Tom Simonite reports:
Next time you’re stuck in traffic, take a look at the license plates on the cars around you. To a user of bump.com–which launches today–each one is like an email address that can be used to contact the owner, whether to tell them a rear light is out or that you like their bumper sticker.
“To send a message you just need to specify state and plate,” Bump’s VP of technology John Albers-Mead told me at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara, California, where the La Jolla, California, firm will launch this afternoon.
[…]
“It allows us to track users, it’s like putting a cookie on a car,” says Albers-Mead, likening his technology to the small files used to track web users and offer functionality like autologins online. Once connected up to Bump’s tech, a camera at a store or drive-in burger joint could, for example, showing menu choices similar to those you’ve selected before. That extra data could be valuable to store owners, Bump say, who could also make use of the messaging functions.
Read more on Technology Review.
via Brian_Henderson