'Hacking' Times Square digital signage

'Hacking' Times Square digital signage
Tags: Cellular Signage, Content, Content Management
March 15, 2011 - Christopher Hall

Yesterday, someone forwarded me a link to a curious video on YouTube, one that purports to show someone hacking the feeds to the digital signage displays in New York City's Times Square.

If the video were real, it could set display, media player and media companies scrambling to better protect their displays and the content streams playing on them.

Of course, it pretty clearly has to be faked, but it is drawing some outside media attention to the signs and how they work — or perhaps more accurately, not how they actually work. (The video even appears on SportsIllustrated.com.)

So take a look. What do you think?

And then, of course, there's already an "expert" going on YouTube to explain exactly why the video's fake, but not fake. Or not fake the way everybody thinks. Eh, I'm not so sure this guy knows what he's talking about, as far as altering the video footage, but he does point out some interesting facets of the original video, like what seems to be the supposedly "hacked-in" video feed apparently showing up on another screen before it's supposed to.

So, while this is likely all much ado about nothing, it'll be curious to see what, if anything, is really behind all this tomfoolery.

Let us know what you think about either or both of these videos in the comments section below.

Reader Comments

Chris McKoy

about 14 months ago

The video was created for promotional reasons. If you see the right version of the video, there's a clip at the end promoting a movie called "Limitless". http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20044373-1.html
Ana Udrea

about 14 months ago

Seems like Time Square is a popular location to make these kinds of demonstrations in. Another guy using its TubeMote account and smart phone for doing the same thing, mentioning the great opportunity of ''controlling screens all across the world''. Maybe this should worry us a bit. Is this control rather a lack of control? You can watch the video here: http://www.digitalsignage.net/2011/03/25/control-a-screen-with-your-smart-phone/.