercials generally aren't designed to introduce you to a product. That's done in other ways, like the product embedded in TV shows, adverts on bus stops and train stations, emails and displays in the store. Commercials are generally designed to keep your mind from wandering once you've already made a subconscious buying decision. You might not be thinking of buying a specific car, or maybe you are, but the important part is that you've decided to buy a car. The commercial is just reinforcing how great a particular car is. All in all it's a massive numbers game and if you see a 1% bump in sales tied to a particular advertisement your investment paid off.
I still couldn't buy something advertised on YouTube. It's totally rubish, like I'm watching a famous pianist playing J.S. Bach French suites and Google is helpfully advertising single Chinese ladies to date with or better, teatment for nail fungus. Come on, Google, stop wasting my bandwidth with this nonsense, you have nothing to get me interested!
Just wait until "free" email services, or emails sent via a low-cost domain host, start containing embedded advertising that might be even longer than those idiotic disclaimers you see from time to time.
Of course, the choice of said advert(s) was absolutely totally NOT based upon scanning the content of the message and looking at the known "preferences" of the recipient based upon past messages. Oh no, not all all. Honest!
"That’s something that’s already happening in cars, which can be fitted with devices that monitor driving skills so that good drivers get better premiums. But the flip side of that, of course, is that less capable drivers will get slapped with higher premiums if the Internet of Stuff becomes all ubiquitous and all powerful. And drive-monitoring could be just the tip of the iceberg."
The ones I want to see are those that stop unlicensed or uninsured drivers from driving the vehicle, together with the one to stop drunks and druggies from doing the same. And for them to be mandatory for all vehicles on UK roads.
From a card carrying member of the underbelly of dark social sharing