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Comment by dgrin91 | Hacker News Reader

Electricity I don't know how you could deliver ads through, but if someone could think of a way I bet they would. If everyone knew Morris code I bet they would make the lights flicker in Morris code for a discount.

Modern cars with connected infotainment systems are always trying to upsell you

Washing machines I dont know of anything at the moment, but I wouldnt count it out.

Smartphones/watches? Aren't those just ad delivery mechanisms? Not to mention tracking? Its a core foundation of modern ad technology

Headphones are not thank god, I hope it stays that way

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Alright let me put on my evil corpo hat. Wait it was already on.

Headphones that inject ads is a great idea but we need to make that a better proposition. Lets say that these headphones have an AI integration which parses all sound and converts it to text, then we can run it through our AI to give helpful comments. We may even wait until no sound is playing to inject them (for now). We can add ads later once it becomes helpful. Imagine you are listening to a podcast / youtube video then you get a helpful voice give additional research and ideas. Like a friendly research agent on your shoulder.

Also more subtly, we can detect what music is playing and “slightly modify” the tunes of bands not part of a label owned by a Trusted Partner to sound worse.

> Electricity I don't know how you could deliver ads through

Even if you could, electricity is a utility with laws against disconnecting it in certain circumstances, even for nonpayment, and the internet isn't. So unless someone is going to make the argument that neural implants are utilities, ads injected into them seems like a pretty fair bet unless there is legislation not only making it illegal to do so, but making it illegal to make an implant even capable of receiving or displaying one. At least with that even if they repealed the law you'd be safe if you already had the implant.

That's a great Freudian slip.

Morse code - dots and dashes for characters via light or telegraph or radio

Morris code - Robert Morris wrote the first internet worm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm

I've never seen an ad delivered through any of these things. On smartphones I mean the phone/OS itself

It would be very easy to deliver ads via electricity. The utility could require you watch an ad before using more

Or via your smart thermostat.

https://sense.com/consumer-blog/with-your-permission-utiliti...

(Morse code messages via your flickering lights would be a hilarious app, and I'm somewhat reluctant to mention it here before someone gets VC funding to actually try it.)

> It would be very easy to deliver ads via electricity. The utility could require you watch an ad before using more.

That does not sound very easy to me. That sounds barely possible.

It's trivial

Lots of poor people have in residence electricity boxes that require prepayment for usage. In the olden days you put a coin in to turn on the power, but nowadays they have apps and digital payment solutions!

They might already have ads in those apps...

This is all news to me. It seems like it would be tough to prevent people from just using the power that's going to that box.

I guess I'm out of touch, because I've never heard of anything like this. I've had my power turned off for non-payment before, but I had to talk to someone at the utility to get it switched back on.

I don't think I've ever actually seen one. I only know about this style of electricity utility because it was a part of a Mr Bean episode once.

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