Alternate use for good boolit lead,- uh yeah...

[finstr]

A customer dropped his 2012 F150 off for service today and I noticed a little "add-on" placed strategically on the roof above the passenger side windshield. Our service adviser told me this customer had been quizzing him 6 months prior about the best way to disconnect the GPS tracking system that Ford installs on every new vehicle. (news to me??) Anyway the customer is totally convinced that Ford tracks his every move and sells this info to marketing agencies so they can "tailor" his TV commercials solely to him and that he sees different commercials on a given program than say, somebody that drives to the ice rink or comic book store weekly. After being told the disconnection of said device was impossible he manufactured this pseudo 'tin-foil hat' out of some lead and adhered it to the roof with two sided tape.


I didn't get a chance to find out what specific alloy he used or whether he prefers a higher tin content for better mold fill out. Perhaps there's a market for these around area 51?

[goblism]

Haldol 5mg, Ativan 2mg, Benadryl 50mg, IM q 4 hours until done is the solution for that

[Garyshome]

He needs to get a chevy!

[Bzcraig]

That is hilarious!

[40-82 hiker]

Absolutely crazy! However, while it is a different matter, don't forget the NSA announced a few months ago they are mining social websites for photos (with names) to add to their national facial recognition database. They didn't ask us about that, so should Ford be any different? Room for thought...

[facetious]

I work for a news paper and know that thy have some thing called "fencing". If you get your "paper" on your phone it uses the GPS on your phone to let advertisers know if you are with in so many miles of them so thy can send add's and /or coupons to your phone.

If you have never heard of it you have to wonder what else you my not know about. With so many new cars being made that can get on the internet maybe thy can tell where you are. I don't know if thy could send TV add's to just your TV but maybe they could put you on some junk mail list.


Remember, the things we do not know are far greater then the things that we do. {creepy Twilight Zone music}

[facetious]

REFLECTIONS OF A NEWSOSAUR

MUSINGS (AND OCCASIONAL URGENT WARNINGS) OF A VETERAN MEDIA EXECUTIVE, WHO FEARS OUR NEWS-GATHERING COMPANIES ARE STUMBLING TO EXTINCTION

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2014

How digital retailing could roil local media


Thanks to the growing ubiquity of mobile devices, a digital revolution is about to transform bricks-and-mortar retailing – a fast-breaking phenomenon that potentially poses the biggest challenge yet to the economics of local media companies.

More than four out of five smartphone and tablet owners use their devices for shopping, according to a report issued earlier this year by the Nielsen marketing metrics service. Nielsen says 65% of consumers research products before they head to a store, 66% of shoppers check prices in stores and 49% of them redeem coupons from their mobile phones.

Given all this click-to-buy-ing, it is perhaps no surprise that mobile-enabled commerce is projected by the eMarketer research service to nearly triple from today’s level to $113.6 billion by 2017. Now, here’s why publishers and other local media companies should worry:

With more shoppers making buying decisions and actual purchases on their mobile devices, local retailers and national brands are bound to vector ever more of their marketing dollars into intercepting consumers on mobile platforms, thus diverting ever greater portions of their budgets away from the traditional print and broadcast media.

Retail advertising, without doubt, is the lifeblood of local media. In 2013, retail advertising accounted for 75% of the $14.5 billion in advertising sold by local television stations, 43% of the $23.5 billion in ads sold by newspapers and 38% of the $4.2 billion in ads sold by local radio. The broadcast information was provided by Kantar Media and newspaper statistics came from the Newspaper Association of America.

The rush to digital retailing dominated a June conference in San Francisco sponsored by Street Fight, a smart online news service covering the myriad ways that prodigiously funded start-up companies are developing high-tech solutions to such pressing problems as C2C (Coffee to Commuter), S2S (Shoes to Shopper) and PP2CP (Pepperoni Pizza to Couch Potato).

Although these commercial goals may seem modest, the technologies, algorithms, analytics and business models developed to solve these problems likely will pave the way to changing how brands target prospects and merchants smooth the myriad frictions associated with driving to the mall, navigating a store, selecting a product, fishing out a credit card and schlepping the purchase home.

“We don’t believe shopping centers are dead,” says Nicholas Cabrera, who researches the future of retailing for Westfield Group, one of the largest mall operators in the world. But Cabrera told the Street Fight audience that technology is poised to “transform” shopping into a more pleasant experience for consumers – and a more productive one for merchants.

Here’s how that will happen:

Using apps, search engines, shopping sites, social media and volunteered information from consumers, everyone in the shopping ecosystem – brands, retailers and even mall operators – will endeavor to learn as much as they can about individual customers. Then, using smartphones, Google Glasses, smartwatches and the like, they will put the right offer in front of the right consumer at the right time, perhaps even adjusting pricing dynamically to recruit desirable new customers.

Websites, social media, shopping portals and search engines already monitor content consumption, conversations, wishlists, shopping carts and buying behavior. They increasingly are combining this information with masses of acquired and derived data to pigeonhole consumers into ever-tighter segments in order to optimize marketing messages to them.

In the interests of capturing real-time information about the intentions and behavior of consumers while they are in stores, a growing array of hardware, software, network and analytics companies intend to track customers via not only signals from their own devices but also with concealed cameras using sophisticated facial-recognition technology to gauge buying intent. Leaving nothing to chance, the newest Android phones can take your pulse to identify the shoes that quicken your heart.

To capture even more data, nearly every major retailer has developed – or soon will launch – an app to help consumers organize their shopping excursions, redeem coupons, make payments and earn loyalty rewards. Walmart’s latest app even issues rebates to customers if it finds a product being sold for less by a competing merchant. Not so incidentally, the apps will help merchants learn tons about customers at the same time.

The retail revolution is nothing short of an arms race to accumulate as much information about individual customers as possible. Local media companies can be major winners in the revolution by developing delightful products that help merchants to capture and leverage customer data. If they fail to act, however, they will be marginalized as advertisers move to interactive marketing.

While local publishers and broadcasters lack the technology to do this by themselves, their market presence and brand power are extremely valuable to the tech companies trying to solve far more than just the PP2CP problem. When potential partners come calling, media companies need to listen. Then, they need to respond as if their lives depended on it.

© 2014 Editor & Publisher
What is it that thy say, " If you do no know who the chump is than it is you"

[facetious]

Do you feel better now? Just think thy all ready know more about you then you know about you. Kind of like that little yellow thing that keeps popping up down in the right hand corner that says "auto saved". Wonder who is saving it and what and what thy are going to with it.

[Mustangpalmer1911]

He needs to get a chevy!

The origonal track your location auto company? On-Star.

Even tires have chips in them now that can track location, driving conditions, ect. Phones, Tablets, PCs, Cars, auto licanse plat readers, far to many easy ways the track ya now worry about it. They want to they will.

[Racenviper]

Really want to get him going, tell him that each new car has the ability to connect to 911 in the event of a crash. It is part of the Onboard Restraint Controller. Only the manufacter knows the ASN number. Who knows what other information is sent or received on that data line.

[500MAG]

You missed your opportunity. You should have told him to bring you 500 pounds of lead and you would make sure the tracking device was removed.

[Racenviper]

He could simply remove the gps antenna from the back of the radio.

[xs11jack]

Wasn't that an antenna for the satellite radio option?
Ole Jack

[Digger]

http://www.telogis.com/
This is the popular one out there ... my company uses them , Fords favorite .
I can follow my crews anywhere ... plus watch and see how bad a driver they are ,keeps record of hard braking , fast acceleration , Idle time , etc. etc. ... plus backtrack all of your route for the past day or two days ...
Yep , big brother is watching ....

[MUSTANG]

I have a tracker in the neighborhood; neighbor woman watches and notes when everyone comes and goes and who is in the vehicle.

[Janoosh]

Is she eastern european.?? I had an apartment below a pair of them once, they recorded everything...

[RogerDat]

Let them track but keep the tin foil handy. That way they see you are an ordinary Joe who is not doing anything wrong and will be totally surprised when you "vanish" off of the NCIS Los Angeles spy satellite and traffic camera network to make a quick visit to a gun show. Heehee.

Not exactly sure that lead cap enhances resale value, and lord help his lawyer if it ever comes unstuck and goes flying off.

[boog]

I bet you could mold the lead over a magnet of some sort, then put felt over the bottom.

[I'll Make Mine]

Of course there's a way to disconnect the antenna, but it'll also disable the vehicle's navigation system (if you never drive anywhere you don't know like the back of your hand, that may not matter, but...). Just open up the plastic trim on the front roof pillars or pull down the headliner, find the wires leading to the antenna, and give a gentle "clip" with a pair of wire cutters. Done.

The lead cover will have less effect on resale value of the truck, though -- except it'd work a lot better if it were grounded to the body (any metal would work for that, it'd form a Faraday cage).

[Menner]

Friend of mine has a 2013 chevy with on star and he was traveling late at night on major interstate an said that he was running about 100 mph for an extended period when his radio stopped and a voice asked him if he needed to be driving that fast for that long can't speak to the truth of the statement but have never caught him in a lie before Just your friendly big brother looking out for you I guess