https://www.ft.com/content/c653e977-435f-4553-8401-9fa9b0faf632 My mum was worried when I first got her. I was only little of course and she’d read the scare stories about grooming and hacking the smart home. I’m sure she had visions of a Chucky-doll turning the thermostat up and watching us boil. She calmed down after a while, particularly when my grades …
Category Archives: speculations
Dispatch from an advertising future #151
https://www.adweek.com/digital/snapchatters-can-scan-ralph-laurens-polo-pony-logo-off-apparel/ They’re on bikes, scooters, skates. Often they’re just on foot. Sometimes you can spot them in advance and get out of the way or hide. But sometimes they’re so quick, by the time you’ve noticed, they’ve got you and gone. They’re usually alone. That seems to be part of it. Some competitive thing, I …
Dispatch from an advertising future #150
https://adage.com/article/member-content/post-election-2020-advertising-healing/229609 There’s been an increase. Years of on-off restrictions, recession, economic and social isolation plus the underlying hum of the culture wars. I’ve never liked drugs – even when we could get them I didn’t like prescribing them. I knew the causes were deep-rooted, the cure was more complex than chemical tinkering. Meaningless debate now …
Dispatch from an advertising future #149
https://www.ft.com/content/a41b34e7-a8fc-4bce-92e4-508cd1c83ba9 I’d always wanted to get a job in advertising. Well alright “always”, when i was a kid I didn’t know what it was and wanted to be an influencer but later… When The Great Compression happened and ad jobs disappeared, I thought my dream was dead but then I saw an ad about how …
Dispatch from an advertising future #148
https://www.pcgamer.com/noveto-soundbeamer-sci-fi-speaker-brainhole/ He remembered the city. Deeper than a normal Sunday. The tyres of his bike echoed on the tarmac. He’d heard birds. The sound of the few bits of litter. Zombie. Post-apocalyptic, the tabloid cliches weren’t outrageous. An urban anechoic chamber. But that was then. Now the traffic was back. Footsteps. Mobile halfalogues. Even the …
Dispatch from an advertising future #147
https://voicebot.ai/2020/11/17/bbc-releases-synthetic-voice-newsreader-for-online-articles/ Ever since the election it has become more and more difficult to “fan the flames”. The platforms are running scared and getting better at catching so-called “inflammatory” posts. They still only put warning stickers on them but getting something going and getting people going is becoming harder. At least as far as content is …