In case you are wondering, this urinal with built-in video screen does not serve as interactive target for Stormtrooper pisser. They are for ads. What??? Yes. Men, your safe haven from the world of ads have finally met its demise. The public restroom will not be spared from the onslaught of advertising either. But we have give it to the Dutch company, Mr.Friendly, for the tech this thing has. This urinal is no ordinary urinal. It is actually quite high-tech.
The screen will start showing video ad once peeing commence – thanks to the sensor located in an undisclosed position within the urinal. You can’t fool it if you pretend to pee. I am not sure why would anyone want to do that, but you just can’t. And it is environmentally-friendly too because, it is waterless and has an anti-bacteria surface to ensure nasty stuff don’t grow out of pee stains on the ceramic pee ware, and finally, each urinal has an odor tip to prevent odor from building up.
I am skeptical about the level of ad absorption by a peeing person. I mean, the time to take to pee would be nothing more than mere seconds (unless the person is doing something else prohibited in the public restroom or has some serious bladder issues) and during this few seconds, how much can advertising reach into our wandering mind during a pee process? Probably not a lot, if any at all.
While it is high-tech, it has not as high-tech as the fictional health-analyzing urinal depicted in the sci-fi flick, The Island (Warner Bros, 2005). Having said that, it is fortunate that it does not have any more sensor than the one that senses a stream is ongoing. Imagine the day when it can pick up your health condition, and/or decipher what you eat or drink, I bet it will then be able to dish out targeted ads.
Just imagine a virtual assistant materializes on the screen and say something like “we’ve detect you have high sugar level, can we recommend X shop for a sugar-free diet?” Don’t laugh. It is totally possible that will happen in future. Hmmm. Why do I feel so naked about the future after suggesting this creepy tech myself? I really shouldn’t give anyone any idea.
Images: Mr.Friendly.
via Technabob.
