Gadgets and gizmos

Travelling by train could soon become a very different experience if German plans get the go ahead.

The German advertising agency BBDO has been working on a new type of ad on behalf of Sky Deutschland which is going to prove pretty controversial.

The idea is that when you lean against a train window you get to hear the ad, but the worrying bit is that the sound is said to appear to come from inside your head. This is because the system uses bone conduction technology which allows the sound to pass through to your inner ear in the form of vibrations in your skull.

Advice to Download an App form the Window

The name of the project is the Talking Window campaign and it got an airing at the recent International Festival of Creativity in Cannes. An online video shows surprised train travellers in Germany getting advised by the window to download the Sky Go app onto their phones in order to watch streamed video footage of their favourite shows.

Of course, when you are tired and going home on the train it is always a convenient option to rest your head on the window, which is when you would receive these voices in your head giving you an advertising pitch.

The bone conduction technology which is used here is something which has been used in the past for the likes of hearing aids and headphones for swimmers, while magicians sometimes use it to fool people into believing that they are receiving a secret message straight to their brain. It is also believed that Google my use this system in their upcoming Glass headset.