Intrusive Advertising

The Personal Digital Companion – what a marvellous tool for communicating, keeping notes and staying on track for those important appointments. A Troubleshooter depends on his PDC as a portable portal into the digital world of Alpha Complex. Naturally, service groups like HPD & MC and PLC make the most of access to PDCs as a personalised channel for unobtrusive and carefully selected advertising.

I just installed an advertising widget from Amazon.com that generates a tag cloud of products relevant to the page content. I dropped it into this blog, so I would envisage the occasional PARANOIA product turning up – but, who knows what keywords the widget might latch on to. As a multimedia device, the widgets on a PDC could do something similar – responding to the way the Troubleshooter uses the device and the environmental inputs recorded (sights, sounds and so forth). Take the PDC into a firefight and you can expect to see product placement ads for Gyrostabilizing All-purpose Flux Fortifiers and Laser Barrel Extenders. Grumbling about the lack of food – PLC might send you a coupon for 3 credits off a Hearty-Hearty Brick Loaf or CruncheeTym Yeast Twists. Just returned from a secret meeting with your secret society contact? How about an Acoustic Interferometer or a 2-for-1 offer on TempWipe memory suppression drugs… oops – hang on! You could have sworn you activated the ComDat Secure for Sure PDC cloakware. So, how come…

Suddenly, what seemed like an ideal companion suddenly seems less secure… and what’s with the BotBuster Cone Rifle shells when you’re a member of Corpore Metal? What has your PDC been picking up that would have caused that? It wouldn’t be another member of your team, would it?

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