Ford patents in-car system that eavesdrops so it can play you ads
158 points by arkadiyt 10 months ago | 152 comments- autoexec 10 months ago> It could also identify your voice and recognize you and your ad preferences, and those of your passengers.
This must be a quote from Ford right? Here's a hint Ford, you don't need voice recognition for that because the ad preference of everyone in the car is always that you don't push ads at us.
- PeterStuer 10 months agoI think you are misundrrstanding the 'your' in the qoute. It is not refering to 'what you prefer', but to what ad-preference profile is associated with you in the adiverse.
- PeterStuer 10 months ago
- yashg 10 months agoEverything is becoming about ads. Ads, ads everywhere. On phone, on computer, now even car. This despite everyone knowing that consumers HATE ads. It's like companies are using ads as a ransom. Pay us more money on a regular basis else we will make your life miserable with ads and more ads.
- 9dev 10 months agoAnd then, once everyone is paying more, they pull the coup de grace, and show you ads again! Netflix and Prime and Spotify started with this a while ago; I guess the temptation is just too big to let corporate greed run free.
I guess we’ve come full circle, and the next iteration will see people pirating stuff again. It’s going to be interesting to see what we can do against ads on devices like cars though…
- DJHenk 10 months agoAds are a cancer. They take valuable resources from legitimate functionality just to multiply and multiply, until the host is starved to death.
- autoexec 10 months ago> They take valuable resources from legitimate functionality
Including our own. Ads are designed to pull our attention to them and away from what we want to be focused on. The goal is to forcibly embed something in our thoughts and/or feelings. Maybe it's a lie, or a false association, or an impression, or a fear. One way or another ads seek to manipulate us and like it or not we are all changed by them. We'll have a cure for cancer long before we get a cure for advertising.
- autoexec 10 months ago
- lostlogin 10 months ago> It’s going to be interesting to see what we can do against ads on devices like cars though
If you can find a way to get by with minimal car use, it’s amazing. Not possible for many/most, but wow is Ford trying to push people away.
> the next iteration will see people pirating stuff again
With automation the world has become amazing. The first rule of fight club applies.
- 9dev 10 months agoWell, I don’t know. Buying a dumb TV is more expensive than getting a „smart“ one these days, and I understand why. Doubt it will be different with cars.
- a1o 10 months ago> The first rule of fight club applies
You wouldn't download a car?
- lithos 10 months agoAd replacement for radio/streams.
- 9dev 10 months ago
- lodovic 10 months ago> It’s going to be interesting to see what we can do against ads on devices like cars though…
your speakers are connected with only two wires.
- franga2000 10 months agoIn the car industry? If they aren't yet, I'm sure they'll soon have an onboard chip decoding encrypted audio, doing a cryptographic handshake with the car to verify they came from the manufacturer and the car refusing to drive anywhere more than 1 km off the calculated shortest path to the nearest dealership until the "broken" part is replaced with a new Genuine one.
- franga2000 10 months ago
- DJHenk 10 months ago
- n_ary 10 months agoOff-topic:
Eagerly waiting for the potty bowl to start playing ads depending on the chemical composition of the particular waste… it would go: “Your zinc ratio is low, have you tried blah blah? After my doctor prescribed blah blah I can focus on my life more and is more productive and …”
- getwiththeprog 10 months agoad absurdum, therefore on topic.
- fennecbutt 10 months agoI love this
- fennecbutt 10 months ago
- getwiththeprog 10 months ago
- lm28469 10 months agoThat's what happens when innovation is dead and you need to pay the bills: you have to make current products profitable and the easiest way is to pack them with ads
- franga2000 10 months agoIf the current products aren't profitable already, how does does the company exist?
This doesn't really apply in the Ford case, but the real question is why we let companies burn money to get market share, killing existing sustanable businesses in the process? Once no competition is left, they raise prices and decrease quality, ending up with a worse product than we had before.
- autoexec 10 months ago> Once no competition is left, they raise prices and decrease quality, ending up with a worse product than we had before.
That's the goal of literally every company. They all want to charge you as much as they can possibly get away with, while giving you as little as possible in return because it lowers their costs. Our society has decided that greed is the greatest virtue and the most important consideration in every facet of life. That inevitably results in a race to the bottom.
- lm28469 10 months ago> If the current products aren't profitable already, how does does the company exist?
It's all propped up on future potential gains, Amazon wasn't profitable for a decade, Uber just turner (barely) profitable last year.
As long as there is hope there will be money, the problem is that the hope river is starting to run dry
- autoexec 10 months ago
- ASalazarMX 10 months agoInnovation in the automotive industry is far from dead, this is just the greed from investors seeping through every pore of the company, trying to squeeze as much money as they can get away with.
Making maximum profits for their shareholders should not be the highest goal of corporations nowadays, if they're persons they've become sociopaths.
- franga2000 10 months ago
- psychoslave 10 months agoIt's more like "we are going to kidnap your children to make them some brain washed slaves, extract money from you with mass spying, ask a ransom with no intention to change what we plane to do if you pay or not"
- danaris 10 months agoWall Street demands infinite growth. The Fed raised interest rates above zero, so money isn't free* anymore. Treating your customers like human beings, rather than bags of money with legs that it is your bounden duty to drain dry, just isn't popular anymore.
* for a certain value of "free"
- 1-6 10 months agoGathering data under the disguise of presenting ads now in your car.
- fennecbutt 10 months agoI just hate how disgustingly time wasting and pointless they are. Modern marketing is so piss poor.
Especially on mobile, endless ads for regular apps I already have installed but mostly for shitty ripoff trash games.
I am always 0% interested in downloading it, so why the FUCK has it become de rigeur to force the ad to be shown for 30-60 seconds.
I've read into it a little and apparently even negative reaction to an ad still has a positive effect on brand recognition, but how does this apply to shitty mobile games.
Our governments are failing us by not regulating this utter bs, it's so incensing. But then again that's all smiling politicians ever do, take money under the table while the grinning general population votes for em again and again.
- chairmansteve 10 months agoHalf of HN is probably working on ad tech.
- chairmansteve 10 months ago
- eddyg 10 months agoConsumers don’t hate ads. HN readers hate ads. Given the choice, most people prefer ads to paying more to not have ads. FAST (free ad-supported TV) is taking over (again). It’s comparable to how a contingent of HN readers think there is a problem with using Google, while nearly everyone else uses nothing but Google.
Reference: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3735026-fast-growth-for-fast-m...
- Mordisquitos 10 months agoWhile I do agree that HN readers are not representative of the general population, and we almost certainly are more ad-averse on average, hating ads is still common overall. Don't be fooled by the fact that less-technically-skilled individuals may find it harder to block ads than we do, or are less likely to identify covert advertisements disguised as legitimate search results.
Case in point, when I was a kid my dad (of "Boomer" age, but from a country where the generational name does not apply) really, really, really insisted on muting advertisements on TV whenever they came on. He made an effort to instill in me the idea that advertisements were lies trying to sell rubbish, and even though I do not have such an emotionally charged reaction to the concept of ads as he does, I still radically block them by all means necessary.
- Mordisquitos 10 months ago
- kaliqt 10 months agoI disagree. I hate irrelevant ads, I enjoy relevant ads.
This is unrelated to the aforementioned topic though.
- leobg 10 months agoRelevant ads is functional search, is it not? Ideally, search without the need to query.
- nicce 10 months agoI would love to see ads on the search platform which is supposed to be used only for searching something you usually end up buying. I have a clear intention there and I am looking for something. Otherwise, I don't want to see ads.
But that will likely never happen. For it to work you would need to track behavior based on other sources than that site. And it does not make people buy something that they actually don't need.
- nijave 10 months agoThey're also 1st party and come with whatever bias the company wants to inject (less useful if you prefer searching through 3rd parties)
- nicce 10 months ago
- leobg 10 months ago
- 9dev 10 months ago
- agys 10 months agoNot directly related but a small town in Switzerland decided to ban public advertisement (billboards).
The motivation is to avoid visual noise/pollution and “We didn’t recognize any public interest in having billboards”.
https://www.msn.com/en-ph/money/markets/a-swiss-town-banned-...
- jajko 10 months agoWell whole country has pleasantly few ads everywhere. No ads along roads and highways for example. Drive to eastern more primitive parts of EU and many massive billboards will try to steal your attention constantly, everywhere.
One of easy examples of corruption in plain sight, yes mostly nobody cares.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 10 months agoPeople do care, but institutional corruption is just to hard to fight once ingrained. Others may simply just not know anything different because that's how its always been.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 10 months ago
- jajko 10 months ago
- aucisson_masque 10 months ago> Submitting patent applications is a normal part of any strong business as the process protects new ideas and helps us build a robust portfolio of intellectual property. The ideas described within a patent application should not be viewed as an indication of our business or product plans.
Who are they kidding seriously ?
In my country they sell Dacia car, that's the cheapest and 'shitiest' car you can buy that is made in Europe. It has very few electronic so few bullshit, even the windows doesn't have electrical motor for the passenger
At least you don't get Ford creeping on you.
- icebergonfire 10 months ago> even the windows doesn't have electrical motor for the passenger
I guess this may depend on the specific trim you purchase? I personally have a 2022 Jogger something or other and all of my windows are push-button electric.
- aucisson_masque 10 months agoYes,i may be wrong about other car because i only checked the sandero.
- aucisson_masque 10 months ago
- Ylpertnodi 10 months agoIn my eu country, Dacia is not considered the "shitiest" by a long, long way for exactly the reason you give: no bullshit.
- icebergonfire 10 months ago
- theginger 10 months agoHow is this patentable? This is existing tech used in a way that has been speculated about for nearly 20 years. This is not an innovation or invention.
- franga2000 10 months agoEverything is patentable if your patent lawyer is expensive enough
- nicce 10 months agoSomething recently relevant: https://www.dexerto.com/tech/google-facebook-partner-admits-...
- franga2000 10 months ago
- hinkley 10 months agoI always feel weirdly conflicted about people patenting things that I’d rather nobody use at all.
There was a “clever” CSS trick a coworker did to take a simple task and make it into a daredevil stunt. Just baffling that someone would want to do it that way. I guess someone thought it was novel because they talked about patenting it. My response was, “by all means please do. I never want to see this again in the next 19 years.”
They interpreted that as criticism and decided not to pursue it. I’m not sure how they saw through my subterfuge. It’s a mystery.
- jokellum 10 months agoLouis rossmann video talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5euh13nd10g
Had a decision earlier this year to buy a Tesla vs a dumber car. 2019 Silverado I think has the best middle ground on terms of "smart" tech that is still easy to repair and doesn't sell my info to insurance companies.
- topspin 10 months ago> still easy to repair
By the time you get to 2019 and the GM T1XX platform the entire drivetrain is as complex as any modern vehicle: AFM/DFM, VVT, E85, Active Thermal Management, Start/Stop, 10L80/90, dynamic stability, etc. In other words, once it starts breaking down out of warranty, repair is uneconomic: non-dealer shops and owners don't have the tools, can't get affordable parts and aren't qualified to do the work, just like all other modern vehicles.
The last years that GM trucks were actually easy and cost effective to repair, but still relatively "modern" (decent PCM, effective air bags, standard anti-lock, etc.,) were 1999-2006 (GMT800) and 2007-2014 (GMT900), the former more so than the latter. Any professional mechanic can successfully repair almost anything on the vehicle and parts are readily available at reasonable cost.
- moandcompany 10 months agoMid-2000s era car technology seems to have been the sweet spot across most brands for technology improvements while still having practical serviceability and maintainability.
- topspin 10 months agoI'd agree with that timeline with regard to US domestic truck platforms, which famously lagged cars in complexity by about a decade. A lot of 2000's cars definitely do not qualify.
The notion of a "sweet spot" is valid. All the classic safety and reliability problems were solved, yet the vehicles (again, truck platforms) are tractable in terms of service.
- topspin 10 months ago
- DougN7 10 months agoI don’t think manufacturers are purposely making the cars harder to repair - they have to meet stricter and stricter fuel and air quality standards, so need more and more tech to squeeze out more /same performance while burning less fuel, or burning more thoroughly.
- topspin 10 months agoSure. This is all self evident. Understanding the motivations of manufacturers, however, yields little value: the products they're making now are post-warranty disposable, despite the staggering cost and whatever intent manufacturers might have.
All of this has produced amazing ICE engineering. GM's base model gas truck engine, the L3B, is making 325hp from 166ci under 27psi of boost. Such ratios tell you everything you need to know about the long term fate of that drivetrain: there is zero margin for error, because everything is operating very near the limit of materials science and the capabilities of advanced manufacturing. When it fails, shortly after the warranty expires, fixing it will not be economic.
- topspin 10 months ago
- moandcompany 10 months ago
- garbagewoman 10 months agoIts ok, nobody asked for Louis Rossmans disingenuous take on anything
- wruza 10 months agoWhy hate the guy? He has a real repair shop afaik, and mostly talks sense.
- garbagewoman 10 months agoIf you know the vaguest thing about the topic he is talking about, you will know that he frequently omits critical context in order to get clicks. I am guessing that is what you mean by “mostly talks sense”
- garbagewoman 10 months ago
- wruza 10 months ago
- topspin 10 months ago
- UberFly 10 months agoWhen I'm filling my gas tank and the screen on the pump is blaring ads at me I want to smash it. Car companies, please don't also make us want to smash our dash-boards.
- TaylorAlexander 10 months agoThose gas station ads are so offensive to the senses. I want so desperately for them to stop.
I used to live near Cupertino, and the Valero station on De Anza and Prospect always played the local classical radio station. Driving a car is pretty tiring, and to take a break and have loud ads projected at you only adds to the stress. To instead step out of your car to modestly amplified classical music is really much better. I always made a point to stop at that specific station for gas. We really need to be more mindful of the world we create for one another.
- lostlogin 10 months agoDigital signs with super bright lights are just so dystopian.
We can be far away from vigilantes killing them. I’d sponsor the odd hit.
- wruza 10 months agoWhat we really need is to stop praising CEO and marketing idiots who do that and normalize punching bad people in the face. There’s too much of them in the world who do bad things consciously and cover behind ignorance and inaccessibility. Atrocious interactions by technical means should be considered misdemeanors and treated respectively. There’s no difference between a flashing ads screen and a street sales guy buzzing in your ear, a car playing ads at you and a guy knocking on your window selling nonsense. Voting with your money doesn’t work when you normalize screaming at you with no consequences.
- anal_reactor 10 months agoThe problem is, 95% of people don't like classical music, they like pop, and every business is motivated to cater to as wide audience as possible.
- TaylorAlexander 10 months agoThe other gas stations don't play pop, they play ads. The point is this business made a choice not to bombard people with ads, and I wish more places did that.
- chairmansteve 10 months agoYeah. Only 37% of people prefer pop.
https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997214/preferred-radio-co...
Anyway, they should
1. Play the least annoying music, not the most popular.
2. Use decent speakers.
- TaylorAlexander 10 months ago
- acuozzo 10 months agoPress the button on the right, one down from the top.
x x
x here
x x
x x
- saagarjha 10 months agoYeah, until you realize why they're doing it. Hint: it's to drive away "undesirables" like roaming teenagers and homeless people.
- chairmansteve 10 months agoDriving me and my money away too. It only seems to start when I insert my card, so I think you are wrong.
- anal_reactor 10 months agoI don't understand what's bad about this.
- chairmansteve 10 months ago
- lostlogin 10 months ago
- zeta0134 10 months agoI always leave a 1-star review when I encounter those. Helps me remember to never, ever return to that particular station.
- userbinator 10 months agoGood news for EV makers: they take longer to refill than ICE vehicles, so there will be even more opportunities to "monetise" the drivers while they wait.
- robin_reala 10 months agoBut you also plug them in and walk away, thankfully.
- robin_reala 10 months ago
- sethammons 10 months agoMany have a mute button: the unmarked, flat, square buttons at the edges of screen, usually 2nd on top right. If not that one, try the others; not like you will break it. Some newer designs have hidden it somewhere or removed it.
- water-data-dude 10 months agoI get back in my car and drive to another gas station when that happens (unless it’s the only gas station nearby and I’m REALLY low)
- martin_a 10 months agoFunny stuff. Never seen one of these in Europe, there's just a display for showing the amount and price and that's it.
- katbyte 10 months agoMost of them have a button that you can press to mute it. If it’s not marked by someone else in sharpie just press em all
- quesera 10 months agoThis used to work. But it has not worked at any gas station in my area for a couple years now.
They all stopped working at about the same time (different brands and locations). I imagine there's a common vendor for at-pump entertainment systems, and that vendor decided to scrape the last fractional percent of ad revenue.
- quesera 10 months ago
- ishtanbul 10 months agoYou can mute it by pressing the middle button the right side of the screen
- 10 months ago
- Sharlin 10 months agoJesus, what?!? Never seen anything like that, but I guess it’s just a matter of time for all the "innovations" to diffuse from the land of the free to this side of the pond.
- TaylorAlexander 10 months ago
- moandcompany 10 months agoThe dystopian future of mobility will be free-to-ride, self-driving cars operating as taxis where we have to pay to exit and are incentivized to pay to opt-out of ads.
- a2128 10 months agoNon-premium subscription users will be driven through less efficient routes and dirt roads to increase ad watchtime and reduce congestion for premium customers. If you don't tip the driverless car in advance, it may choose to eject you at any point, potentially leaving you even further from your destination than you were
- 93po 10 months agoI bet the more likely option is that it will force you to drive through a restaurant drive through whether you want to buy something there or not. Most people are gonna be like "I'm here and having to wait anyway, I may as well". I know it'd work on me if I wouldn't refuse out of the principle of it
- 93po 10 months ago
- heresie-dabord 10 months ago> self-driving [...] taxis where we have to pay to exit
"Would you like an Economy Exit or a Business Class Exit?
For a Business Class Exit, the vehicle will come to a complete stop before opening the door."
- Telemakhos 10 months agoThat sounds like a maintenance nightmare. Owners maintain vehicles, renters have no incentive to, but people who feel trapped in a vehicle that requires an exit fee and treats them adversarially with ads will feel incentivized to vandalize the vehicle.
- 93po 10 months agothere will be a thousand cameras and face scanning and you'll get in the "no drive list" for vandalizing the car.
- 93po 10 months ago
- Sharlin 10 months agoHonestly, the sort of future wouldn’t bother me where the unsustainable mode (cars) would have to use ads to help cover what are now negative externalities, and walking, biking, and transit would be the ad-free options. But of course it won’t be like that.
- a2128 10 months ago
- bobim 10 months agoHow can you design a car with safety in mind and then propose this? Driver's attention is not available for anything but the road in principle. At anytime. Ford is Boeinging or what?
- blooalien 10 months ago"Boeinging"? How sad is it for Boeing that they've become a verb representing willful incompetence? Their upper management should be utterly ashamed (as should Ford's at this point for even considering such a vile thing, let alone trying to patent it).
- al_borland 10 months agoI’m no fan of ads, but by your logic this would also mean no radio/music, no cup holders, or anything else that could shift attention off the road.
Where does the line get drawn?
- carlmr 10 months agoMusic is something people want. It can help people concentrate and stay alert.
Cup holders allow you to have a good place to put your drink without being distracted. They help you keep attention on the road by not spilling your coffee on your lap.
Ads don't help anybody with staying alert or doing any other tasks in the car. They're meant to capture your attention for selling you something.
- fragmede 10 months agoIf ads jolt the driver awake because they're so jarring, doesn't that help with the staying alert thing? Though if the ads cause the driver to go into fits of rage, that's probably negative on the car being driven safely, though that would again help them with the being alert thing.
If driver alertness is the key factor, cars should have inward facing cameras that can detect the drivers eyes so it can play a horrible noise when the driver starts micro-napping. Or ads for nearby hotels. I think Teslas already have such a camera. New revenue stream!
- fragmede 10 months ago
- bobim 10 months agoIn principle eating and drinking is a major safety concern, a choking driver is not able to behave as per the minimum standard. And yes, radio can grab your attention, so it's fine in light traffic, maybe less in awkward situations. I guess racers don't listen to music when they race, but they drink for other reasons. Dunno.
- waterhouse 10 months agoOne could argue that the whole point of ads is to draw your attention and put things into your memory, which is not necessarily the case for those other things. Some radio programs probably are meant to draw attention, but you could notice this and switch away, which brings us to...
> Where does the line get drawn?
Ideally by the person who knows most intimately how badly you're being distracted, i.e. you. (Until they get the ability to scan your brain.)
- al_borland 10 months agoSelf reporting of distraction doesn’t seem to work so good, as evidenced by the number of people texting, scrolling social, or whatever else on their phone, while driving.
Before phone, we still saw men shaving and women putting on their makeup.
I have 0 faith in people to self regulate and avoid distractions while driving. At least at a population level.
- al_borland 10 months ago
- eth0up 10 months ago>Where does the line get drawn?
At eavesdropping.
It's so absurd.. I think anything goes at this point, so long as the line gets pushed back a bit.
- aucisson_masque 10 months agoAds are designed to grab your attention, whatever the cost. having your carplay suddenly light up and blast advertisement, that's dangerous.
Cupholder ? You decide if when you want. Radio ? Yes there are ads but you expect them when the music ends.
- faeranne 10 months agoI'd argue the line gets drawn when the driver is barred from stopping the distracting element themselves. Everything else can be stopped, disabled,refused, or removed by the driver. If an element is designed to be another source for focus (the entire infotainment system is this) it must be able to be turned off by the driver. In theory simply disabling the infotainment system should cover this, but now you have to argue if removing things like modern navigation is an acceptable option, and frankly, these ads only serve to line pockets. This isn't a radio situation where the feed is free, the car is (in theory) already paid for. (and don't try to argue that the car is cheaper because of the ads. TV manufacturers already turned that argument into swiss cheese when they stopped bothering to sell TVs without preloaded ads.)
- carlmr 10 months ago
- blooalien 10 months ago
- isoprophlex 10 months agoFrom the article:
> there’s a recognition that an occupant’s “natural inclination to seek minimal or no ads” should be balanced with “maximum opportunity for ad-based monetization.”
Or, you know, you just don't try to monetize every fucking second your users interact with your (expensive, paid-for) product.
Every day we get just a little closer to the future Philip K Dick promised us in Ubik: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- nicbou 10 months agoThey really said the quiet part out loud
- nicbou 10 months ago
- BLKNSLVR 10 months agoI'm not sure how unexpected audio/video will go with driving regulations. I've got a 2009 car that makes me click "agree" before i can change the radio station.
- dehrmann 10 months agoGood news is it prevents anyone else from doing it, too.
- x3y1 10 months agoThis is a wonderful idea. Patent obnoxious inventions to prevent anyone from implementing them.
- noisy_boy 10 months agoNothing stops others from licensing them.
- x3y1 10 months agoIn the US at least, it would be the patent holder’s choice if they want to license their patent (in most situations, if I understand correctly). When I patent advertising on vegetables, I won’t let anyone license it.
- FerretFred 10 months agoDriving along in (say) a Datsun, and suddenly hearing an ad saying"wouldn't you rather be driving a cool new Ford?"
- ziofill 10 months agoAll the better if you are the one holding the patent ^^ (just kidding)
- x3y1 10 months ago
- noisy_boy 10 months ago
- x3y1 10 months ago
- barelycompetent 10 months agoThe title is false and the article is click bait fake outrage spam.
This is a published application for a patent. It has not been granted.
The success rate for patent applications is surprisingly low.
This will likely never be granted, or granted after many limitations* have been added by Ford.
Last, just because Ford is trying to patent something does not mean they will ever actually implement that IRL.
* "Limitation" has a specific meaning in patent law.
- bbarnett 10 months agoWhat does the patent being granted have to do with anything? At all? Whether Ford is granted or not granted the patent is irrelevant in this conversation, the fact it attempted to patent it is the issue. What the patent office does has no relevance here at all. None. Nada.
And every company that even thinks like this should be publicly lambasted, raked over the coals, and shunned!
- barelycompetent 10 months agoThe point is that the title is false. Ford hasn't patented this.
- bbarnett 10 months agoThat's fine. I would not have responded if you simply stated this.
However by discussing how the patent may not be approved, in the same post where you say ford may not use it, you give the impression you think there is a moral or ethical difference for Ford between the patent being approved or not.
There isn't.
- bbarnett 10 months ago
- esquivalience 10 months agoI'd be more sympathetic to this response if the article didn't begin with:
> Yeah, you read the headline right. Ford has patented a system...
The fact is that it is not protected by a patent. That said, the fact that they are _trying_ to and investing in their attempts is indeed worth attention, as it indicates they think it's a good idea. Just without the sloppy reporting.
- barelycompetent 10 months ago
- bbarnett 10 months ago
- tjpnz 10 months agoI'm thinking of patenting a system where many consumers make a conscious decision not to buy their next car from Ford.
- LtWorf 10 months agoUnfortunately people might not know that in advance.
- LtWorf 10 months ago
- LightBug1 10 months agoI'm never buying a car newer that, say, 2000 ever again.
- ivanjermakov 10 months agoToo bad most laws require[1] every car to have ABS, ESP and other electronic features not present in cars of that era.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160918065210/http://www.nhtsa....
- spencerflem 10 months agoThat just applies to new cars, you can still drive the old ones legally
- LightBug1 10 months agoOk, I'll just stick with my 69 Bug.
- spencerflem 10 months ago
- oldpersonintx 10 months ago[dead]
- ivanjermakov 10 months ago
- buro9 10 months agoI'm not sure it's patentable given that smart TVs already do this, the prior art is obvious.
- LtWorf 10 months agoBut not "in a car"… see it's completely different now!
- LtWorf 10 months ago
- 10 months ago
- mceachen 10 months agoUnfortunately this has been in the works for years already—this is from 2021: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ford-wants-billboards-to-bea...
- poikroequ 10 months agoI guess one good thing about this patent is it may prevent other automakers from implementing such systems.
- TheDong 10 months agoPatents can be licensed, and automakers are already effectively at a patent stalemate, so any enforcement is unlikely.
Just like Microsoft's various patents on Linux haven't stopped companies from making Android phones, just resulted in some of them paying Microsoft money for patent licensing.
- TheDong 10 months ago
- Tempest1981 10 months ago> It could also identify your voice and recognize you and your ad preferences, and those of your passengers
Imagine the ads an Uber driver will be receiving, after chatting with hundreds of random passengers a month.
- quacksilver 10 months agoI wonder if you will get car radios with an 'ad-blocker' that will cut out radio ads and play their own in the gaps created. Sort of like Brave browser was trying to do.
Would this be legal?
- globalnode 10 months agowheres it going to get the ads from if your not connected to any data channel? is it going to store them on the car? get them from wireless towers? or just assume a data channel perhaps.
- dukeofdoom 10 months agoIn-Car System That Eavesdrops So It Can alert authorities
- bbarnett 10 months agoI thought it'd be Waymo first:
- Bluestein 10 months agoThey will monetize the time spent in your car. The car is yours. Your time is theirs to market.-
- jmclnx 10 months agoWell I have added ford to my what is becoming a long list of Autos I will never buy.
- ziofill 10 months agoAnd I guess disconnecting the microphones will void the warranty?
- leemailll 10 months agoimaging ford is granted and then sue around and win
- PeterStuer 10 months agoCould we reference the STASI as prior art?
- petepete 10 months agoI only listen to ad free radio while driving. The thought that the tranquility of Radio 3 would be interrupted by an advert disgusts me. I would never buy a car that had this, no matter how smart it was.
- bryanrasmussen 10 months agoKA-CHING - now everybody who wants to make an eavesdropping car system that plays you ads will have to pay Ford in order to add this feature to their cars!
- nprateem 10 months agoThat's literally why patents exist.
- bryanrasmussen 10 months agoyes, but there are also reasons why irony exists. Especially if you layer it just right.
- nprateem 10 months agoIronically I don't think think you know what irony is.
- nprateem 10 months ago
- bryanrasmussen 10 months ago
- nprateem 10 months ago
- ssss11 10 months agoOh great
- 10 months ago
- floressandra5 10 months ago[dead]
- khana 10 months ago[dead]