Re: Commercial killers

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 1:00 AM 8/1/95, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>God help me, all of this reminds me of a Carl Sagan book, of all things.
>One of his science fiction characters was said to have made his first
>fortune by building a commercial zapping chip for VCRs.
>
>Butthead Astronomer, indeed...

There have been _billions and billions_ of proposals for commercial
zappers. (Actually, not such a saganesque number, but dozens at least.)

Harry Bartholomew was telling me a year or so ago about some ideas for
detecting volume changes. I think, however, the problem of distinguishing
commercial from non-commercial signal is, I think, a tough one.

My point earlier was not to actually do this, but to suggest that if the
V-chip is to code various kinds of content, then the logic is strong for
commercial content to be similarly coded. (For example, schools often show
taped broadcasts...they might claim that it would be harmful and improper
for children to be exposed to beer commercial during school hours...)

This would gore the ox of the advertisers, so they might quietly have the
whole V-chip thing killed.

--Tim May

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