Tag Archives: camera

The Future of Advertising

I have been thinking about the world of advertising in the age of social media. No longer do we consume advertisements exclusively through television, print and billboards; we have many media channels and opportunities to learn about new products. Customized ads are pushed to our computers and smartphones, sometimes taking advantage of our proximity to a particular retail outlet. Advertisers have to divide their dollars much differently in the 21st century but have the opportunity to target a much narrower demographic with their pitch.

A recent article in my local paper highlights how this advertising shift is compounded by an array of new technologies. Retailers and manufacturers can now use technology to custom deliver advertising to consumers, even from a billboard. In this blog post I explore some of the technologies available and in development to help advertisers convert their message into sales.

Smart Billboards

Traditional billboards are static, giant advertisements that reach every driver in a shotgun approach. It is a one size fits all model and while they are potentially reaching thousands of drivers every day, depending on their location, the sales conversion rate is fairly low. The next step was to create digital billboards which can shuffle through several ads in hopes of appealing to a range of drivers. There is one on an interstate near me that is very bright and annoying, especially at night. This, like the static billboard, is random in that they are targeting a very broad demographic that may be on the highway at a particular time of day.

Smart billboards are an attempt to remove the randomness. Synaps Labs has created the first smart billboard in Moscow and will bring their technology to the U.S. sometime this year. This billboard is a combination of connected cameras and machine learning. Cameras are set up ahead of the billboard and when a particular model of car is detected, the billboard will display an advertisement targeted at that driver. The billboard in Moscow had ads for Jaguar cars. The advertisers decided that particular brands of Volvos and BMWs housed drivers that may be enticed to switch to Jaguar. Advertisers are still making demographic assumptions based on a car model but they are narrowing their target audience. The picture also changes depending on whether it is night or day or summer or winter. An advertiser could play with many variables at once. Going beyond the billboard, they could also push the same ad to the driver’s cellphone as an extension or reiteration of the message.

The Future of Billboards

Advertisers are looking forward to a world of autonomous vehicles where drivers/riders have the freedom to look around instead of concentrating on the road. In this future, a consumer can follow up on the impulse to purchase the advertised item while still in the car. Better yet, with a corresponding push to the smartphone, that purchase could be only one click away. While this is intriguing to advertisers, they are asking a fundamental question about consumer behavior: when riders are free to do and look at anything, will they actually be concentrating on billboards or will they be buried in their smartphone or on-board entertainment system?

Thoughts

With modern technologies there are many possible outcomes and it will take a lot of trial and error until we understand how people will behave. Do you think targeted ads on billboards would sway you? Does your car really represent your demographic, or is that grasping at straws? What is the future of advertising in the digital world? Do you think that we are becoming more discerning consumers? Let me know your thoughts.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

High Tech Fire Watch

Photograph of smoke from wildfire in the mountains.We are in the middle of fire season here in the Northwest. This has been a hot, dry summer so the threat of wildfire is great. Several of my friends have worked on fire crews at some point so I wondered about the role technology plays in fighting wildfires. I was delighted to find that someone had blazed that trail before me and technology plays a role not only in fire fighting but also in fire protection. In this blog post I will focus on technology in fire protection. I will dedicate an upcoming post to technology in fire fighting.

Eye In The Sky

I was amazed to find that many of the rustic fire towers perched on mountaintops in California, Oregon, and Washington are decommissioned. In a recent article in Outside magazine the authors report that fewer than 35% of the towers are still manned. Due to budget cuts, fire watchers have largely been replaced by a network of cameras. According to the article, a camera can spot a fire up to 100 miles away and can spot fires at night through near infrared vision.

ForestWatch

Oregon has a network of cameras called ForestWatch by Envirovision Solutions. These cameras are networked to provide coverage over the most fire prone areas of the state. They are all monitored remotely and can detect a change in the terrain from a digital model. Through mathematical algorithms, the cameras send an alarm when it detects anomalies or pattern differences such as fire or smoke. The remote monitoring station can then focus the camera or cameras on the suspicious area and collect GPS coordinates in case they need to send in a ground or air crew. Fires are spotted quicker and their specific location is known much faster, which may reduce the spread and damage of a fire.

Education

This is a great use of technology but what kind of education does it take to install, program, and monitor these cameras? My research shows knowledge in the following areas is required:

GIS—A strong background in geographical information systems (GIS). This includes mapping and data analysis.

Data modeling—A strong background in data modeling and database management. There are many data points involved here, from GPS coordinates to topographical data to wind speed to moisture index, and they all need to be combined and modeled to show the monitor what fire crews will encounter.

Wireless networking—These cameras are networked to the central monitoring station and often to each other. In a suspected fire, multiple cameras from various angles can verify the validity of the alarm. A person would need a strong background in wireless networking to establish and maintain these cameras.

Thoughts

Fire watch cameras are a good use of technology and a reminder that new jobs often require a strong education in math and science as well as specific technical skills. As the technology moves from human fire watchers to sophisticated data collecting cameras, we must continue updating our education to be prepared for these jobs of the 21st century.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

The Drone Controversy: Do Personal Drones Compromise Privacy?

I was recently asked to research personal drones. While I have been watching the development of drones for some time, I didn’t know much about the details, so this is a perfect opportunity to learn.

Definition

The term drone originally referred to the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aerial system (UAS) used by militaries to navigate war zones. Some of these were and are used for surveillance and some even carry weapons. This term often conjures up safety or privacy concerns. Personal drones, in contrast, are remote controlled vehicles typically priced under $1,000 that are small enough to be carried by one person. Personal drones often carry GoPro style cameras, but no weapons. They are commonly used for recreational filming or in industries such as farming or mining to view terrain or crops.  Unlike satellite images, drones can provide video as opposed to still images, and they can deliver those images on a cloudy day.

Availability

A new personal drone is the Iris+ by 3D Robotics, which is a quadcopter available from Amazon for $750, base price. This drone weighs 8.2 pounds and comes with a mount for a GoPro camera. Paired with a GPS enabled Android device, you can set it to provide third person viewing. Synch it with your smartphone or wearable and it will follow you on your adventure, creating the ultimate selfie. Skydiving, surfing or skiing can now be filmed as if you had your own videographer. Paired with a tablet, you can draw the flight path that you want it to take and it becomes completely autonomous. This unit has a flight time of 16-22 minutes on one battery charge.

Another popular personal drone is the DJI Phantom 2 Quadcopter. This has a flight time of 25-28 minutes and comes with a mount for a GoPro 3 camera. You can program a flight path for this device by pairing it with an iPad. This unit weighs in at 9 pounds and sells for a base price of $829.

There are also kits available for hobbyists who want to build their own drones or micro drones that fit in the palm of a hand. Personal drones are becoming more popular and more available, but are they legal?

Legality

Are personal drones legal to fly? It depends. If you live in Washington D.C., the answer is no. According to an article earlier this year in Time magazine, there is a Flight Restricted Zone for ten nautical miles surrounding Reagan International Airport. This includes even small personal drones. Yosemite National Park in California and Zion National Park in Utah have similar bans, according to the article. Outside of those areas it is legal to fly a drone, based on FAA policy, if it remains under 400 feet. If you are within three miles of an airport you must notify the tower that you will be flying your drone. There is no cohesive policy yet from the FAA, so I expect that there will be a patchwork of policies that will be put in place until an umbrella policy is enacted. In other words, we are still in the wild, wild west on this one.

Privacy

Legality is one thing, but privacy is a completely different issue. As a society, we are still struggling with issues of privacy concerning Google Earth from satellites or Google street view from roving cars. Google does a reasonable job of filtering out faces and license plates, but there have been lawsuits by people who claim they are recognizable in the images, thus breaching their privacy. Personal drones can go where satellite and car cameras cannot, so we are going to have to collectively deal with how we respect each other’s privacy now that we can fly a camera into someone’s backyard.  What are proper boundaries we can agree on? What actions need to fall under a policy or law?

Thoughts

I think this is a case where new technology has gotten out in front of policy. How we use this technology will determine how laws are shaped. Personal drones have many applications, from entertainment to farming to mining to disaster relief. I can see a personal drone or drones being used to survey damage from a natural or manmade disaster.  They could help aid organizations quickly develop relief plans and possibly even save lives.

There are a lot of positive applications for drones if only we are careful about how we use them and how we respect others’ rights. The future use or restriction of this technology is up to us. Let me know how you feel about the use of personal drones.  Are you excited or apprehensive? Do you think they represent an opportunity or a threat? Let me know.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.