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Hardware

Advertising Via GPS 161

Posted by emmett from the if-you-build-it-they-will-shop dept.
tebubaga writes: "Now that jamming has been turned off and GPS has gotten that much more accurate, CNN posted this story describing how advertisers are drooling over the ability to deliver ads in real time to your cell phone, pager or PDA based on your location as reported by GPS."
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Advertising via GPS More

Advertising via GPS

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  • Hmm, is that like the ad-driven Web site "bright side" to banner ads? With few exceptions (Slashdot being one, NoNags being another), I don't see it as a very bright side...

    What do you weigh on Mars? [uninova.com]

  • Does this mean we could get rid of all of those ugly billboards?
  • For the sake of all of man kind, may I say NO NO NO NO NO, you idiots. Tv commercials are ok, free internet with them ads is pushing it, not on my Cell Phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • There are already (or will be in near future) mobile phones which have integrated GPS capabilities. See for example Benefon Esc! [benefon.com] from "the other" finnish mobile phone manufacturer. This phone doesn't yet enable "push-style" location based services but I'm sure future WAP enabled versions will. See the rele vant specification [wapforum.org] from the WAP forum.
  • and also because hackers broadcast intercepted cell phone transmissions on the f'in net and at DEFCON...
    ========================
    63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
    ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
  • So you like the idea of being constantly told what to consume?
  • 1. gps works really badly in cities. 2. with gps, you know where you are, but the system does not. it's just a bunch of sats your handset uses for reference. privacy concerns are only relevant if you use the cell network. or enable the system. even then, you're just a spot. i don't think we're gonna see non-voluntary cellular cookies. 3. there's no transmit channel. they can't send you anything over gps, it has to be cellular. 4. if you gotta look at ads, it might as well be for ones that are relevant. where can i get a hotel around here?
  • Plenty of things you can do to combat this crap.

    When I receive something in the mail (countless crappy credit card offers, vacation property...) I tear up the contents, and put it back in their postage paid envelope. This COSTS THEM MONEY. I'm not sure what effect this has, but I have noticed that in recent months, I get FAR fewer of these.

    When I get flyers on my car or the door to my apartment, I call the business, and tell them specifically that I will never do business with them because of their advertising methods. I think if more people did this, and they got some idea that people DON'T like this (and I think most people don't), then they might think twice.

    Maybe not.

  • I'm getting pretty fucking tired of these bloodsucking pricks constantly smearing their advertising feces all over any place that isn't already occupied by a physical object. What makes them think we give a shit about a Pocket Fisherman? ADS EVERY GODDAMN PLACE WE GO. Email, websites, around the rink in a sports game. I'm sure they'd tatoo ads on the backs of newborn babies if they could. It's a fucking sickness. I haven't seriously looked at anyones ads for more than 1/12th a second in a VERY long time. They've saturated my environment so much that I just TUNE THE FUCKERS OUT. You wonder why people get violent over spammers.

    Screw humanity. >:S
  • The device could track your location throughout the day, then upload that in a single burst. In a single burst, the device could be sent an archive of ads, one of which is displayed when the device detects itself in a specific location. Memory is cheaper than data transfer in this situation, I would speculate.
    -------
  • It *may* happen. So what if the FCC has mandated it? Big deal.

    Most of the schemes that implement E911 (as it's called) rely on the fact that the handsets will be in a co-operative network. That means that the remote unit has to *want* to be located (i.e. the handset has to help the system locate itself).

    There are a few E911 systems already out there now, and they all require cooperative networks. And they all use clever, but different (and, oddly, competing, and non-interoperable), schemes to implement their co-operative network.

    I haven't read the mandate, but I bet that it doesn't specify *which* E911 implementation will be used. So, does that mean that *all* handsets have to work with *all* E911 location paradigms? Everybody has to replace their perfectly good handset with a new one? Hardly.

    I would imagine that handsets that don't support *any* of the E911 cooperative network schemes will become a growth industry. That's all I would buy.

    Moreover, most of the current E911 systms are waaaaay too expensive to any munipality to afford. If they can't afford it, they can't afford it, and they won't buy it. The FCC goofed on this mandate, and I doubt that it'll ever see the light of day.

    Now, you *could* do E911 in a non-cooperative network paradigm (where the handset is just a handset, and it doesn't help itself be located, (or even know that it's being located)), but that's very, very, very difficult, especially for PCS, CDMA, etc., phones. It's being done, but very crudely. If and when this technology gets better and cheaper, we can all kiss our civil liberties goodbye.

  • I believe that we should start putting ads on the desks at schools, on those white suspended ceiling panels, and on floor tiles. We can sell the spots for $100 a month. What a great way to get some extra cash for the school!

    Can you sence my sarcasm?
  • I agree with you. Of course, I don't want everyone to know my location -- just as I don't want everyone to know my cell phone number either! But most of the time I use a cell phone is to communicate my location to people anyway ("no, I'm in a meeting right now," "yes, I'm on my way over," etc.). And if I don't want people to find me, chances are excellent that I don't want them calling me either. So for me, the two issues are practically the same thing...

    My point was, knowing location is an important ability for mobile communication. So, better ability to communicate location is a Good Thing -- provided that steps are taken to protect your location from simply being handed out to destinations without your knowledge and consent.

  • It doesn't seem right that they can advertise over my own cell phone or GPS...How is it that I _pay_ for the service, or i _buy_ the equipment, but I end up paying more by viewing these ads?

    I would also like to know who gets the money? I think that if they are going to put ads on the cell phones and GPS units, then they should hand them out for free, they will eventually pay for themselves from the advertising money. Or, they can give us a certain allotment of long distance calling for each ad viewed? I just don't like the idea of paying for something twice.


  • Constantly broadcasting your location is a serious invasion of your privacy. Even people who don't pay attention to privacy issues now will probably pay attention to this.

    Theoretically it wouldn't be much of a privacy issue of only the wireless service provider knew your location. As a matter of fact, by using some sophisticated triangulation algorithms, they track your cell phone to a few hundred feet now, without GPS.

    The problem with that is that there'll probably only going to be a few large advertising firms (like DoubleClick for the Internet now) and so they'll get a pretty good idea of where you go, even if there are some gaps in the record. They'd be able to learn quite a bit about you: where you shop, who your friends are, where you work, etc.

    Not that some multi-national corporations can't learn that kind of stuff about me now. However, it'd be a lot harder to piece together information of disparate types. Consistent location information would be much more useful.

    Bah. I spend most of my time at work or at home. I have plenty of computing and communication power at both locations. Maybe I should give up all my mobile devices, or at least the ones that can transmit something. At least at home I'm behind a firewall, to restrict the information I reveal to the Internet. Will I need firewall software for my mobile phone too?

    James

  • No, and I wouldn't use a service that exposed me to such irritations, unless I could filter them out in some way.
  • I guess this brings new meaning to the term target marketing:) ...imagine the new guerilla marketing tactics that could emerge from this... place your order now, no pressure, we know who you are, we know where your at... take it light
  • GPS is receive only. Yes, your cell phone could have an integrated GPS receiver, and then use the phone portion to transmit your location, but I don't think that's going to happen.

    Here's why:

    - The telcos still control the cell-towers. So it's gonna cost advertisers plenty of money to have cell phones that are broadcasting your whereabouts all the time, and sending down those adds. I bet the per-view cost of this type of advertising would be prohibitive for most advertisers.

    - Battery power. GPS takes 10-30 seconds to lock up satellites, and it needs to be left turned on to hold a lock, so it would be activated quite a lot of the time. That adds battery drain to the cell phone, which is exactly what nobody wants

    - GPS is Line-of-Sight. This isn't going to work in office buildings, shopping malls, subways, or even cars. So when exactly are they gonna target you for adds? During the 1.5 minutes it takes to walk from the parking lot to the mall entrance? GPS also performs poorly in major downtown cores, because of "Urban Valley" effect, which blocks satellites that are anything except directly overhead.

    - Cost. GPS circuitry is getting cheaper all the time, but even a low-end consumer unit adds more cost to a phone than people are going to be willing to pay for.
  • Considering the relatively discrete nature of the cellphone, I'd imagine some people might actually pay good money for such a service.

    Wasn't there something about Japanese prostitutes using Love-Getty's to attract potential clients?

  • I'm tired of ads. I never buy anything I see advertised or spammed or sponsored or whatever. It's not like a moral objection or anything, I'm just having a hard time getting all excited over stuff I don't really want.

    Like these banner ads up top here. Who actually clicks on this stuff? I bought an O'Reilly book once, and I've seen O'Reilly ads up top before, but the two weren't connected. I needed a book and someone recommended theirs.

    I'm watching the NY-Boston game, here. Who else remembers when the sign behind the plate was "NO PEPPER"? Who actually buys stuff at Modell's just because they saw the sign behind Varitek?

    Are ads really effective, or are they just an elaborate scam played on wealthy corporations by otherwise useless marketing people? What would it be like to go a day without seeing them? Seriously, this isn't a Communist rant or anything (this time), but WTF are these things really doing for us?

    -jpowers
    You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...

  • Hello, Mr. Smith? (Score:3)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:34PM (#1044016)
    Hello, Mr. Smith? I'm Officer Martin with the police department. Phone company records show that you were in the area when a car was broken into in the 2400 block of main street about 10 pm. Could we ask what was your business in the area at the time? Were you aware that this area is notorious for drug trafficing? As we have probable cause due to your proximity, would you mind furnishing us with your fingerprints and a urine sample? By the way, the owner of the car is planning to sue the business where the car was parked, and her attorney has issued a subpoena for these records. We'll naturally be turning them over. No doubt you'll be called as a witness. If they find out you were there and didn't inform the police, you'll probably also be the next defendant. Have a nice day.
  • Just to nit-pick slightly, civilian GPS signals were not "jammed", they had an inaccuracy built into them (hence the same "Selective Accuracy"). Each satellite would report themselves as being in positions slightly different than where they actually were.

    GPS signals can still be regionally jammed by the government, for national security concerns.

  • huh? (Score:2)

    by craw ( 6958 )
    I've read most (but not all) of the comments and have not seen this. I don't really get it. To know where somebody is, requires a transmission of a signal saying, here I am. GPS is a passive system, AFAIK. A cell phone says I'm here. GPS is a DoD system. I'm confused.

    What these telemarketers are drooling over is the ability to acurately track cell phone users. And the technology is improving to do this.

    Disclaimer (standard for me). It is late, and I need to get to bed.

  • do you need an ad for it? I certainly don't
    need an ad for Burger King when I'm next to it- the sign is good enough. It would seem that
    advertising is most needed when what you're trying to sell isn't at hand. So how else could this be used?
  • The problem with your plan is what happens when I've got a bunch of stores in a row all broadcasting their ads. Do I get the equivilent of spam on my cell or PDA with all their ads that I then have to sift through? People already drive like shit just dialing phone numbers on their cell phones. I wouldn't want to be on the road whilst they were scrolling through their cell spam reading the ad on their 3 or 4 line display.

  • So? (Score:3)

    by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:03PM (#1044021) Homepage
    What does removing jamming have to do with it, surly GPS was acurate enough to send close-to-pin point ad's anyway?

    Whats wrong with billboards and bus stops anyway?
  • This has it's good side and it's bad side. I can see the positive applications in the from the advertisers point of view but come on do we need to be bombarded @ every instant w/ mind numbing ads!! ack...someone said earlier "just what I need SPAM on my cell/pager" hehehe so true..it's coming...our cars will be telling us to wash w/ Armor All soap and fill up on ESSO gas and be sure to buy a Mars bar while your in the gas station ug.. I was watching this tech show they other day and this is where I first heard of this new application for GPS and they were calling it Airvertising. So, I can see that it now has and acutal "name"......it's coming! Wireless ads through the air aaah! no place is safe now!
  • Actually, I think I would like to be first in line to break the kneecaps of anyone stupid enough to start spamming me via pager/cellphone/pda. Isn't it bad enough to _have_ these appliances, and have them interrupt you at the worst time? Aren't telemarketers bad enough? I'm beginning to think that the Internet-plug-in-the-back-of-the-head idea is a bad one... imagine being CONSTANTLY bombarded with advertising while you're trying to think...
    ---
  • I don't think most advertisers realize that if they start beaming people adds for their product over a GPS, especially if they are trying to do something important(fly a plane, disarm a nuclear warhead) They would be most likely to NOT buy their product. Banner adds are enough, advertisers should learn some self control.
  • Don't forget the power that a GPS reciever will use from you cell phone's batteries. I can see haveing a GPS reciever in your cell phone cutting battery life by 25%.
  • ya know how there's often a Burger King across the street from a McDonald's? now they can send you the "right" coupon if you're in the "wrong" place.
  • ...Force people to give all their money to corporations, and eliminate all this huhu about marketing and products.

    Get rid of the middle men that are advertising and the actual product. Things would be much more effecient that way...

    Oh wait! That would be Human Slavery Controlled by Corporations!


    And I thought you were going to say... Oh wait! That would be called the government.

  • Just imagine evil advertisers always knowing where you are and then delivering the "perfect" ad to you. That doesn't sound that great to me. They could also easily use this information to have a good profile of what you do everyday, where you shop, etc.

    Besides, even without advertising on my PDA/cellphone the screen is still small enough, so please spare me that.
  • if its free, suck it down?

    Don't 'swipe' - use cash.
    Get it from your own bank's ATM, as your bank already has all of your purchasing info anyway.

    Hmm, Cell phone/GPS Maquerding?

    its not paranoia when they really are out to get you ...
  • So does this mean when I'm walking in certain parts of town I'll now get XXX ads from the nearest prostitute? Loooovvvvely.

  • Why not just... (Score:4)

    by NightHwk ( 111982 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:35PM (#1044031)
    ...Force people to give all their money to corporations, and eliminate all this huhu about marketing and products.

    Get rid of the middle men that are advertising and the actual product. Things would be much more effecient that way...

    Oh wait! That would be Human Slavery Controlled by Corporations!

    Guess we will have to keep the marketing/consumables buffer in place to retain the illusion of a Democractic Republic and Freedom.

    Why must everything always be so complex; Guess it is true, TANSTAAFL.

    --NightHawk
    Tyranny = Government choosing how much power to give the people.
  • Keep in mind, there was a time (not very long ago) when there wasn't a single add on the internet. It was all content, and no filler. It's sad to see moee than 50% cruft on sites today. Technical articles split up across 5 or 6 pages to get more banner loads and, each page with a side bar of more adds is a little silly.


    ___

  • There is some reasons for GPS targeting.

    Go near a Frye's and you get an advertisement for COMPUSA. Many even a 10 minute special.

    Head towards a McDonalds, get an ad beamed to you that gives you $1 off your next purchase at Wendy's, good for 20 minutes.

  • Re:Not likely to happen anytime soon...Here's why (Score:4)

    by Xenu ( 21845 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:43PM (#1044034)
    It will happen, and soon.

    The FCC has mandated that starting in October 2001, wireless carriers must deploy subscriber location systems capable of locating the subscriber's radio transceiver to an accuracy of 125 meters or better, at least 67% of the time. This is to support the 911 system, so that emergency services can be dispatched to the location of the caller.

  • 1a: If your phone submitted your GPS derived position as part of a request to a WAP style site you were querying, that would be another way of doing it.

    I.e. you go to a site that gives you a list of nearby cinema's (coffee houses, tube stations, hookers;), which would inherantly recquire your position to be effective, and along with the result, you get a whole bunch of position specific spam.
  • oh, was that first post??? I can never tell on this damn thing.

  • Not to mention that a judge issuing a restraining order will mandate that the restrainee must carry one of these phones at all times to track his/her whereabouts.
  • In fact this would probably be the way that the cinema (whatever) search site pays for itself, unless it took a commision on tickets ordered via the site...
  • There was a greater spirit of community "helpfulness", too. A few years back, you could find a page that would have diagrams and downloads for whatever (case in point, patterns for medieval-style clothing, for SCA people). Nowadays, all you'll find are price lists and Sales Associate links to Amazon & co.
  • If they actually start advertising to GPS equipped cell phone users why don't we

    a) put something around the GPS antenna that would block the GPS signal, but not the telephone signal.

    b) get some sort of device that transmits random noise on the frequencies that GPS uses, but only with enough power for it to effect our phone.

    c) something else that could disable the GPS

    This would have the effect of denying the advertisers knowlege of where you are so that the best the could do it feed you generic ads.

    I can also see businesses jamming the GPS signal around their establishments to prevent customers from reciving ads from competitors.
  • Junk post I solved with a "No Junk Mail" sticker on my mailbox. It works amazingly well. Haven't had a single junkmail since putting the sticker up and I used to get dozens of useless flyers every day.

    Junk faxes are thankfully illegal, at least here in Australia.

    Junk email I'm living with. It'd be nice if there were laws against it, but sadly the minister of communications in Australia is a complete dingbat so no luck there.
  • Yes! that's it! Of Course!
    Patent things that you don't want, such as 'A Novel Method of Informing Drones that its Time To Buy'.
    Then we'll have the corporations trying to dismantle the Patent System. Beat them at their own game - and turn the patent over to FSF.
  • Not that I can see this working affordably at present, I don't doubt that it would happen, and even at all the privacy concerns, I think one of the biggest one is that sometimes you just don't want to be bothered. I know a couple people who work as EMT's, so they constantly have beepers on them, ready to run off to aid anyone that requires immediate medical attention. If these people have advertisements running inbetween important messages, who knows.... an ignored message could equal the welfare of another human being? Although I am being a tad drastic, problems will arise from this system, and I can't see what good will come from it.
  • The telcos would probably be the ones selling the ability to send ads to your cellphones. The telcos know where your cellphone is - they could provide a simple service where an ad company pays x amount per ad and specifies when to send the ad.
  • emergency services calling in the US; most of the world uses 999

    This is a bit off-topic, but where are you getting this from? 999 is used in the UK (IIRC), and quite possibly in other places too, but in general each country has its own emergency number(s). The EU is trying to standardize on 112 for its members, and 112 is already working in some of them, and on all GSM phones. Other than that, I believe that you'll find a variety of numbers used throughout the world.

  • Isn't position tracking inherent in the idea of a cellphone? Or do they just not have the infistructure.

    Its still weird though, I know most americans are lazy, but I still doubt that many of them will go for something that both sends them more adds and reports their position to people or whatever

    Just stay away from the Real Media(TM) brand Pager MP3player/pager....

  • No (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    AFIAK, GPS could really only tell you what city you were in, not your exact street 'location'. And if you want to send really targeted ads...
  • So soon K-Mart will know where I am, and many other corporate and/or government interests who I'd much rather have just leave me alone. The world of targeted advertising is reaching the disgusting point of being able to carefully profile and document your actions and infer your like and dislikes.

    Heh, now since the accuracy of the GPS is no longer and issue, K-Mart will also know whether I'm in the bathroom or livingroom, of standing outside a smoking...

    Or maybe I'm just paranoid... 36hrs of coding does that. :)
  • Spam is Spam, what's the big deal ? Won't we just ignore it?

  • Re:Specifications (Score:3)

    by Elvii ( 428 ) <david1975.comcast@net> on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:50PM (#1044050) Homepage
    this is mostly from memory, maybe someone can follow with numbers..
    1) accuracy depends on signal strength, how many satatlites you're tracking, and their relative position to each other. 5 sats in a triangle type formation will give you more precision than say, 6 in a near straight line across the sky. There's also a ionsphere induced error, which can be corrected but is normaly not on lower cost commercial units like mine. Avaition units can correct for that error, or military units can use a seperate encryped signal to correct.

    2) On a descent recivier, (ie it can hold good sat signal strength while in motion) speed doesn't make much difference. Unless you go faster than 250mph, iirc, where civilian units shot down.

    3) I'd not try to drive down the road with most gps systems. :) Mine gets at best 4 meters epe (estimated position error). Unless you'ce got a high grade reciever, you're not gonna get much better. 4 meters is a big swerve. :)

    David

    bash: ispell: command not found

  • ...big step forward for GPS, and will only serve to create some fantastic new products.


    Umm. Look, I don't mean to sound all commie and left-wing, but does anyone out there agree that the idea of absolute, direct advertising absolutely sucks???

    I mean, surely it's bad enough what with all the junk e-mail, post, faxes, everything, that we already get... do we really *have* to get adverts through our PDAs and cellphones?

    I'm sorry, I don't mean to rant, but I find adverts nauseating: they are designed purely to take money away from you. Seriously, did no-one else get a really bad feeling when they read this story?

    - Oliver
    "exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
  • The FCC has already mandated that carriers be able to pinpoint callers to within about 136 yards of their location by October 2001. There are two ways: GPS or by measuring signal strength and arrival times at the cell base stations. One way or the other, though, the ability to locate you is going to be here in a year and a half.
  • TANSTAAFL was integral to the plot of RAH's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

    A virtual beer to anyone with an earlier reference.
  • GPS is one way, only. However a pager/cellphone is not. The idea would be for the cellphone to report your position to the add server.

    Thats probably one of the main problems, that people have with it.
  • This doesnt concern me, and coule be useful, but as long as I can turn it off, or sue the relivant company for unsolicited SPAM, just like you can now over internet spamming companies.

    Thats what it comes down to, they have to give you a way to turn it off, else they're gonna get sued like nothing else, it wont take long, either.

    You would seriously think they would have better uses for GPS, eg. finding someone with a mobile phone who is lost in the woods, rather than having a 'general' idea and launching a seach & rescue team. But then, that would be useful, and not give the coporate giants money, now wouldnt it.
  • Actually, no, I don't like the banner ads, and in fact I use Opera to browse Slashdot to make it easy to turn off ALL graphics and page formatting for Slashdot without affecting other browsing I do. Loads fast enough for me, that's for sure.

    But my point was just that Slashdot (apparently) gets some significant amount of revenue from the ads, and I like Slashdot, thus I have to accept the idea that the ads (though I may never see them) may be providing something I like. Which is a lot better than most banner ads I run across, on sites that just plain suck.

  • ...when more than half of the 3+ posts about it are moderated as "Funny", and the rest is "Interesting".

    --

  • What if you could do the scrambling yourself, y'know--client-side? Chop off a few digits of accuracy to make any commercial/governmental voyeurs wonder exactly where you are.

    Then you'd have the global, digital equivalent of a cloak of displacement!

    Of course, they could just beam you a personal, encrypted ad that says, "Psst... hey you... go into the Fry's Electronics on nth street and pick up the last special preview edition Playstation 2 gaming console, cheap!".

    Then all they have to do is wait 10 minutes and aim their satellite-based laser death rays at Fry's, instead of trying to hit a moving target...

    See? Free enterprise really does make things more convenient!

  • "Does this mean we could get rid of all of those ugly billboards?"

    No, it just means that now they appear in an HUD on your personal VR goggles, superimposed over your normal visual field.

  • How can your PDA be used for an advertisement?
    Easy, wonderful Bluetooth technology that lets all you common electronic communicate effortlessly and wirelessly, can easily be able to get information back and forth. I guess they take it that everything you own is bluetoothed, allowing the advertisers to locate your pda (be able to find it via your cell phones IP, and cross reference that with your gps, or just have your GPS report the cell phone's ID) and have it so all banner ads or whatever that are to load on your PDA, whatever advertisements, be set to your location.

    Now the nice thing out of this is that if Fryes and Compusa had a "Get their sale at any cost" behavior. Just walk back and forth between the two locations. As you approach the fryes, compusa gives you a $50 rebate on all items, hed towards compusa, and fryes would give you a $100 rebate on anything in the store. Walk back to fryes, get $150 off at compusa, walk to compusa get $200 off at fryes. Do this for a day, buy a few grand worth of equipment, sell it. Along with that buy a PowerBook G3 with airport, and a nice VAIO with a wavelan card, and have them connect to each other. In the end you get some nice machines, a good wad of money, mabye 2-3 hours fo physical activity, and your PDA shuts up cause wavelan network signals interfere with bluetooth to the extent of making it useless.

    -Pfhor
    "Hey it could happen"
    This post sponsored by Http://www.Zarquon-Industries.com
    For No Other Reason (TM)

  • Homer, where has this phone been? Doh! (Score:4)

    by volume ( 172477 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:58PM (#1044064)
    Honey, I don't know why the phone keeps inviting me back to the Pussy Cat Palace. And I certainly don't know why we keep getting ads for low airfares to Tijuana.
  • GPS sets are receive-only, and most of them burn lots of power if you want to keep them running continuously. However, if you've got a wireless data link of some kind, you can still have it check where you are occasionally without running it full time. The added accuracy really is nice when you're trying to get street directions - I forget the exact specs, but it changes from ~50meters to ~5, and if _you_ want to find the nearest pizza place, as opposed to it finding you, and you've got some kind of wireless data link, it works well.

    There's scarier stuff around, though. Under the guise of better 911 support (emergency services calling in the US; most of the world uses 999), the FBI is pushing the FCC to require the next generation of digital cellphone standards to be able to locate you within ~50 meters. (Some cellphone standards can get pretty close to that by triangulating sites through the network; it's interesting if your phone can do it as well, especially if you don't need to buy GPS to do it. And better GPS makes it easier for cell sites to get precise timing and know where they are precisely so they can do this much more accurately, which is especially important for microcells that you might deploy lots of.) They'd really like to be able to ask your phone where it is without notifying you or asking for permission; there are some people in the cellphone standards committees who are quite annoyed about this, and many who don't see what all this privacy fuss is about and of course it makes it easier for 911 to find you if you're hurt. The interesting trick is that if there's a GPS in the phone, they can ask it where you are without having to leave it on full time, though it does take a little while for the GPS to locate satellites, especially simpler sets that don't locate them in parallel.

  • Think about it... Every time you use your credit card, or ATM card, or "shopper card", the (hypothetical?) central database knows that you were at some fixed location at that time. My debit card bill already gives a pretty good history of my travels. It doesn't tell you everywhere I've been, only the places where my card got swiped... but then, that's really what advertisers are interested in, anyway.
  • GPS-pin-pointed ad near McDonalds:
    Subway has less fat than McD!

    GPS-pin-pointed ad near Bally's:

    LA Fitness rocks and is 2-4-1!

    GPS-pin-pointed ad near Starbucks:

    Be Original. Drink Sprite.
    There's a lot of potential there...
  • I can see it now:

    driving in car...

    BEEP-BEEP-BEEP: (phone) 32 New Text Messages received... : Make money from home fast...

    {vibrate}: (pager) Congratulations! You have been selected to receive a free subscription to..

    BEEP-BEEP-BEEP: (phone) Dear Valued pets.com customer, we just noticed that you're near our affiliate store that sells catbox liners...

    {vibrate}: (pager) Hi! This is jiffy lube reminding you that you're overdue for you oil change... we're right on the next block.

    {vibrate}: (pager) Safeway is your low price headquarters and we have cantaloupe on sale for ...

    BEEP-BEEP-BEEP: (phone) We've lost our lease! Everything must go! Sofas on sale from $999 ...

    {vibrate}: Dear Macy*s Valued customer: Don't miss our semi monthly extra 10% off sale! Take the next exit to get to our store.

    BEEP-BEEP-BEEP: (phone) \/\/e 0wN J00, B1AtcH!

    Yeah, cool. I can't wait. Whoopee.
  • Pager Spam - Phone Spam - This has the chance to be especially annoying.

    It happens now, to some degree.

    You are paged to call some number, maybe it's flagged urgeant, or some sort. but it's really a scam, or someone making you call to listen to an ad on your nickel, or call extra long distance for a big phone charge.

    sounds like it is time to expand the anti-fax advertising law to include pagers, cell phones, and the like.

    too bad I can't set up my cell phone to charge the caller for incoming calls, unless I hit a function key or enter a pin on my cell phone.

    actually, that sounds like that would be a good idea for another service to offer. I would not mind having it right now. sort of like a 900 option for regular home phones, that you can turn on and off as needed.

    certainly within the technology the telcos offer these days....

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @05:04PM (#1044072)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • NEWS: Pizza Hut Ad Sent to Chinese Embassy (Score:4)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @05:07PM (#1044073) Homepage
    PIZZA HUT AD ACCIDENTALLY SENT TO CHINESE EMBASSY
    Beijing Reportedly "Furious" Over Uninvited Capitalist Intrusion

    BELGRADE, SERBIA (AP) - In what the US State Department is calling an "unfortunate mistake", the Belgrade embassy of the People's Republic of China was the target for several Pizza Hut advertisements earlier this evening. Originating from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth at an altitude of several hundred miles, the advertisements had been ordered by Stanley Blyleven, Pizza Hut's vice president of marketing. The messages were received by an on-duty secretary who forwarded them to her immediate supervisor.

    "We are so sorry," explained Blyleven. "We thought that we had targeted the Swedish embassy." Blyleven blamed the targeting snafu on "an outdated map that had tomato sauce smeared on it." "It was certainly not our intent to intrude on the Chinese embassy," said Blyleven. "We did not want to intentionally inform the Chinese people about our fresh, plentiful, mouth-watering toppings, our heaping pounds of zesty cheese, or our tantalizing variety of crust styles. It was a mistake; it was simply an honest mistake."

    A spokesman for Chinese president Jiang Zemin stated that the incident had "upset him deeply, and could possibly represent a near-irreperable rift in US-Sino relations." State Department spokesman James Rubin had been in contact with a representative of Zemin, but little progress was made in the quest to quell the outrage in Beijing. "The Chinese government views this as a capitalist intrusion into their governmental affairs," reported Rubin. "Although we have explained several times that this was a mistake made by Pizza Hut, we feel that this incident may have been a serious setback."

    President Bill Clinton appealed for calm and a mushroom/pepperoni combo with extra cheese.
  • (This was on Dave Farber [upenn.edu]'s list. [interesting-people.org])

    If the press release is to be believed, it's a patent on
    using a wireless handset to deliver information that's
    dependent on where you are, such as telling you the nearest MacDonald's.
    - handset-based services granted now, network-based pending.
    I'm not sure how broad their patent claims are,
    as opposed to their marketing PR (:-), but it sounds like it's
    way over-broad, steps on lots of things that should be obvious enough
    to anyone skilled in the trade, and sounds like Yet Another
    Stupid Patent Office Trick.

    Their Press Release [cell-loc.com] www.cell-loc.com [cell-loc.com]

    ..."U.S. patent office has conditionally allowed Cell-Loc to claim the
    delivery of handset-based wireless location content and services over
    the Internet as its property, regardless of technological method employed."


    Unfortunately, after downloading the half megabyte of animated Web Designer Candy
    that serves as their main web page, it wasn't possible to get to any
    real information, but YMMV... :-)

  • Context Sensitive GPS Has Other Uses (Score:3)

    by MoNickels ( 1700 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @04:12PM (#1044083) Homepage
    Consider the other possibilities of highly accurate GPS, some of these already in place in various forms.

    1. Digital travel guides that automatically load the information for the landmarks near you. You could adjust the scale, so if you're standing at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue in New York you might get entries for the US, New York State, New York City, Manhattan, Times Square, the Zipper, or Achmed's newsstand on the corner.

    2. You're an architectural student. You've got video goggles and a strap-on computer (not rod-shaped, people). You walk around the city seeing what is an exact digital representation of what you would ordinarily see, all in 3D, except you can choose to view the steel structure, cut-aways, the 33rd floor, the bedrock, textural details, or even a time-lapse video of the building being constructed. All live, on the fly, on the street. As you walk, the video adjusts. Buildings could be marked with little icons at the entrance to indicate their compatibility with the technology.

    3. Big-ass games of blind man's bluff. Cover your eyes with a backwards ski mask. Turn on the speaking function of your GPS device. Have it give you instructions on how to get where you're going.

    4. Real-time traffic monitoring: in a dense city, GPS devices could be installed in municipal vehicles. Time and rate of those autos could be reported via other radio link to central computer, redistributed to everyone else's GPS and overlaid on a map telling them where the best routes might be found. Of course, this might turn into infinite game theory iterations.

    5. Auto-tuning of radios (kind of like RDS) to your favorite type of preset music choices. GPS devices don't have to be attached to maps and expensive equipment.

    6. An excellent source of new stats for golf aficionados: GPS in golf balls. How far off, exactly, was he? This, of course, goes well with my idea for a transparent basketball with a camera and transmitter inside.

  • You left out the best part of the scene...

    After you buy your beer, open the can, and head down the road, in the next block you get pulled over, because..........

    The ad was paid for by the City and the police were automatically notified when you stopped for a certain period of time to respond to the ad. The city manager has noted a 1000% increase in revenue from fines since the new advertising campaign went into effect.

  • You don't need GPS for this (Score:3)

    by Doke ( 23992 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @04:19PM (#1044086) Homepage
    They can triangulate your cell phone's position from the relative signal strength measured at nearby towers. That's accurate to about a hundred meters. Closer than that, they can simply detect your phone as a radio source.

    Remember, your phone transmits periodicly, so the cell system knows what tower you're near, to route incoming calls.
  • I'm watching the NY-Boston game, here. Who else remembers when the sign behind the plate was "NO PEPPER"? Who actually buys stuff at Modell's just because they saw the sign behind Varitek?

    I'm watching the same game (but I'm a Yankees fan who goes to school in Pittsburgh most of the year) and I remember that sign. However, as to your question about advertising...

    Most advertising of that nature is just to get name recognition. You might not say "Hey, Modell's! Let's run out to Modell's right now because they bought ad space behind home plate." When you decide to buy a Derek Jeter jersey, though, you might consider going to Modell's because you know that they'll have Yankees jerseys. This is especially true if you're not from New York and don't know where to go to buy sporting goods.

    Similarly, companies like General Electric and Siemens buy advertising that doesn't promote any of their products. The idea is to get a company's name out there. Incidentally, for companies like amazon.com and 1-800-FLOWERS (.com) where the name is the means of contact, it's also a way to score some impulse buyers or at least get a few hits/calls to generate interest.

    Whoops, the game's back on. Go Yanks! :)
  • I think the point he's trying to make is, they can ALREADY pinpoint you within 25 yards, what difference does it make if they can do so within 5 yards?

    Unless they're targetting you with machine guns, it doesn't make any more difference.

    So why would we think advertising will increase at any greater rate?
    --
  • from the article:

    "It's a bit of a marketer's wet dream," says Kyle Shannon, cofounder of Agency.com, an Internet marketing consulting firm.

    What a wonderful phrase, just the level of couth and wit I would have expected from an advertiser. I bet he uses phrases like "let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes" too.

  • Oh, hell, you can get within a hundred feet without any computer at all. Ham operators do it all the time - it's called "fox hunting" and basically they all get on a net (same frequency, but with alot of ops) and one guy says "I'm gonna talk on this frequency for 10 seconds".. and then he does. While he's doing that, everyone else points around directional antennas and figures out which direction gets the best gain.

    After that, they chat with each other and exchange location info.. and someone just draws the damn thing on a map (optional) and drives over to the person's house, knocks on their door, and says "tag, you're it!" :)

    It takes any respectable computer no more than 3 seconds to track you, with sophisticated ones taking under a second. I'm completely serious. You only need two things to do triangulation: the direction of the signal, its strength, and 3 or more receivers. The more receivers, the quicker it goes. Anyway, that aside, you can even use time-delay algos to figure out where someone is nearly instantaniously, provided you can sync each of the receivers to exactly the same time (and I *mean* exact - like within a few hundred uS). Bleh.. forget it.. anyone with a couple hundred bucks can build accurate triangulation equipment. You don't need GPS for this...

  • Ok, there's the one possible thing of having a truely free cel phone service for the point of being forced to see ads. Of course, you'd sign up for this, and agree that in exchange for the ads, you'd get free or reduced cost service.

    But the cost of cel phone service is still expensive enough (especially since some plans also charge your incoming calls as well as outgoing) that if you signed up for service without any mention of ads, would this be comparible to the Unsoliciated FAX law?

    I wish there was something that we could do as a nation (or united world) as private citizens to contest the increasing invasive advertizing. Companies think it works, but when you advertize for common necessities, people are going to buy them anyway, and a boycott is probably impossible since the items are required.

  • Re:Bad effects. (Score:3)

    by psmorris ( 187179 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:11PM (#1044100)
    First thing I want to know is how that advertiser got my access into my PDA. Second: Why is that advertiser tracking my movements. Lastly: I want to know how to stop them from doing that.

  • brave new world (Score:3)

    by swinge ( 176850 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:12PM (#1044103)
    No, I haven't given in, and I don't like it... but if it turns out that they know exactly who I am and exactly what I've purchased everywhere I've been, and they've figured out already what I need, they might as goddamn well know where to deliver it. I can picture it now: as each of us drives around, we'll be chased by UPS and FedEx trucks.
  • Maybe the bright side of this is free, add driven cell phone service?
  • So how much will this slow "update" times?

    Let's say that we want to find a street corner is Seattle, do we have to wait an extra two minutes while it downloads an animated banner at 9600 bps?

    --Nicholas

  • Exactly my thoughts. If I want something, it's because it fills a need. If I want a new video card, it's specifications, cost and perhaps a little bit of 'their last card didn't suck'. If I want a new car, it's horsepower, aftermarket tweakability and reliability, I could care less about who's big, glossy print ads I've seen, or which company has more Prime Time commercials. In most cases, I'll look at the best advertised choices last, because in my book big ads mean big ad budget, meaning less R&D, quality control, and a bigger markup.

    Ever read the Cluetrain Manifesto? If only marketing and advertising had read and believed it, I honestly don't think they'd be contemplating this..
  • 911 my ass..

    It's so National Security and the FBI don't have to leave their cramped little cubes with triangulation gear to locate a cellphone. After all, that takes a bit of obvious effort, and you usually arouse suspicion when you do it, especially without a warrant..
  • Sort of adds a new twist to that old slogan.

    I can see it now:

    "Dear Consumer, according to our GPS data, you've been commuting 1.5 hours every day.
    We have a new house for sale coming up here.
    *beep* You're 1 mile from it
    *beep* You're 0.5 miles away
    *beep* Driving by now, c'mon take a look
    *beep* Your loss ... Enjoy your longtrip home

  • Maybe there is a new market in GPS scramblers opening up!

  • Suppose you are going to McDonald's and a 20% discount for the Burger King a block away pops up on your cell phone.

  • Re:Bad effects. (Score:3)

    by BMIComp ( 87596 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:20PM (#1044133)
    The thing is, advertisers know they're not going to get everyone's business, but they will get some people's attention, and will make some profit. The question is, at what cost...
  • 1: Presumably the whole system only works if there's some standard way for advertisers to query cellphones in a particular area. This would recquire the co-operation of your cellphone provider, and the standard spam-friendly opt-out advertising clauses in your contract.

    2: Because it helps them get their message across, which is their job, no matter how loathsome it may seem.

    3: Protest loudly, change your provider, don't use GPS apps that report your position to a central server.

  • If you don't like the idea of people knowing where you are, JUST DON'T USE IT !

    That will work as long as you can find a cellphone that doesn't broadcast your position. That also assumes that those that do will make that clear before you buy and sign up.

  • One of the digital providers is offering that now. The call gets charged to the caller unless they're on your VIP list.
  • I read this story in the Wall Street Journal about the political conflict in Zimbabwe. Basically, there was this guy who rebelled against the oppressive government and its leader, Mugabe. The guy ended up losing the fight, and switched to business instead.

    He started a cell phone provider, and it now has somewhere around 80% market share in Zimbabwe (really, how many cell phone providers can there be?).

    And as it was time for presidential elections to be held, guess what started popping up on all of the cell phones? Political messages endorsing the revolutionary candidate. It started as a message from one user to another, and it kept getting passed along until everyone in the country with a cell phone had gotten the message.

    The guy who owns the company claims not to have started it, but he certainly didn't do anything to stop it, even if it was taking up his network's bandwidth.

    I would post a link, but the WSJ is for-pay-only, sorry.

  • WHY:From the eshilon style monitoring system on your cell phone (logged to give advertisers better feedback on their adds effectivness)

    Wow - you mean someone will actualy know why I do what I do?

    Do you think they would tell me if I asked? :-)


    --
  • So how much will this slow "update" times?

    Let's say that we want to find a street corner is Seattle, do we have to wait an extra two minutes while it downloads an animated banner at 9600 bps?

    Hey, if you want a nightmare scenario:

    May 27, 2002; Monday

    Hey Bill!

    Late for work again. The traffic lights were jammed.

    I'm beginning to agree with your post on Slashdot: let's hire sacrificial hacker felons to take down the WorldWide Advertising Net!

    I can usually tolerate the extra ten seconds per intersection as the electronic billboards optimize themselves for the viewing audience, but at rush hour, there's just not enough bandwidth, and the billboard delays throw the entire traffic system out of sync.

    We should never have let Time-Warner subsidize our traffic lights. (Good thing my boss never knows when I'm late. His wife made him move to a fancy suburb -- they have Microslack, poor bastards. Now his commute is total obstacle course. They even rig cars to crash for the rubberneck factor. MS doesn't even pretend their crashes are accidental anymore)

    Speaking of Microslack crashes, that's why I was late. The Advertising Networks servers went down. I was stuck staring at those damn 'sponsored' BSOD's for over an hour.

    (BTW, I have to find a commuter route with a more compatible demographic -- if I have to see another Viagra ad, I'm getting a gun and doing some natural selection on those Viagra delivery boys on their little blue bikes and blue tights. I don't care if impulse purchases are up, I'm sick of them banging on my window. I mean do I *look* like I have that kind of problem? Heck no! I told them it was a one-time thing, because my wife was curious, but do they take me off their database? No! Instead they put my wife in. Man, when she found out I let that datum slip, I didn't need Viagra for a week -- because I was sleeping on the couch.)

    Well, I gotta sign off. The phone's ringing. God, I Miss the days when I didn't have to answer! But half the office has that GPS Callee ID now, so they know damn well I'm sitting right here.


    _____________
  • What if 100,000 businesses are using it? Do you really want a message every 10 yards or so, telling you you are near a Gap store, or Burger King? What if you don't like Whoppers, but love Big Macs? Would a message telling you you are near a BK really sway you?

  • The last mile (Score:5)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Friday May 26, 2000 @03:25PM (#1044154)
    Imagine, if you will, you're driving down the street and your cell phone shows an add for $2.00 off a 6 pack of beer. Interested, you pull into the store to buy your 6 pack at a really great price. Feeleing pretty good about your find, you open a beer and phone a friend to tell him about the deal as you drive home.

    The problem with this technology is it closes the "last mile" of the privacy gap.

    WHO:From the data on your frequant shopper card
    WHAT:From your caller ID number and credit card information.
    WHAT:From the data on your shopper card
    WHERE:From the GPS information triangulating your position with a time stamp.
    WHEN:From the time stamp in the GPS signal.
    WHY:From the eshilon style monitoring system on your cell phone (logged to give advertisers better feedback on their adds effectivness)

    ___

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