Why you might soon think you're hearing things

Why you might soon think you're hearing things: "A technology that beams sound directly into people's ears has advertisers salivating, but as Vito Pilieci writes, critics fear yet another invasion of privacy. After more than a decade of development, technology that directs a beam of sound straight into a person's eardrums is ready for primetime. The technology works by beaming waves of hypersonic sound at a pitch that is undetectable by the human ear. The waves continue until they smash into an object such as a person's body. The waves then slow, mix and re-create the original audio broadcast. If the person steps out of the waves, they are no longer obstructed and are rendered inaudible."

(Via CANADA.COM)

Neuromarketing: the ad-man's ultimate tool

Neuromarketing: the ad-man's ultimate tool: "Neuroscience and marketing had a love child a few years back. Its name - big surprise - is neuromarketing, and the ugly little fellow is growing up. Corporate pitchmen have always wanted to get inside our skulls. The more accurately they can predict how we'll react to stimuli in the marketplace, from prices to packages to adverts, the more money they can pull from our pockets and transfer to their employers' coffers."

Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You

To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You - New York Times: "A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user several hundred times a month.

These companies use that information to predict what content and advertisements people most likely want to see. They can charge steep prices for carefully tailored ads because of their high response rates.

The analysis, conducted for The New York Times by the research firm comScore, provides what advertising executives say is the first broad estimate of the amount of consumer data that is transmitted to Internet companies."

(Via NYT .)

Global ID a step closer

Asset Protection BLOG - Mark Nestmann: What's Worse than a National ID? How About a Global One?: " the infrastructure for a global identification system is being put in place by a consortium of commercial entities, and government agencies, and non-profit organizations... A nearly-invisible organization called the Federation for Identity and Cross-Credentialing Systems (http://www.fixs.org) has created what it calls the first "worldwide, interoperable identity and cross-credentialing network." Now installed at numerous U.S. military installations and government offices, the FIXS network is now ready for global deployment."

(Via nestmannblog.sovereignsociety.com.)

Sideline Photographers To Wear "Advertising" Vests

Ad Creep: NFL Says Sideline Photographers Will Have To Wear "Advertising" Vests - Consumerist: "The NFL says that sideline photographers will have to wear branded vests with Canon and Reebok logos this year, according to Editor and Publisher.

The National Press Photographer's Association is having none of it:

After receiving the NFL letter, NPPA Executive Director Jim Straight said, 'We reaffirm our dissension on the vest's logos based on our ethical standards, and we hope that our members - with the consultation of their employers - seek out professional and responsible ways to avoid endorsing a corporate product while acting in a journalistic manner.'

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Microsoft buys cred from bloggers

How corporations still control the marketing conversation: "A group of prominent technology bloggers last month found themselves in hot water after they agreed to lend their words and names to Microsoft's 'People Ready' marketing campaign. The bloggers, all associated with the Federated Media advertising network, wrote brief statements describing how their own businesses became 'people ready'. The statements appeared in Microsoft ads on their blogs and were also collected on a site promoting the software company."

(Via .)

Persuasive Casino Design

Ten things 2007 - a class with Michael Shanks about design: Analysis of Casino Design: "A prodigious amount of thought goes into the design and layout of a casino’s gambling floor. The layout of slot machines and card tables is carefully designed in order to maximize the casino’s profits and lure customers into the games. Casinos are generally designed so that patrons must walk through or at least around the periphery of several slot machine blocks to move around the casino, to maximize the customers’ exposure to the exciting sights and sounds of the slot machines, and especially of others winning on the machines.

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Architectures of Control

Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments. This site aims—with readers’ input—to examine and analyse the ideas and techniques of these architectures of control in design, through examples and anecdotes, and by keeping up-to-date with relevant developments. Link.

MediaCart Shopping-Cart Ad System

Advertising Age - Research Team Develops Shopping-Cart Ad System: " Each video screen is embedded with an RFID chip that interacts with chips installed on store shelves about every two feet. Without it, there would be no way to create point-of-decision advertising -- so a shopper strolling in the soda aisle would get an offer for Pepsi, for example -- a capability that could radically upend conventional in-store marketing practices... Beyond advertising, the system also promises to offer data insights long sought by consumer-product marketers. 'This will give you second-by-second data on shopping habits, dwell times, what aisles shoppers go down,' Mr. Kramer said. 'That's information that has never before been available.' "

(Via Ad Age.)

The Catalogue

The Catalogue: "This is great! This excellent independent video production looks like the not too distant future of tagged humans and a society without privacy.Requires Apple Quicktime… The Catalogue

(Via Freedom Is Slavery.)

NeuroPop's exclusive Neurosensory Algorithms

Neuropop Sound Design: "We can change your mind"

NeuroPop's exclusive Neurosensory Algorithms (NSA) are the heart of our sound design and musical composition technology. NSAs will lock your audience's attention, change their perceptions, alter their mood, or even make them dance by using patented NSA technology."

Download the PDF

"Adjust your audience’s perceptual, attentional or emotional state by employing Neurosensory Algorithms (NSAs). NSAs use specially designed sounds to excite parts of the brain involved in processing sensory localization, emotional reaction and memory formation."

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Pentagon Funds Psyops

Pentagon Funds Psyops: "The Pentagon awarded three contracts this week, potentially worth up to $300 million over five years, to companies it hopes will inject more creativity into its psychological operations efforts to improve foreign public opinion about the United States, particularly the military."

(Via Washington Post.)

Market research: Mind reading

Market research: Mind reading - Market Research Bulletin - Market Research news by Email - Brand Republic: "Two types of scanning are currently on offer as market research tools. One is fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), which involves a large, immobile scanner. The other is a variant of EEG (electroencephalography), which has evolved into a highly portable mechanism, small enough to fit inside a hat, that measures electrical activity in the brain. Both have their pros and cons: fMRI offers a far more detailed scan than EEG, but subjects must stay in the lab. EEG can be taken to a consumer's natural habitat, such as a home or shopping centre. It also provides many more readings per second, making it easier to see exactly when changes in brain activity occur."

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