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Ads That Target You Using Your Skin

Ewigen Zyniker, Oct 14, 2008 0850 hrs IST

Prepare for the new Body Area Network

It's all very well to talk about wired and wireless networks, but scientists have also been working on a network that uses your skin to transmit signals. These networks will be far more efficient than current technologies like Bluetooth, but won't sacrifice the wire-free nature of these technologies. Now, scientists at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Korea are working on a way to use these "body-area networks" to connect you to the advertisements that are relevant only to you. Instead of being bombarded by posters and billboards that don't mean anything to you, you walk up to an electronic poster and touch it. The poster uses information about you (collected from your cell phone) to decide which ads to show you.

While this is a little reminiscent of the Minority Report=like system that looks at your eyes to find out who you are, this system lets you walk up to the ads when you want to. Which is why marketing companies are going to hate it.