New Technology May Force Ad Viewing

[solypsist]

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]

There is always the mute button.

And the BBC.

[SwordsMaster]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Thank God for the BBC...

[Quid]

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

Quid

[yesdachi]

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.

[Viking]

I watch the state channel anyway...

[master of the puppets]

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.

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]

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]

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.

[A.Saturnus]

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...

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

[Louis VI the Fat]

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

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

[Louis VI the Fat]

Thank God for the BBC...

Yep! And unlike those magnanimous British tax-payers I get to enjoy it for free too!

[A.Saturnus]

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

No, in Leuven.

[BDC]

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]

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]

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

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

[Blodrast]

tell us, tell us !!

[Catiline]

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 ).

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]

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.

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.

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


** no offense intended to the RC folks.

[Kralizec]

Well we'll always have this one

[The_Doctor]

Well we'll always have this one

Looks painful.

[SwordsMaster]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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