26 December 2002

New Billboards Sample Radios as Cars Go By, Then Adjust SACRAMENTO, California -- As part of a $20 million investment, Alaris Media Network, a Sacramento-based company, has erected 10 billboards that can display both video and text and can be programmed with changing messages and images. In addition, the billboards include fledgling technology that is designed to identify the radio frequencies of passers-by. If you knew the radio listening patterns, you could deduce the income, sex, race and buying habit data of the listeners. Then you could batch out appropriate content to the viewers. Alaris is not targeting individuals, but drivers en masse. For instance, if a preponderance of rush-hour drivers are tuned to a radio station known to have affluent or educated listeners, then the advertisements at that time would be aimed at them. [Matt Richtel in The New York Times]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Yawn of a Year in Tech TECHDIRT -- The Washington Post rounded up 2002 in technology and concluded it was pretty damn boring. Most companies are trying to figure out what to do with all that technology crap they bought at the end of the 90s, so the last thing they want to do is buy any new technology crap. Some seminal trends deserve noting. The Internet has now clearly permeated mainstream society. In Ireland, the Intenet is on lamposts and in purses. Companies now focus on building useful technologies instead of pie-in-the-sky technologies. [Mike on TechDirt and Leslie Walker in The Washington Post.]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Making Ringtones Making Money GARRINGREEN -- One of the most lucrative channels for revenue transfer in Ireland is the millions of euro spent each month in the purchase of mobile phone ringtones. Christopher Stern explains the business that college students can enter with a MIDI keyboard and an ear for music. It seems to me that many of the loudest gameboys on Slashdot don't get it. However, there are others in the Slashdot discussion who politely educate the rabble to the potential of ringer revenues. [Washington Post and SlashDot]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Housebreaking My New Dog in Seven Days [day five] GARRINGREEN -- I you are keeping count, you will detect that little Holly (a female Samoyed cross) has been in my Kilkenny home for six days, not five. We're not counting Christmas as a performance day because someone gave Holly dinner table helpings and that rich food (liquer-enriched cranberry sauce on turkey meat) gave her the runs. I can happily report that she now goes on papers on top of tiles placed next to doors. She will not deface wood floors or carpet. AND THE BIG NEWS: we have figured out the special way she walks and the little noises she makes when she has to go. So we just pick her up and place her outside. Unfortunately, she has to go every four hours so we don't hear her little whimpering at night, which is when she shits on pictures of Manchester United soccer star Roy Keane. Nothing personal, Roy, but the titles I buy shoot your face bigger than anyone else and that gives Holly a big plopping target. G!   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Control Government Snooping GARRINGREEN -- In the States, Congressman Bernard Sanders plans to introduce legislation to exempt libraries and bookstores from parts of the sweeping USA Patriot Act. In Ireland, Karlin Lillington points out why the Irish government should not be given free rein to information gathering. Both initiatives deserve a good reading. And both deserve support by anyone with an active electronic identity. Both the US and Irish government are eroding civil liberties with new directions in legislation. Dan Gillmor recommends some places where you can donate money to fight to defend the gift of liberty. [Patrick Armstrong in The Brattleboro Reformer and Karlin Lillington in The Irish Times. Karlin's "In Defense of Data Privacy" should be read aloud to every elected member of Irish government.   [Comment on Shoptalk]