Clear Channel Plans To Roll Out Digital Billboards

Tree131 writes "Just in case you don't have enough distractions driving on the highway, Clear Channel is planning to roll out digital billboards. The new billboards will feature ads that depend on the time of day as well as the general area demographics. I wonder how long before someone with lots of time on their hands hacks into the system and starts tampering with the messages."

How long until it's hacked?

[Neil Blender]

I'd say about as quickly as my cable has been hacked to tamper with the commercials and programming I watch.

Well, just call some Congressional hearings

[ObviousGuy]

Clear Channel can then bend over and take it in the ass like they have no the Free Speech issue.

We demonize Clear Channel as this media goliath that can't be hurt or tamed by anything, but the way they are fellating the government lately, it seems like they are willing to do anything with the right incentive.

The question is how to persuade them to support Free Speech and good music.

Lawyers

[noelo]

Are going to love this. Imagine the number of court cases which will litigate agains CC when they claim that the driver was distracted by the billboards. I wonder how this will relate to the laws which are being considered for banning in-car dvd players....

Too many temptations

[eekrano]

"I wonder how long before someone with lots of time on their hands hacks into the system and starts tampering with the messages." Who's going to need 'alot of time on thier hands' to start working on this? This could be better than revengeworld.com for the more sadistic and technically capable out there. So who's willing to throw in on how long after the first one's up does it get hacked? This billboard could be entertaining in more ways than 1!

Re:Synergy with radio

[jafuser]

How long do you think it'll be before they OCR your license plate using cameras spread around town, track where you go, where you park, and then advertise to you based on your shopping habits?

They wouldn't even need to necessarily know your name or anything, but your license plate would make for a nice unique identifier, like a browser cookie holding a UUID.

When you're driving down the highway these dynamic billboards can then adjust the advertisment to fit whatever "average" ad best fits the group of cars who have the billboard in view.

With enough cameras installed around a city, and a little fancy tag recognition + OCR technology, I don't see what's to stop them from being able to do this now.

Oh, I dunno...

[raehl]

Maybe by properly supervising your children?

Seriously, how often are your kids far enough away that you can't hear what's going on?

Re:How long until it's hacked?

[jigyasubalak]

I wonder why the nerds who post stories, almost always, assume that the system is gonna be networked? Why can't it be assumed to be run out of a plain old DVD player or something not networked, for a change?

digital billboard light pollution

[chongo]

My concern with the digital billboards that I have seen is they add to the light pollution [darksky.org] of the nighttime sky [skyandtelescope.com]. In the silicon valley we have two on 101 (Redwood City and Santa Clara) that spew photons across the spectrum at a glaring rate.

If ClearChannel is going to insist pushing these digital billboards with "time of day" related messages, then I hope they will turn down the brightness of their billboards at night as well.