20 Dec
2009
20 Dec
'09
5:19 a.m.
On 20/12/2009 05:29, John Foust wrote:
At 09:05 PM 12/19/2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Ideally, I'd want something cheap, about half the size of a credit
> card (so it's not easy to lose) that cost about a quarter in
> quantities of 1000. Should hold a megabyte or two and be readable
> on any computer or mobile device. Write-once is okay, as long as
> read-lots is supported. What fills that role today?
Email. :-)
And vCards, by whatever transmission media. OK, not megabytes, but
enough for a collection of personal information.
These days, how hard would be it be to modem-tone a
URL at the
end of a radio advert or a TV advert?
And what would listen to anything as ancient as modem tones?
Why aren't street billboards
emitting useful data via Bluetooth and WiFi? Why am I looking at an ad
and then still typing the URL on my Internet-connected phone?
WiFi is a bit of a non-starter for that. Firstly, you'd have to
associate with the access point. Then there's no concept of a broadcast
message in the way you'd want. You'd need something else further up the
protocol stack to carry an ad, and then people would only see it if they
did something like open a particular website, or were running some
client to accept the messages.
OTOH, there is a provision to do these things with Bluetooth, because
the mechanisms -- like the broadcast message concept -- are built into
the protocol stack by design (the OPP profile for example). And there's
plenty of software out there to use it. Look up "placecasting" and
"bluetooth broadcast".
You can also do things like that with SMS Cell Broadcast, but it's
generally reserved for emergencies, rather than advertising.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York