I write speculative fictions about advertising. Exactly 100 words long, or as long as a Tweet, they are a Dispatch from an Advertising Future. My other writing on the industry is here.
Dispatch from an advertising future #223
The latest update for Quest headsets lets you chill in a study with mountainside views
No. I mean it. It’s not acceptable. You can’t do that. You know that. You know better. Do you remember when we sat down together and wrote out the agreement? “Contract” we called it. You and I agreed on what we each could do and don’t do. And this..? This was a “no”. A “red”. Remember the traffic lights? I know you do. Now you know I don’t agree with punishing but there has to be consequences. You know that. You need time to think. Time out for you. Put the headset on and go and sit on the stairs.
Dispatch from an advertising future #222
The era of fixing your own phone has nearly arrived
https://www.theverge.com/23017361/ifixit-right-to-repair-parts-google-samsung-valve-microsoft
He didn’t look special. Just normal. You could walk past him in the corridor and never notice, sit next to him in class and not really see him. But he was famous. Everyone knew about him, even if they didn’t know him. Whatever you wanted, he was your man. He’d look at you with those blank eyes, nod and tell you to meet him later. He’d sort you out. Everyone had him on speed dial. You never knew when you might need him. They must have known about him and what he was up to. But The Fixer kept going.
Dispatch from an advertising future #221
This Startup Made a Functioning ‘Invisibility Shield’. Here’s How It Works
I worked for a golf shop once. I stood on the street corner holding an arrow pointing towards the shop. Worst thing was I had to wear a birdie costume. The manager thought the joke very funny. It paid the bills. I could listen to my music. People ignored me really. I was invisible. I can’t wear headphones in this job. Something about noise leaking apparently. Still have to stand up all the time. Keep moving so I don’t bump into anyone in the aisle or more correctly they don’t bump into me. Eight hours, taking notes. I am invisible.
Dispatch from an advertising future #220
OpenAI’s DALL-E AI image generator can now edit pictures, too
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/6/23012123/openai-clip-dalle-2-ai-text-to-image-generator-testing
We’re loved. Our brand has not suffered a crisis since we handed our image over to Text2Image (™). We’ve all watched our brand seamlessly respond to the conversations, always staying one step ahead of the trends, the debates and the traps, while allowing us to get on with our jobs. Now, I can announce we are introducing the next generation system Text2Vision (™). Reading even more text, the new system will not only reshape our image for the brand on the fly, it will generate a new Vision for the company as well. I will be retiring with immediate effect.
Dispatch from an advertising future #219
Looking Through Mojo Vision’s Newest AR Contact Lens
https://spectrum.ieee.org/looking-through-mojo-visions-newest-ar-contact-lens
Frankly I wouldn’t go on a date anywhere else. It’s a nice part of town, reasonably cheap and there are lots of people around. But mainly it’s when I look into his eyes, I know. I’ve been on other dates, other places. You can almost see the lines being fed. The perfectly pitched joke, the cultural reference pulled from my feeds, the immaculately timed complement chiming with something I’d searched for. I’m sure I can see the script scrolling across their eyes. DataGlaze, I call it. Here, it’s a data Faraday cage. If he’ll meet me here, maybe there’s something.
Dispatch from an advertising future #218
These are the words Amazon’s planned employee chat app reportedly won’t let you s
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/4/23010608/amazon-worker-social-app-banned-words-union-living-wage
I used to hate meetings with Blur(™) running. Yeh, I know I swear occasionally when I get excited. I get it. And frankly Blurring some of Simon’s “jokes” did us all a favour. But it was when ideas or issues were Blurred. That’s when it turned. There were ways around it. Even if they didn’t want to hear the idea or the complaint, you could always get it into the meeting somehow. You just had to be… creative. But now we have Blur2(™). I watched as I found my idea coming out as the opposite. For forks sake.