Bluetooth Ads Beamed from Billboards

dylanduck writes "Billboards in the UK have been using Bluetooth to beam media clips at passing cellular phones. The system has been dubbed Bluecasting and 17,000 people accepted the ads. When billboards know your name that's when to really worry."

Re:bluetooth spam to your phone..

[freitasm]

You an still have Bluetooth [On], just don't set it to [Discoverable]. What's the big deal?

For goodness sake folks, just use the technology, it provides the tools for that.

Re:Great...

[AEton]

These are billboards at railway stations.

Funny how many comments got this wrong....

Re:Cool

[merreborn]

So I wonder if these ads cost you money each time you drive past one of the billboards

Last I heard, there's no charge for bluetooth datatransfer. Bluetooth is like wifi, not like SMS.

Re:Cool

[gjh]

In the rest of the civilized world, receiving an SMS costs you nothing either. It amazes me that that US operators can get away with squeezing the customer for money to receive unsolicited SMS messages.

Re:Thank God.

[plover]

Bluetooth is way useful and almost magical for many applications. The ones I use include: totally hands-free car operation (my car's bluetooth module connects to my phone when I turn on the ignition, and mutes the car stereo and uses the stereo speakers for phone audio;) instant palmtop network access (no hunting for free wifi nodes;) exchanging business cards / appointments / contacts / pictures / ringtones with other people; installing games, etc. I have also been a very happy user of floAt's Mobile Agent's proximity feature: when I walk away from my desk, it locks itself. Bluetooth is so useful to me that I wouldn't even consider Verizon, who sell phones with crippled Bluetooth in order to charge their victims into MMSing pictures over their network for an extra charge.

Did you uninstall your browser because of advertisements? Did you stop riding the bus because they have posters inside advertising stuff? Did you give up all email because you got a spam? Did you throw your phone in disgust when AT&T sent you an SMS ad? Did you stop watching television because of commercials? (OK, bad example :-) No, you probably installed Adblock, or a filtering proxy like the proxomitron. You may have installed a spam filter on your email. You might have bought a TiVo or ReplayTV to avoid the commercials. And who knows, maybe you did give up public transit because of advertising.

Avoiding Bluespam is easier than any of the above. If you simply don't turn discovery "on" your machine won't answer their spamspitter. Period. And there really isn't a valid technical reason to turn discovery on and leave it on unless you're 'toothing' (looking for anonymous MOTAS.) As a matter of fact, Motorola doesn't even allow the option of leaving discovery on for more than 60 seconds, it's that unneeded. Saying "no Bluetooth because I might get an ad if I ever travel to London" is a completely over the top over-reaction.

As an aside, if you're looking for the best bluetooth functionality in a phone, go Sony-Ericsson. Motorola's bluetooth stack is very buggy and their functionality incomplete. I'm way unhappy with my new Razr.

Re:Sci-Fi

[Anonymous Coward]

Minority Report was based on a Philip K Dick novel from the 60s, so i'd say it goes a fair way further back than the 80s aswell.