Author Archives: Curtis J. Morley

Minority Report Advertising (Mini Cooper style)

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“Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto,” the interactive poster states loudly for Tom Cruise with newly implanted eyes and everyone else to hear. “How did you like that three-pack of tank tops you bought last time you were in?”
Minority Report - Retinal Scan

Earlier in the movie a sign in the subway senses the emotion of Tom Cruise in the subway and says “John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right now.” Very similar to what Ogilivy did with interactive billboards in Belgium. Only they had a person in a control booth manipulating the action(see below). In Toronto they are doing a slightly different idea where you can opt in to receive a free ringtone via bluetooth.
Minority Report - Advertising

Jeff Boortz the creative lead for the film and President of 3 Ring Circus had this to say about the content, “Originally, the whole idea, from a script point of view, was that the advertisements would recognize you — not only recognize you, but recognize your state of mind…”

Ogilivy did a great job of creating interactive ads but added the human (or Wizard of Oz) effect in creating billboards that interact with the person in front of the sign. The face on the sign changes and interacts with the person standing in front of it. It is an actor that views the people through a video camera in the sign and reacts to them(and at times makes fun of them).

Ford Campaign in BelgiumInteractive Poster in Belgium designed by Ogilivy

So how is Mini cooper doing this today? They have sent out approximately 4500 RFID key Fobs that are activated when the driver gets within 500 ft of the billboard.  It is getting a ton of publicity and the drivers of the little speedsters are loving the personal attention that only comes by being part of “The Club.”
Mini Cooper Interactive Billboard Mini Cooper Interactive Billboard

This is obviously an opt-in style of personalized advertising. But how real is the possibility of “Minority Report Advertising?” In Minority Report “identification of consumers happens via retinal scans, which are presumably matched with names in a global database.”

Will we need to wear sunglasses some day or specially designed contacts to prevent the advertising from
announcing personal or embarrassing items. The grocery stores already give you a coupon on the bottom of your reciept that allows you to buy milk at a discount if you bought cereal or salad dressing if you purchased lettuce. I would hate to hear the computer announce to myself and others as I walk into my local Albertsons, “Welcome Mr. Morley, your favorite brand of tampons are on sale.” Just because the last time I went shopping I happened to pick up some things for my wife.

So how could they identify us currently?

  • Cell phones – It has a unique number, it is with us constantly and the French are using cell phones to do location advertising currently.
  • Key Fob – Most employees will carry around an electronic key card that allows them into a building these have personal identifiers on them such as name and company.
  • PDA – My PDA has Bluetooth, IR, and Wifi and much personal information.
  • Gaming Device – PSP among others have wireless capabilities. Why not send a simple signal out to the advertising terminal as a kid walks into target to display a companion game or upgrade for the game that is currently being played?
  • Credit Cards – Newer cards are containing RFID and can be scan rathered than slid.
  • Medical Devices – Medical devices are being tagged with personal identifiers in case of theft.
  • Medical ID tags – A simple scan of a necklace or wrist bracelet with a small amount of OCR and the person is easily identified.
  • Cars – GM and OnStar, Honda, Infiniti etc… all have a GPS device within the car. This data can be read and matched with DMV records at any time.
  • GPS Devices
  • Facial Recognition software – The creepy big brother devices that I saw at ComDEX. The camera took a picture of me and from that point on any time I was even close to booth the camera locked onto me and displayed my name and info.
  • Retinal scanners -already at use in some airports
  • Watches – Fossil, among others, are now carrying a bluetooth line of watches.
  • Pets – Most pets are now carrying an identification chip inside of them that could easily be used to change an interactive poster into an advertisement of dog food or the latest in neutering.

How could they identify us in the future?

  • Gene scans – This is a scary thought but some day could be a reality.
  • Drivers License – Technology here continues to advance. Why not embed an RFID into the license so that officers have instant access to your info without putting themselves in danger by getting out of their car?
  • mp3 Players – Go iPhone

So what are your thoughts?

Should we be looking out for “Big Brother” or is this just a natural progression of technology and advertising?
How will corporations and governments start advertising/tracking us in the future?
A great link to a blog by Steve Smith and Phil Leggiere about Behavioral Marketing and Behavioral Targeting

Effective way to Test Dynamic Data from Server and in Flash Authoring Tool

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Say you have a Flash widget that you need to put on the server to receive dynamic data yet you want to test it in Flash with all of your nice trace(); statements etc… The only trouble is that when you post it to the server you always forget to comment out the values that you test with. These are the hard coded values you typed into the file or Class. You don’t want to have to remember each time you FTP the file up to the server to comment out those pesky variables that are critical for testing in the Flash authoring tool.

The solution to the problem is quite simple. All you need to do is ask Flash where it lives. You do this by having Flash ask what is its URL using this._url

Here is the code:

if (this._url.substr(0,5) == "file:")
{
var fillBytes:Number=978;
var totalBytes:Number=2712;
}

Here is the explanation:

  1. Setup a conditional statement - if()
  2. Because anything run in Flash will be located at a file path, ask if the location(_url) name starts with the characters "file:" - this._url.substr(0,5) == "file:"
  3. If the answer is yes then set your variables - var totalBytes:Number = 2712

A web address will never start with the characters "file:" but rather "http" or the name of a subdomain. Because of this the variables will not yet be defined when the file is on the server and your .swf will be ready to receive anything the server has to throw at it. And yet, you will always be able to test it in the Flash authoring environment.

Happy Flashing

Google Analytics and Flash

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I am putting up a test experiment for a Flash class that I built that will add a lot of functionality to the Google Analytics. Please help me test out my class by simply playing with the Flash objects below. Mouse over them click on them, just leave your mouse alone and do nothing at all.

The purpose of this Flash and Google Analytics experiment is to get more granular data about how the user interacts with the Flash object. The class I’ve created will tell me how long it takes people before they interact with the piece, how long they are interacting with it, how many times the user mouses-over, clicks, etc…

Thanks for the help in testing this. I will post results next week.

Floating Planes

Utah Videographer gets National Attention from Business Week

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My friend Cammon Randle of CopperRain.com has received some big attention from Business Week Magazine He was selected as one of the Top 25 under 25 entrepreneurs in the nation.  You should go and check out the article.  It is a good article.

Check out the links below:

Business Week Top 25 under 25
Cammon Randle’s  Bio can be found Here

Great Job Cammon and keep up the good work.

Why I wish I had DirectPointe at Home or Blue Screen of “Boredom”?

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So, the other day I started my computer and it seemed to boot normally. I logged into to my user account and then I waited for my computer to boot up,
and waited…………..
and waited…………………………………
and waited……………………………………………………….
and waited…………………………………………………………………………………
and the only thing on the screen was a nice solid blue background and my mouse. I could tell that my computer was running because I could move the mouse and the fan would kick on. But there were no icons, no start menu, no taskbar or any bars of any kind.

It scared the livin’ bah-jeebers out of me (and I got really bored waiting)
That same day my wife let me know that she has “a virus thingy” on her computer. So I had to use her virused computer to research why my blue screen of death (no, boredom) computer wouldn’t load up anything.

It turns out that with the help of many forums that I was able to get my computer back to normal. It turns out that windows explorer was not starting.

I know – weird! You’re probably thinking why would windows explorer not start? I was thinking the same thing.
It still has the same issues but I simply open “Windows Task Manager” (hit CTRL + ALT + DELETE) and then I click on “New Task” and this brings up a dialog box that looks like this-

Task Manager

If you are having this same issue just put in the path to start Windows Explorer “C:\windows\explorer.exe” and click “OK” and you should be fine. I suspect that it has something to do with the new hard drive I purchased and how I disconnect it from my laptop.

Directpointe could have figured out my problem using the remote support tool that they have and could have solved my wifes virus problem before she even got it. The computer support that DirectPointe has is fantastic and virtually bulletproof.

As it was I had to do the computer data backup myself and then restore the system from the ground up. That got rid of her viruses and it got rid of about 2 hours of my time. The reinstall of Microsoft Windows sped up the computer dramatically but for some reason the restore CD’s didn’t put in all of the drivers. So there are some components that are still missing the drivers.

So to wrap up the story, I still get the “Blue Screen of Boredom” every time I use my “myBook” hard drive with my laptop and my wife is missing drivers to her computer, and I really wish I had the Outsource my IT to DirectPointe for my home.

The Greatest Mozilla Firefox Extension Ever.

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So I was surfing the other day and I came across a Mozilla Add-on that is fantastic. This Firefox Extension is a huge time saver and an amazingly wonderful tool for any Flash Developers out there.

Of course this Firefox extension was built by Alessandro Crugnola of Sephiroth. It takes a someone like Alessandro to make such a useful tool.

Download Flash Switcher here. http://www.sephiroth.it/weblog/archives/2006/10/flash_switcher_for_firefox.php
For those of you not familiar with how extensions work you will want to download the extension (.xpi file). Open it from the download window and then when the download window asks what program to open it with find Firefox.

This should bring up a window like this:

Install Flash Switcher

Click “Install Now” and then after you restart look for it down in the corner of the browser.

This Firefox Extension is a must for any serious Flash Developer
Happy Flashing with all versions of the Flash Plugin

P.S. My second favorite extension is the myStickies

A 3 Hour Tour or – What I Learned in Traffic School

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Traffic School was actually fun. Only in Utah can you attend traffic school and have two people that you know directly, one person that you find is related to you and and the neighbor of your brother all attending the same class. One of the best parts is that I used WordPress to write this entire blog post on my PDA while in class. My only regret is that they didn’t have the video of the German convicts that volunteer to crash cars into trees and roll off of embankments. If anyone has knowledge of where to find this I would be much obliged.
So I picked up many great tidbits of information and thought that the world should know them. Here they are along with my comments:

  1. Cops have Photo Id when they pull up your drivers license. (So don’t lie about who you are or they will take you to jail.) Continue reading →

My drop down menus are behind my Flash

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Have you loaded up a Flash file and now your drop down menus are all a mess because they go behind your Flash instead of on top? Did you try changing the zIndex of your iFrame or try to put iFrames behind the menu to push it to the top? Does your drop down menu look like this?
wmodeBehind
But you wish it would look like this.
No wmode = transparent property
Well forget all the iFrame business and and feel relieved because all that is neccessary is to simply include the wmode parameter in your HTML. All you need is a little love and a simple tag and you should be fine.

To get started you should be using either swfObject or the Adobe AC_RunActiveContent.js to embed your Flash. I highly suggest the swfObject Flash Detection scripts because of how complete it is. swfObject combines Active content activation, Flash detection, Flash Express Install, and is search engine friendly.

Below you will find the wmode code for each method so that you can have menu systems like everyone else on the web.

Code – swfObject – var so = new SWFObject("myFlashMovie.swf", "mymovie", "200", "100%", "7", "#336699");

so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.addParam("salign", "t");
so.write("flashcontent");

Code – AC_RunActiveContent.js- AC_FL_RunContent(‘codebase’,’http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0′,’width’,’550′,’height’,’400′,’align’,’middle’,’src’,’myFlashMovie’,’quality’,’high’,’name’,’myFlashMovie’,’pluginspage’,’http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer’,’movie’,’myFlashMovie’,’wmode’,’transparent’);

Make sure that you have an even number of parameters with the example above or it will break it.Other links about the issue:

Stephanie Sullivan article on Community MX
Interakt Online Article
http://menumachine.com/kb/65
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/archive/index.php3/t-101350.html