I walked into an elevator in downtown LA and was shocked to find a flatscreen panel showing headline news items and even giving viewer polls to people who are not in front of keyboards. I thought that was really weird.
But maybe not as weird as seeing a TV in the Post Office.
That’s right. While waiting in line, you can now be entertained, or disgusted, and blech, advertised to, while you are held captive.
But here’s the real capper. I took the bus today. Al Gore has shamed me into ditching the car when possible. So I took the bus. Not just the commuter bus to work, or the subway across town, but a regular two-blocks-then-stop city bus.
And that’s where it got real weird.
There was a TV screen in the bus.
Two screens, actually: one behind the driver’s seat, and one behind the back exit.
Transit TV, it’s called. Yep, they have a Web site.
How bizarre is that? I feel like we’re becoming the world depicted in the film Minority Report, although thank goodness the ads aren’t personalized to my retina yet.
I still remember “silent radio” in the gym, which was bizarre enough. But TV in Buses? Post Offices? Elevators? I think I even saw one at a checkout counter in a store somewhere, but maybe I’m just fantasizing, or is that nightmaring?
Where have you seen flat panels lately, not counting in a private home?
