A UK advertising company run a project interesting by which it monitors the users who pass by some garbage cans located in London. The trash cans analyze the WiFi signal of the terminals, take their recording series and log the movements of the users around them. The idea of the company is to implement in real life the idea of cookies for websites, that is, in the future the baskets will recognize the users who have passed by them and the system could be used in various ways.
The Renew ad firm has been using technology embedded in the receptacles to measure the Wi-Fi signals from smartphones, and suggested that it would apply the concept of "cookies" - tracking files that follow internet users across the web - to the physical world. "We will cookie the street," its chief executive, Kaveh Memari, said in June.
The local authorities in London have asked the advertising company to give up the garbage cans that monitor the activity of the users and they will most likely be withdrawn from the sidewalks. The company says that through them they could generate much more productive advertising campaigns, because they could see which stores users enter, and when they approach the screen of the trash can they would see an advertisement of a competing company that could have prices more suitable for him.
