- Email: [email protected]
TV ads that know you
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Control your phone with a radio wave
Peter Melander/plainpicture
INSIGHT TV advertising
–What are you watching?–
TV ads that know you Networks are tapping into our personal data to show us tailored ads NEXT time you settle in for a night individuals using publicly available of television, pay attention to the data. Since January, satellite network adverts. Do they seem a little more Sky has worked with credit agency personal than usual? If so, you are not Experian to target households in the alone – TV networks are increasingly UK according to their income, whether using techniques borrowed from they own their home and other online advertising to show different demographic and lifestyle factors. In ads to different people in the hope of the US, the DirecTV network offers an better targeting customers. advertising company 200 household It used to be that everyone attributes to choose from. watching a channel saw the same ad Unlike online, ads aren’t microat the same time, with perhaps some targeted with products you have variation depending on your location. searched for. “We don’t chase you Now your neighbour with children “Some US networks target could see a toy ad, while you get one people based on their for luxury cars. This week it was voting record in an attempt revealed that some US networks have to scoop up swing voters” started targeting people based on their voting record as political parties attempt to scoop up swing voters. round the TV screen,” says Sky Targeted TV ads are now possible AdSmart director Jamie West. That’s thanks to the rise of smart set-top partly because it isn’t yet feasible to boxes. Networks designate a particular tailor expensive TV ads to very small 30 second slot as “addressable”, groups. Instead, networks run a meaning ads can be swapped in and maximum of 20 potential ads in one out, then download a collection of ads slot, says Jason Burke of clypd, a to your box in advance. When the slot Massachusetts-based firm that comes up, the box chooses which ad provides ad targeting services. to play based on your customer profile. It’s not as slick as it could be. Earlier Networks don’t know who is this year Sky ran a campaign for an ice watching TV at any one time, so cream company that only displayed they target households rather than ads in locations above a certain 22 | NewScientist | 6 September 2014
temperature, but these had to be switched on manually, says West. Companies like clypd are working on automated tools that can swap in the right ad with minimal human intervention. That means more specific targeting. A big supermarket could cross-reference its loyalty card database with a TV network and promote your favourite foods, say. Targeted ads seem to work. Sky says an ad for a music album, shown only to houses with kids aged 5 to 11, meant parents were twice as likely to discuss buying the album with their children. But there are privacy issues involved, say campaigners. “We are particularly concerned about the lack of transparency in relation to targeted ads,” says Elizabeth Knight of the Open Rights Group. “As behavioural tracking increases, it enables discrimination. Safeguards must be put in place.” Networks do allow customers to opt-out of targeting, but they may not be aware it is happening. Marketers have always matched ads to the likely audience of a programme, but this new generation goes much further. “Once you start to get down to household addressability, that’s a different story,” Burke says. Jacob Aron n
ALL you need to control a cellphone via hand gestures is the phone’s signal. The radio waves emitted by cellphones are reflected back to them in unique ways by hands – allowing gestures to be recognised. SideSwipe is the work of Matthew Reynolds and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle. It comprises an algorithm that recognises the unique reflections created when fingers interrupt a burst of the radio waves that send information between your phone and the cellphone mast. In tests with 10 volunteers, the program could recognise eight separate taps, four hovers and two sliding gestures with 87 per cent accuracy. The idea is to let people control their phones without having to touch them. “It enables interaction with the phone where touchscreens and camera-based sensors cannot work because they are occluded,” says Reynolds. So if the phone in your pocket rings loudly in a meeting, a wave of your fingers silences it, sending the call to voicemail. Or sliding hand motions can skip, change the volume or mute music tracks. SideSwipe will be presented at a user interface conference in Hawaii in October. The widespread use of basic 2G phones in the developing world means SideSwipe could bring gesture recognition to nonsmartphone users there, too, says Reynolds. Paul Marks n
Johan Lenell/Alamy
Technology
Control your phone with a radio wave
Peter Melander/plainpicture
INSIGHT TV advertising
–What are you watching?–
TV ads that know you Networks are tapping into our personal data to show us tailored ads NEXT time you settle in for a night individuals using publicly available of television, pay attention to the data. Since January, satellite network adverts. Do they seem a little more Sky has worked with credit agency personal than usual? If so, you are not Experian to target households in the alone – TV networks are increasingly UK according to their income, whether using techniques borrowed from they own their home and other online advertising to show different demographic and lifestyle factors. In ads to different people in the hope of the US, the DirecTV network offers an better targeting customers. advertising company 200 household It used to be that everyone attributes to choose from. watching a channel saw the same ad Unlike online, ads aren’t microat the same time, with perhaps some targeted with products you have variation depending on your location. searched for. “We don’t chase you Now your neighbour with children “Some US networks target could see a toy ad, while you get one people based on their for luxury cars. This week it was voting record in an attempt revealed that some US networks have to scoop up swing voters” started targeting people based on their voting record as political parties attempt to scoop up swing voters. round the TV screen,” says Sky Targeted TV ads are now possible AdSmart director Jamie West. That’s thanks to the rise of smart set-top partly because it isn’t yet feasible to boxes. Networks designate a particular tailor expensive TV ads to very small 30 second slot as “addressable”, groups. Instead, networks run a meaning ads can be swapped in and maximum of 20 potential ads in one out, then download a collection of ads slot, says Jason Burke of clypd, a to your box in advance. When the slot Massachusetts-based firm that comes up, the box chooses which ad provides ad targeting services. to play based on your customer profile. It’s not as slick as it could be. Earlier Networks don’t know who is this year Sky ran a campaign for an ice watching TV at any one time, so cream company that only displayed they target households rather than ads in locations above a certain 22 | NewScientist | 6 September 2014
temperature, but these had to be switched on manually, says West. Companies like clypd are working on automated tools that can swap in the right ad with minimal human intervention. That means more specific targeting. A big supermarket could cross-reference its loyalty card database with a TV network and promote your favourite foods, say. Targeted ads seem to work. Sky says an ad for a music album, shown only to houses with kids aged 5 to 11, meant parents were twice as likely to discuss buying the album with their children. But there are privacy issues involved, say campaigners. “We are particularly concerned about the lack of transparency in relation to targeted ads,” says Elizabeth Knight of the Open Rights Group. “As behavioural tracking increases, it enables discrimination. Safeguards must be put in place.” Networks do allow customers to opt-out of targeting, but they may not be aware it is happening. Marketers have always matched ads to the likely audience of a programme, but this new generation goes much further. “Once you start to get down to household addressability, that’s a different story,” Burke says. Jacob Aron n
ALL you need to control a cellphone via hand gestures is the phone’s signal. The radio waves emitted by cellphones are reflected back to them in unique ways by hands – allowing gestures to be recognised. SideSwipe is the work of Matthew Reynolds and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle. It comprises an algorithm that recognises the unique reflections created when fingers interrupt a burst of the radio waves that send information between your phone and the cellphone mast. In tests with 10 volunteers, the program could recognise eight separate taps, four hovers and two sliding gestures with 87 per cent accuracy. The idea is to let people control their phones without having to touch them. “It enables interaction with the phone where touchscreens and camera-based sensors cannot work because they are occluded,” says Reynolds. So if the phone in your pocket rings loudly in a meeting, a wave of your fingers silences it, sending the call to voicemail. Or sliding hand motions can skip, change the volume or mute music tracks. SideSwipe will be presented at a user interface conference in Hawaii in October. The widespread use of basic 2G phones in the developing world means SideSwipe could bring gesture recognition to nonsmartphone users there, too, says Reynolds. Paul Marks n
Johan Lenell/Alamy
Technology