In the perennial fight against ad drop off during commercial breaks, tech and video firms are coming up with new ways to force viewers to watch advertising. Over in Britain, BBC competitor Independent Television (ITV) is begining tests of "automatically placed overlay advertising."
The technology, developed by California firm Keystream, uses object and motion detection to find suitable spaces to display ads and other messages within video footage. The images then animate and provide a click through link if rolled over with a mouse.
Simon Fell, director of future technology at ITV, tells The Times that there is a lot of potentional for this product: "If there's a scene in a programme where there's time, then it could give us a chance to get an ad away. But obviously on television you won't be seeing one of these appearing at a crunch point in a drama."
ITV is testing the service online and plans to move it to televisions if it is successful in that space.
Over on this side of the pond, cable networks and dvr makers are already testing "speed bumps" that show an advertisement during fast-forwarding and billboards that appear on paused screens, ensuring that the glee of viewers who have been happily fast-forwarding through advertising content over the last few years is soon to be cut short.By Meghan Keane for Wired.com
