Don't Look At That Billboard!

It is looking back!
A new technology has been developed that allows cameras mounted on billboards or advertisments to see if people are looking at them. Hopefully, we won't progress to the Minority Report level of advertisments where the ad will talk back to us. But right now the ads record how many people have looked at it, allowing advertisers to pay per eyeball? Also, it allows the advertisment to do something if an eye loses interest, for example show "YOU ARE A WINNER!!!!!!" in a million colors so that it gives me a seizure to look at it.

The developers behind the technology – dubbed Eyebox2 – believe it could have a range of possible applications, but should particularly interest advertisers. This is because it allows billboards to track people's attention and perhaps respond when it wanes.
Until now, eye-tracking systems have only worked over about half a metre.
"It's less accurate than those systems, but it is good enough to let us know whether you are looking at a display or billboard or not," says lead developer Roel Vertegaal from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

I'm going to be the first in line to buy the sunglasses that block this kind of nonsense. Freedom!
(via New Scientist) Tracking billboards could give you the eyeball