Wireless technology for interactive advertising on mobiles

Licensing opportunity

Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a system for allowing users to choose adverts to download to their mobile phone or PDA, using Bluetooth wireless technology.

The system is being tested currently in the reception area of School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the university where BluScreen, a 58 centimetre-wide screen displaying information about upcoming seminars, lectures and events has been installed.

BluScreen detects the presence of people carrying Bluetooth enabled devices in its vicinity and begins to show them adverts, while at the same time building a record of what they have seen to ensure that messages are not repeated.

Now, Terry Payne at ECS and his team have developed the system a stage further so that individuals passing the screen can pick an advert they like and have the information downloaded to their phone so it can be accessed at a later stage.

Individuals are invited to select the adverts of interest to them on a touchscreen in the reception area, they are then forwarded the relevant web addresses, which they can look at in their own time.

“This could work really well in the cinema where people are relaxing and then see something that interests them which they would like to follow up afterwards,” said Payne.

The researchers are now further developing the commercial appeal of BluScreen by adding the ability to build user profiles and match these with particular markets.