VW's Theater PSA
 

Volkswagen - Eyes on the road - YouTube

If only one person in the audience learned from it, it was worth it.

If I were paying for texts, this would result in a paroxysm of rage and a screen covered with popcorn and Coke for the duration of the movie. Yeah, I know the latter is more expensive than a 10-cent text, but it would be cathartic.

Location based broadcaster.....
How the heck does THAT work...??

Agreed that it might actually save a life or two.

It's called beacons. Some retailers use it, notably and most recently Starbucks, which used it to better organize their stores to foot traffic. They did not ask people for opt in though and it got a little dicey on the legal front. It's typically not user identifiable (unless you register) and this instance probably used wifi anyways to send a push message.


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Why would a significant portion of people in a theatre be connected to WiFi?

Because phones often connect automatically....

It's not necessarily the case but that would have been one method. If they used a text message, vw would have had to pay for it.


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I've never seen a public WiFi (other than maybe in a very small private cafe) that didn't require some sort of authentication and overt action to connect to it. Either entering a password or clicking through a disclaimer page.

I'm also not sure how push messaging just because you're connected to a WiFi network would work. I'm guessing this was an implementation of Crapple's iBeacon which uses Bluetooth to spam and spy on users. Fortunately easily turned off by disabling Bluetooth.

^ depends on settings and OS. if this ad is yur definition of apple spamming and spying on users then yes you are correct. However I think your foil hat would block most signals anyways.


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No: I'm saying that iBeacon in general is spyware. Not using an iOS device also works :)

didn't appear to be only iPhones in that HK theater.

Making it either (a) staged or (b) really effing creepy

Or android...


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You can actually get vetted builds of Android like CyanogenMod that are less likely to contain nasties than a proprietary OS.

Yeah you can jailbreak your iPhone too, I'm not sure what your point is -- obviously the vast majority of users do not have the tech knowledge to do this or simply don't care. Stock builds leave Bluetooth 4.0+ enabled.


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Most Android implementations don't turn BT back on when updated...

Apple Keeps Turning Bluetooth On When You Update Your iPhone - Forbes