The radio that knows where you live
We’re used to the somewhat spooky way that websites track our every move. Notice how the adverts on various sites reflect the products you’ve been viewing elsewhere? You only have to look at a CD on Play and Amazon will be trying to sell it to you within hours. We’re used to the GPS tracker on our smartphones monitoring where we are all the time and pointing us towards local attractions too.
Well now this technology is starting to spread to other devices too. The BBC has used the Thinking Digital conference to trial a perceptive radio. Developed by the BBC's Future Media North Laboratory, the radio uses information about where you live to change the listening experience by referencing local places or weather conditions. It also monitors the background noise at your location so it can decide whether to boost certain sounds to enhance the listening experience. The idea is to provide an "immersive" broadcast that can reconfigure the content for each listener.
It's either a great idea or a creepy one depending on your viewpoint. And if it only broadcasts the things it thinks you want to hear how will you ever discover anything new?
Another worrying aspect is, once your radio thinks it has your best interests at heart, how long will it be before your other domestic appliances start getting in on the act? Will your fridge reject anything that isn’t compatible with your diet, or insist on only local produce? Maybe your alarm clock will refuse to process the snooze button on work days. Or your TV will insist on you watching a set number of mind improving documentaries before it lets you tune into a soap.
When your radio knows where you live it's only a short step to other gadgets knowing where you are and what you're doing all the time and trying to "improve" your life accordingly. What was all that stuff about Big Brother...?
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