New Technology May Force Ad Viewing [Archive]

solypsist

04-20-2006, 16:28

SAN JOSE, Calif. - In this era of easy ad skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could television viewers one day be forced to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel switching?

Yes, according to Royal Philips Electronics. A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says researchers of the Netherland-based consumer electronics company have created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it.

The pending patent, published on March 30, says the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the technology would be a television or a set-top-box.

Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.

On Wednesday, company officials issued a statement that noted the technology also enables the opposite: allowing viewers to watch television without advertising. The intention was never to force viewers to watch ads against their will, the company said of the technology.

"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads," the company stated. "It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services."

The company also said it had no plans to use the technology in any of its products.

Philips wanted to provide the technology and seek the patent only as part of the broader developments within the industry, Philips spokesman Andre Manning said.

i know nobody here actually watches tv anymore, but i find this farcical.

The_Doctor

04-20-2006, 16:38

There is always the mute button.

And the BBC.

SwordsMaster

04-20-2006, 16:38

I can't say it is unexpected. In the place I work and study-we were working on a thing similar to that "ads in videogames" thinghy, slightly smarter, but then it is a research project - things have gone way beyond this kind of stuff. I would tell you what the future might bring, but you might be outraged. The only thing I can tell is that the technology is already there, and all that is needed is someone wealthy and stupid enough to put it on the market...

yesdachi

04-20-2006, 16:49

The only thing I can tell is that the technology is already there, and all that is needed is someone wealthy and stupid enough to put it on the market...
GAH, 10 days later someone would find a tech that would allow people a way around it. It’s a vicious cycle.

SwordsMaster

04-20-2006, 16:54

GAH, 10 days later someone would find a tech that would allow people a way around it. It’s a vicious cycle.

There is no way around it. You can either have it or not, like a camera-phone.

Byzantine Mercenary

04-20-2006, 17:09

what realy annoys me is that adverts are louder then the show, surely they realise that all people do when the adverts are louder is turn the sound off which you would think would be worse for them?

Duke Malcolm

04-20-2006, 17:11

Thank God for the BBC...

Quid

04-20-2006, 17:16

I already pay for viewing tv; no need for additional money spent.

Quid

yesdachi

04-20-2006, 18:23

There is no way around it.
I’m sure that has been said before. Not trying to argue with you but it just seems every time someone makes the better mouse trap the mice get smarter. :bow:

Viking

04-20-2006, 18:33

I watch the state channel anyway...

master of the puppets

04-20-2006, 18:56

I’m sure that has been said before. Not trying to argue with you but it just seems every time someone makes the better mouse trap the mice get smarter. :bow:

yeah...hmmm speaking of that, why can 2 or 3 generations of mice grow immune to eating a small bit of poison when humans have been injesting the poison alchohol for thousand of years and we still react the same to it, are the mice really just better or did our ancestors just get a lot more hammered than we do...mabey this should be in the drunken thread.

Blodrast

04-20-2006, 19:22

The sad thing is that probably enough people will just shrug and hand over the dough, agreeing to pay extra so that they're allowed to switch the channel whenever they want to...
apathy >>> anything.

If enough people go with that, it'll remain in place. If enough people refuse to put up with that crap, or, alternatively, to pay extra in order to be able to do the same thing they can do now (i.e., switch the damn channel during ads), this miserable initiative to milk people for even more money for the same amount of service will eventually fail.

BigTex

04-20-2006, 19:22

Originally posted by solypist
"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie with ads, or pay us more and watch the movie without adds." the company stated. "It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various wallet squeezing services."

Bastards ! I swear the rich idiot who trys this is going to be lynched. Why in the heck do companies invest in these add technologies, don't they know it will only piss off the people they are trying to peddle their wares to? I realize that within a week they'll be a way around it (god bless them hackers out there, they truly help the world stay free.) but still this pisses me off. The CEO of Phillips needs to be Tared and Feathered.:idea2:

https://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e331/Thammure/neng59.jpg

A.Saturnus

04-20-2006, 19:53

Louis VI the Fat

04-20-2006, 20:05

How about releasing psychoactive substances into the atmosphere that force you to think of certain products :evilgrin:So that's what you're getting that Ph.D. in Louvain in... :help:

Louis VI the Fat

04-20-2006, 20:14

Thank God for the BBC...Yep! And unlike those magnanimous British tax-payers I get to enjoy it for free too! :jumping:

A.Saturnus

04-20-2006, 20:16

So that's what you're getting that Ph.D. in Louvain in... :help:

No, in Leuven.

BDC

04-20-2006, 21:05

It will be just like the DVD fiasco. Do I pay £200 for the official restricted one or £30 for suspicious Chinese one which plays anything?

Blodrast

04-20-2006, 21:21

But see, I have the feeling it doesn't work exactly like that.
You would get the Chinese one; I would get the Chinese one; and a bunch of other somewhat-technical people would, too. But most people are not that technical, and they don't like "suspicious" stuff, or "illegal" stuff, or stuff that requires even the most minute amount of tinkering with.
So they'd still go buy the $200 one.

Do you think Joe Average avidly watches slashdot or freshmeat to see when the next "hacked" version of some software or hardware has been released ? From my experience, people who are not technical shy away from "second-hand" or "tinkered with" material...

SwordsMaster

04-20-2006, 22:38

How about releasing psychoactive substances into the atmosphere that force you to think of certain products :evilgrin:

You would be surprised if I told you you are not all that far off... Its CRAAAAAAZY:dizzy2:

Blodrast

04-20-2006, 22:47

tell us, tell us !!:jumping:

Catiline

04-20-2006, 23:14

It won't happen, it's too reactionist a technology.

What will happen is ther way we pay for 'TV' will change. Currently we take the ads becuase it pays for the TV, and a huge majority of TV is still not watched on TIVO/PVRs. When you watch live TV you're stuck with ads. You cxan be clever and start watching stuff late, but the miajority won't. They'll settle down in front of LOST and while away the extra 10 minutes because they want to talk about it tomorrow at work. As long as that ethos exists, advertising revenues will flow.

Technologically however. htat's unsustainable. All of us here are to some extent of a generation where by TV is not naturally an on demand medium. We have bred and nurturedtolerance to advertising. Next decades generation won't have that tolerance., They'll grow up on IPTV and Video on Demand. The concept of a channel in our sense will be alien to them. At that point hte Foxs and ITVs of htis world are screwed. And htey're shitting themselves over it ( this is a good hting, since it makes me rich writing conferences :laugh4:).

To be conspiratorial about it, even the govt are in on the act, hence the loosening, in the UK at least of the product placement laws. We'll still be pitched to. It'll just be subtler

Seamus Fermanagh

04-20-2006, 23:57

Muting won't work. Any code/hardwiring combination that freezes your channel-changing during advertisements will no doubt freeze all of the controls -- even power, otherwise what's the point.

Will there be a "go-around?" Almost certainly. Many of us who are reasonably comfortable with technology are unlikely to use such however, as we are morally queasy about supporting piracy and the like. I never used napster either -- and that wasn't exactly user-UNfriendly.:no:

I wonder when ads will invade elsewhere?

Could you conceive of CA selling ad space to defray costs? Imagine your battlefield unit beating those peasants and then, when we would normally see "celebrating" in the description, the unit cheers and its banner changes into a larger one reading "DRINK RC COLA" or some such.:inquisitive:

I wonder how the EB folks would handle that.....:laugh4:

** no offense intended to the RC folks.

Kralizec

04-21-2006, 00:00

Well we'll always have this one

http://www.penninga.com/penninga/images/stekker.jpg

The_Doctor

04-21-2006, 00:12

Well we'll always have this one

Looks painful.

SwordsMaster

04-21-2006, 00:14

Advertisements CAN be placed anywhere. Following Seamus' example, imagine your troops all dressed in "Adidas" tunicas with a big "Coke" logo on the front. Specially on multiplayer, where all of that could change with every game.

the next generation in ads will come to your mobile phones. Or PDAs. Or your very own big screen iPod. Or in 20 years time, maybe directly into your brain. (Ok, this last one is just speculation, but don't tell me it doesn't sound impressive).

solypsist

04-21-2006, 00:22

i imagine at some point you'll have to wait through a small commercial before your multiplayer map loads up, on mp videogames. sort of like how if you want to watch a "free" vid online you have to watch the ad vid first.

The_Doctor

04-21-2006, 00:23

Or PDAs. Or your very own big screen iPod. Or in 20 years time, maybe directly into your brain. (Ok, this last one is just speculation, but don't tell me it doesn't sound impressive).

That was in Futurama. (Probably where you got the idea from).

Good ol' Wikipedia:

Fry: That's awful, it's like brainwashing.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams, only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ballgames, on buses, and milk cartons and t-shirts and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree!

Kraxis

04-21-2006, 03:19

I can't help thinking about Minority Report... That type of ads might actually happen within our lifetimes. Not a pleasant thought.

And I seriously hope someone will sabotage the controller for this sustem if it ever gets online.

Zalmoxis

04-21-2006, 08:17

I'm more of an HBO kind of person anyway.

Fragony

04-21-2006, 08:57

I only watch the news, I hate watching television, it's an evil energy draining-device. This will make me hate it even more.

Rodion Romanovich

04-21-2006, 09:16

The ad forcers haven't realized there is an invention called VHS tape or DVD, on which you can record the TV programs and watch them, say 1 hour after and fast forward past the ads... The day they put ads by chemicals in the air or into my dreams I'll build a mini-nuke and detonate it in the closest city's industrial area.

Idaho

04-21-2006, 11:02

BBC = ~:cool:

doc_bean

04-21-2006, 11:59

You would be surprised if I told you you are not all that far off... Its CRAAAAAAZY:dizzy2:

cool, we'd be like ants !

Ahem..I've argued before that we should make share owners morally responsible for what 'their' company does. We're doing all this to ourselves !

A.Saturnus

04-21-2006, 19:51

You would be surprised if I told you you are not all that far off... Its CRAAAAAAZY:dizzy2:

Is it Priming? I love Priming! You can read minds with it. Oops... said too much :lipsrsealed:

Or in 20 years time, maybe directly into your brain. (Ok, this last one is just speculation, but don't tell me it doesn't sound impressive).

Yeah! Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)). In 20 years, maybe we can stimulate specific brain regions to make you think certain things.

Imagine yourself on a bus on the way to work thinking:
"Now, if that bus driver doesn't drive like a granny, I even may get in time ###COCA COLA### ...argh, were was I? Oh yes, can't afford to be late again. The boss is already pissed because of the ###NIKE###."

yesdachi

04-21-2006, 20:13

All this talk is reminding me of the subliminal messages that were banned from movies back in the day.

There are also subliminal visuals. In fact years ago, laws were passed banning subliminal visuals suggestions. They were used in drive-in movies. Within regular film were imbedded frames that showed a soft drink. These imbedded frames couldn't be seen by the naked eye (conscious mind), however, the subconscious mind was unduly influenced by them to cause the person to want and purchase the soft drink or whatever was being shown. The visual subliminal messaging was banned as an ethic consideration, i.e., you should have the right to know what someone is trying to sell you.
With the right liberal interpretation one could consider subliminal advertising more ethical because then the viewer isn’t forced to suffer thru a commercial. :wink:

doc_bean

04-21-2006, 21:20

Is it Priming? I love Priming! You can read minds with it. Oops... said too much :lipsrsealed:

Yeah! Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)). In 20 years, maybe we can stimulate specific brain regions to make you think certain things.

Imagine yourself on a bus on the way to work thinking:
"Now, if that bus driver doesn't drive like a granny, I even may get in time ###COCA COLA### ...argh, were was I? Oh yes, can't afford to be late again. The boss is already pissed because of the ###NIKE###."

And you do research to advance these things ????

O well, the sooner we can join the Hive Mind, the better I guess...

...

Anyone know anything about Belgian gun laws ?

SwordsMaster

04-21-2006, 21:29

Of course noone can put stuff into your brain against your will, besides it is kinda pointless, because you may or may not be in position to do what the ad tells you to do and you will have forgotten all about it by the time you do get the opportunity.

What I'm trying to say, is: imagine you are walking down a commercial street in your local area, and you walk by a shop where you've bought something before, they "could" implant into your brain the knowledge of all their offers and promotions of objects similar to the one you bought, kinda like Minority Report, but more subtle.

A.Saturnus

04-23-2006, 15:56

With the right liberal interpretation one could consider subliminal advertising more ethical because then the viewer isn’t forced to suffer thru a commercial. :wink:

And also because they don't work. The mysterious powers of subliminal messages are a psychological myth.

What I'm trying to say, is: imagine you are walking down a commercial street in your local area, and you walk by a shop where you've bought something before, they "could" implant into your brain the knowledge of all their offers and promotions of objects similar to the one you bought, kinda like Minority Report, but more subtle.

Hmm, "implanting knowledge" would be difficult - at least if I understand you right - because of the complex nature of memory. It would be easier to "make people decide that they want something".

No, no, I don't do research on something like that, really not.

Byzantine Prince

04-23-2006, 16:08

ShadesPanther

04-23-2006, 16:09

The ad forcers haven't realized there is an invention called VHS tape or DVD, on which you can record the TV programs and watch them, say 1 hour after and fast forward past the ads.

I do that with SKY+ when Watching 24 or Battlestar Galactica or some other programs that are on.

doc_bean

04-23-2006, 17:39

Why anyone would want to watch Lost, or Survivor, or The Bachelor is beyond me.

Lost and Temptation Island are about the only two shows I watch these days. Lost used to be a pretty interesting show, but near the end of the first season it seems to have lost its drive, I watch it because I have the time and it's something different (watching tv) than what i usually do.

Temptation Island I watch with a couple of friends, we just laugh and drink all through the show, nothing actually happens on the show and it's utterly boring if you actually pay attention. But with a group of friends, just making fun of the 'contestants' and telling random stories when it gets too boring, it can be quite fun.

Blodrast

04-23-2006, 19:40

And also because they don't work. The mysterious powers of subliminal messages are a psychological myth.

Do you have any links or pointers about this ? I'm genuinely interested.

Papewaio

04-24-2006, 03:50

Imagine yourself on a bus on the way to work thinking:
"Now, if that bus driver doesn't drive like a granny, I even may get in time ###COCA COLA### ...argh, were was I? Oh yes, can't afford to be late again. The boss is already pissed because of the ###NIKE###."

If that came true I would shove everyone who was a part of its creation into an oven and whistle while doing it. For once mass murder would be a boon to humanity.

yesdachi

04-24-2006, 18:03

And also because they don't work. The mysterious powers of subliminal messages are a psychological myth.
I’m These are sure not the that’s what they droids you’re want you to looking for think. :wink:

BigTex

04-24-2006, 18:22

I’m These are sure not the that’s what they droids you’re want you to looking for think. :wink:

They don't neccesarily work in the same way most people think. There have been many study's in this area, and they work basicly like any add. Adds and subliminal messages often work the same way yawns are contagious or laughter spreads. By flashing a message briefly like "hungry" you might catch it and not notice, and by the suggestion you may be reminded that you are indeed hungry and havent eaten dinner. But it is often more effective to show a big plate of barbecued brisket with a side of roasted potatoes and carrots. Then going through all that trouble of flashing for a frame that message.

https://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e331/Thammure/brisket.jpg

https://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e331/Thammure/brisket1.jpg

~;)

yesdachi

04-24-2006, 19:05

They don't neccesarily work in the same way most people think.
I know how it really works, I’m just being smart.

What I think is really interesting is the way TV shows ands movies are doing more product placement. A great example is the Sopranos, where they are always careful to place the box of doughnuts with the label toward the camera. It may not be subliminal but anytime you see someone else drink or eat you cant resist thinking “would I like to be doing that?”.

A.Saturnus

04-24-2006, 21:14

Do you have any links or pointers about this ? I'm genuinely interested.

I don't have a link but it's common knowledge in psychology. Actually there has never been a controlled experiment about it (only one highly suspicious one), but it would contradict some well-tested psychological theories.

If that came true I would shove everyone who was a part of its creation into an oven and whistle while doing it. For once mass murder would be a boon to humanity.

No you wouldn't, we'd make sure of that. :laugh4:

mercian billman

04-24-2006, 21:25

Television for the most part is brain-rot. Why anyone would want to watch Lost, or Survivor, or The Bachelor is beyond me. Maybe their lives are so meaningless that they have to waste their time that way. If they really freeze channels to commercial then people will turn away from the networks that do that and move to being creative or watching the BBC. So there is no real downside here.

I watch Reality TV with my friends and we mostly just make fun of the contestants and bemoan the downfall of western civilization (My Super Sweet Sixteen and Daddy's Spoiled Little Girl come to mind.) Plus we do it while were at work, so in a way were getting payed to watch crappy television.

Obviously I would not watch those show's in my free time, or would I?

Avicenna

04-24-2006, 21:46

yeah...hmmm speaking of that, why can 2 or 3 generations of mice grow immune to eating a small bit of poison when humans have been injesting the poison alchohol for thousand of years and we still react the same to it, are the mice really just better or did our ancestors just get a lot more hammered than we do...mabey this should be in the drunken thread.

It's only a select group of mice who have become immune. Us humans haven't had very many exposed to poisons until some develop some kind of immunity and spread it out to others through having a whole litter of kids who in turn each have their own litters, all anti-poison.