Clear Channel Plans To Roll Out Digital Billboards 300
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."
Re:Lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
Living outside of Taipei and commuting into town, I'm already exposed to quite a few digital billboards. I think they're cool and seem perfectly normal in Taiwan, but it's worth noting that Taiwan's sign standards are a lot closer to Vegas than any other western city I've seen. And I recall that in San Diego and LA even flashing neon signs are prohibited except in certain "historical" districts.
Adding that with California's prohibition on front seet LCDs makes it seem this is going to be a difficult trick to pull off at least in California.
Windows Error messages (Score:5, Interesting)
This is Funny (Score:5, Interesting)
Turns out it was a billboard company in Salt Lake who after I contacted them really didnt care that they're systems were out there broadcasting their SSID's and assigning people's laptops a friggin IP!!
I'm curious if someone's managed to redesign a few billboards out there.
Synergy with radio (Score:5, Interesting)
Their killer app will be to link together packages that promise to reach a certain number of impressions to a given demographic.. based on who's expected to drive by at the hours that the given ad is up. That's what ad buyers really want, is to only count the people who are likely to consider buying the product being pitched... everyone else doesn't count. Doing it this way, they'll be able to get more milage out of their existing boards.
Re:This is Funny (Score:2, Interesting)
A far more interesting hack would be to 'Own' the billboard and be able to grab ahold and do things to the machines of people driving by. If the billboard is assigning an IP it should try to do something with all those nice machines, afterall.
Driver has seizure....... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think that there, perhaps, should be a strict limit on how many different types of distractions a driver can be legally exposed to before it is no longer their fault when they crash. This could be a sort of self solving problem, whereby advertisers will not advertise in high accident locations due to legislation saying that they are in fact responsible for the accidents in said locations.
I also happen to agree very strongly with the school of thought that DVD players in Vehicles should not have screens in a location visible to the driver, PERIOD. There should not even be a discussion on this, it is just stupid. Would you put a strobe light on your steering wheel and drive at night with it on? Probably not, but I guarantee that there is someone out there stupid enough to try it.
At any rate, there has to be a limit imposed on some of this at some point in the near future. It is a proven fact that aboslutely no profit driven business will regulate themselves at the cost of the bottom line, whether it means indirectly causing death in the mean time or not.
Re:Lawyers (Score:2, Interesting)
First, moving images and flashy graphics would definately be a no-no. As long as the image stayed somewhat static it wouldn't be a big distraction to drivers. Just as billboards today can have as many bright colors and some even have flashy glittering tin-foil-type-stuff to draw attention, they do not attempt to sustain the driver's constaint attention.
second, although the brightness would certainly have to be scalable for daylight versus night conditions, there would have to be a maximum brightness at night so as not to blind drivers and/or distract them too much. There are plenty of mega-trons at car dealerships on the side of major freeways, and they are certainly prevalent in Las Vegas. None of those guys have been sued for distracting drivers and causing wrecks...
just a thought...
News... (Score:2, Interesting)
cabs in Boston (Score:5, Interesting)
Boston's cabs have started sprouting Super(with a capital S) bright orange LED panels on top. They are displaying sports scores, or maybe very short news bits. Because of the brightness, they are virtually impossible to ignore, and exceptionally annoying. I'm almost positive I saw a Clear Channel logo at the bottom of the sign unit.
Screw Microsoft- there's plenty of competition these days. It's Clear Channel and the other super-huge media conglomerates that really frighten me.
At least the signs aren't animated. I give them about 6 months to figure that out. Personally, I hope someone takes Clear Channel to court over the existing signs violating some motor vehicle law.
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:5, Interesting)
To use Rush Limbaugh as an example, he would have been just as big had he been a militant liberal for the simple fact that he and his show were entertaining. During his peak period, I listened every morning...not because I agreed with all (any?) of his opinions, but because it was good listening. These days, when I get up early enough, I listen to Don Imus [in the Morning] and disagree with at least half of his rants (many of them leftist - he's on the Kerry bandwagon at the moment). But it's a good show, so I enjoy it.
It's not always (almost never?) content that makes people listen to radio shows. It's how the show is put together and the quality of the host(s). These media companies know that better than anybody.
Re:Too many temptations (Score:3, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with sniffing the radio in my car. This has everything to do with sniffing the signal from a Clear Channel FM station to the billboard. Picking up the 50 KW signal and looking at it's SCA subcarriers for data to the billboards is the sniffing mentioned. Replacing the signal from a 50 KW Clear Channel station in the area of the billboard to put in a hacked signal to the billboard is the competing with the 50 KW station mentioned.
Sorry I didn't make it super clear in my original post.
Can't move (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why do you think they call them BillBoards, any (Score:4, Interesting)
Was? It's about 50 feet north of the Pierce/King county line, visible from I-5 (large full-color northbound, smaller partial-color southbound), featuring full-otion video, and (northbound) bright enough at night to make me squint. When it went in, accident rate along that portion of the freeway jumped up something like 10%, and people fought to have it removed. Unfortunately, it's still there, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who dreams of taking a wide-spread shotgun to it every time I see it.
Re:Fuck Clear Channel (Score:1, Interesting)
First, Stern is NOT a Clear Channel employee. If you read the headlines, you'd think they're firing him/taking him off the air. Clear Channel is taking him off the stations they own. That is 6 stations out of 41 [koam.com]. Next, people should be mad a the FCC and writing to their congressman about passing such asinine laws. I know everyone loves to hate Clear Channel, but if a syndicated personallity was costing you a boatload of $$, you'd be switching shows as well.
Lastly I don't see how people relate this to censorship. A radio conglomerate dropping your syndicated show for finacial risks isn't exactly "The Man" trying to shut you down and squash your message.
Again, I TOTALLY disagree with all that's going on, I just feel the news outlets are mis-representing what's going on.
Re:Lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
That was bad enough, but the crowning stupidity, for which (possibly) the board was legally shutdown, was that it was right at the top of a ramp onto the highway. So, you're roaring up the ramp (uphill!) trying to get up to highway cruising speed to merge with a couple of 18-wheelers, dividing your attention between other vehicles on the ramp and the oncoming juggernauts and suddenly there's this row of red, flashing lights demanding attention...
I swear, if it hadn't been shutdown within a couple of days, I might have made a special trip to WalMart to get a baseball bat or a can of spray paint... Dumbasses put the flashing sign at waist-height, too, so it wouldn't have been difficult to deal with.
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How long until it's hacked? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, I can't see this running over the net or WiFi unless they're _really_ stupid but, having said that, we've seen VB cash machines so who knows?
Re:In France... (Score:3, Interesting)
I always ask myself if so much advertising, if unrestricted advertising is really productive. If it does something good to the economy as a whole. If it would not be better to restrict advertisements to a certain level(?)
It seems to me that today's advertisements do not inform about new products but instead are just there because if a company does not advertise, all other companies will advertise and therefore cut away the market share. I am no economist but that looks counter-productive to me. The money could be used to offer better products instead.
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:3, Interesting)
BS. Total BS. Why was Stern pulled off the air where he was #1 in the ratings? You don't pull your number one show unless you are in bed with the FCC, and they "make you an offer you can't refuse." Remember, he was pulled from the air before any fines were levied, and he wasn't even told he was being pulled. And it was for a year old comment made by a listener. Yet the words used in that comment can be heard on network TV today.
The whole thing reeks, and it isn't just with Stern. There are many other shows that have been treated like this, he is just the highest profile one. Yet some shows are allowed to slide. Hmm, I wonder why....
Re:How long until it's hacked? (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't have to be networked to get hacked. If it's a DVD player, for instance, it could be hacked by climbing up the ladder to where the DVD player is located and swapping out the advertising disc with "Real Butts 14".
More likely the displays have a small amount of solid-state storage in them, and a serial port so they can be updated by plugging a laptop into them.