TBR News July 6, 2019

The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. July 6, 2019:

“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.

When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.

I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.

He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.

He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.

His latest business is to re-institute a universal draft in America.

He wants to do this to remove tens of thousands of unemployed young Americans from the streets so they won’t come together and fight him.

Commentary for July 6:” The roof of the White House sports all kinds of anti-aircraft devices, supposedly not known to the rest of mankind.Of course, there are really no secrets in Washington and on might suppose if a large RC high-wing monoplane, painted black, were flown from the Mall towards 1600, the roof-toppers would have a difficult time judging height and size. Can you see, and hear, the artillery opening up on a model plane? What goes up must come down, Elon Musk to the contrary, so all over a part of DC anti-aircraft material will come crashing down on innocent motorists and pedestrians. Of course this will all be blamed on Iran and Loony Bolton will be seen hopping up and down in the Ovai Office, yesterday’s dinner splattering the carpets, while he demands an atomic strike on Tehran. And in Tel Aviv, Fat Bibi the Cross dresser, will be busy on the hotline, trying to persuade Chrome-Dome Donald to launch missiles. And all for a RC model! Shows you the intellectual levels that govern us all. And John, clean up the carpet, why not?”

 

 

The Table of Contents

• Accelerating Imperial Decline
• Backstory: Covering an unprecedented uprising in Hong Kong
• California at risk of ‘even bigger earthquake’ after serious shocks
• House panel chair asks watchdog for probe of Homeland Security leaders
• Encyclopedia of American Loons
• The anti-vaxxer disease is now a Republican epidemic.
• The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
• Google Internet Spying

 

Accelerating Imperial Decline

Washington’s foreign policy towards Iran is driven by desperation rather than a reasoned understanding of a world in historically significant flux. That can lead only to a continuing succession of failures.

June 23, 2019

by Patrick Lawrence

Consortium News

The kinetic events of the past week in Washington, Tehran, and the Persian Gulf were nothing if not revealing. President Donald Trump proved the keeper of the peace, warmongers all around him, when he aborted an airborne attack on Iran Thursday evening. The Iranians continue to act with admirable restraint in the face of incessant provocations.

More such provocations are sure to come. Trump announced over the weekend that he will impose yet another layer of “major new sanctions” against Iran on Monday. After a minor cyber-attack against an Iranian intelligence agency last week, the Pentagon has developed a list of Iranian entities it is considering for a more extensive cyber-war campaign.

But there are more fundamental truths to derive from the swift escalation of Washington’s hostilities toward Tehran. They come to four. Taken together, they offer a snapshot of an imperial power in accelerating decline.

Paralyzed Elites

First, Trump’s determination to avoid pointless new wars of adventure has divided Washington to an extent that is unprecedented at least as far back as the Vietnam debacle. In addition to hawkish factions within the administration and the national security apparatus, an apparent majority on Capitol Hill — liberals as well as Republicans — favors war as the principal instrument of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

This strongly suggests that Washington’s foreign policy elites are effectively paralyzed — that is, incapable of meeting a new century’s realities with new thinking. Trump’s authorization of last week’s cyberattack and his subsequent promise of new sanctions appear to be attempts to appease the swelling ranks of warmongers pressuring him to approve a military confrontation with Iran. It is to Trump’s credit that he has so far held out against those many who stand against him. It is not clear how long he will be able to do so. There is informed speculation that Trump never approved of the attack he canceled at the last minute Thursday night.

Crumbling Credibility

Second, Washington’s ability to impose a self-serving narrative on global events is in the latter stages of collapse. Winning broad acceptance of officially approved accounts of U.S. actions and intentions has been essential to the effective execution of American foreign policy at least since the Cold War’s onset in the late 1940s. This is a dwindling asset, as the cases of Ukraine, Syria, and now Iran attest.

Washington’s account of events in the Persian Gulf since two cargo vessels were attacked two weeks ago met open resistance within 24 hours, notably from Germany, the European Union, and Japan — all among America’s longstanding allies. The significance here cannot be overstated. If the U.S. can no longer control accepted narratives, its global alliances will progressively weaken. This process is already evident, notably in the increasing tension between Washington and its trans-Atlantic allies.

Desperation Phase

Third, in the twilight years of its long preeminence, the U.S. has entered what is best described as its desperation phase. Having no need of imaginative thinking or policy innovation for more than seven decades, Washington finds itself incapable of either. Instead, it assumes a perennial posture of resistance as a new, multipolar, and historically inevitable world order emerges. In a word, America now acts as spoiler wherever this new order is emergent.

This is evident in a variety of contexts. High among these are Western Europe’s densely woven interdependence with Russia, which elaborates continuously despite America’s objections, and the universally shared desire to achieve a lasting peace in Northeast Asia. In the case of Iran, Washington resists the Islamic Republic’s undeniable place as a regional power, incessantly painting a nation dedicated to regional security as a sponsor of terror that is intent — for reasons never explained — on destabilizing its own neighborhood.

A foreign policy that rests on desperation rather than a reasoned understanding of a world in historically significant flux can lead only to a continuing succession of failures. Should Trump’s many adversaries in Washington prevail in instigating a military confrontation with Iran, the current crisis in the Persian Gulf will take its place among these. The outcome here may be evident in a matter of weeks, if not sooner.

Isolation

Finally, there is the question of Washington’s increasing isolation. During the postwar decades the U.S. was “alone in the world” — the phrase of the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini — by virtue of its unchallenged dominance. For better or worse, America led. This has turned upside down since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: The U.S. is now ever more alone because it repeatedly flinches from the 21st century, effectively refusing to accept that the 20th has passed.

There has yet to be an open breach between the U.S. and its postwar allies. But it is not difficult to imagine that one lies out in the middle distance — an eventuality that was unthinkable even a decade or so ago. The now-evident trans-Atlantic rift worsened steadily after the Obama administration force-marched the Continent to conform to the sanctions it imposed on Russia after the U.S.–cultivated coup in Ukraine five years ago. Trump widened it very dramatically when he withdrew last year from the 2015 accord governing Iran’s nuclear programs.

It is lost on no one in Europe that the current crisis in the Persian Gulf is the direct outcome —and maybe the intended outcome — of that reckless decision. Should Washington’s hawkish factions persist in their transparent efforts to provoke a military conflict with Iran, the risk of a break straight down the middle of the Western alliance will draw all the nearer.

The U.S. remains beyond question the world’s most powerful nation, as is frequently remarked. But hard power is losing its agency: This is among the principal features of our new century. It is important now to distinguish between strong nations and the merely powerful. Most of what the U.S. does abroad has come to demonstrate the opposite of its intent. America is emerging as a powerful but weak nation, its leadership divided and unable to rethink its global position.  And a loss of strength is the very essence of a nation in decline.

 

Backstory: Covering an unprecedented uprising in Hong Kong

July 5, 2019

Reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) – On the afternoon of July 1, before protesters in Hong Kong trashed the city’s legislature and riot police countered with tear gas, there was a moment that captured the city’s state of flux.

A handful of pro-democracy lawmakers, ostensible allies of the demonstrators, tried desperately to stop the young men in hard hats and masks at the front of the crowd from smashing their way into the Legislative Council, known as LegCo.

“What use are you guys as lawmakers?” one demonstrator jeered.

“Yes, we are useless,” a legislator named Roy Kwong conceded. “We still need to protect you, do you understand?”

“You are not protecting me,” the demonstrator retorted. “You are harming the next generation.”

Reuters reporter Jessie Pang, a 23-year-old Hong Kong native, was witness to the scene and said it brought her close to tears.

“It was painful to watch,” Pang said.

Still, she said, “it was important to let the world see and hear what was happening. The news is not about me, but their stories, so I kept my camera rolling

During a month of large, unpredictable and sometimes violent protests to oppose an extradition bill that the government had been pushing, Reuters pressed even its financial reporters to help cover the demonstrations.

Then, journalists flew in from around the region for a planned protest march on Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the former colony’s return to China from Britain.

Nobody could predict what would happen, but the backdrop was tense. One major issue was that with no clear protest leader, it was often hard to know where and when the next action would unfold.

TIP-OFF FROM MESSAGE

On Monday, the main event was supposed to be a peaceful protest march.

However, hours before the procession started, Taipei-based Reuters photographer Tyrone Siu, in Hong Kong to reinforce, saw in a Telegram messaging group that protesters were headed to the legislative council complex. He tipped off Reuters TV, which quickly moved teams there.

Pang was with demonstrators outside a government ceremony to mark the handover anniversary on Monday morning. She, too, headed to LegCo as word of the gathering there spread around lunchtime.

In the early afternoon protesters started trying to break into the LegCo building.

Reuters photographer Thomas Peter, down from Beijing, chronicled the protesters as they took turns in the heat and humidity to pound at the thick, tempered glass of the building with makeshift battering rams and hammers, like miners at an urban coal face.

Surrounding the demonstrators were others holding up open umbrellas to shield them from cameras that might produce images or footage that the police could later use as evidence – as they had in previous protests.

The crowd of thousands that had gathered chanted in Cantonese: “Go Hong Kongers!”

When demonstrators finally cracked through the LegCo entrance, they widened the openings and swept away some of the glass so that the crowd could pour in. It was around 9 p.m. and police inside had retreated.

“The words I heard most throughout the protests were ‘stay safe!’” Peter said.

“Even when the protest turned into a riot and people were smashing through glass and metal into the LegCo building, I had people repeatedly come up and warn me that it was dangerous here. When I replied that I would stay, they usually told me to stay safe and thanked me for being here.”

2 A.M. CHECK

Protesters were wary of being identified and prosecuted. Nearly all wore face masks and many in the crowd refused to be photographed or quoted in stories by name. Reporters had to be careful to respect their wishes.

Three hours after the break-in, police returned in force and dispersed the crowd with tear gas.

John Ruwitch, Reuters Shanghai bureau chief who was helping with coverage in Hong Kong, watched the police counter-attack and was swept away with the fleeing crowd, but then doubled back to the legislature.

The demonstrators were gone and police outside let him in. Journalists wandered freely, quietly shooting photos of the aftermath. An alarm bell rang incessantly.

At the top of an escalator, overlooking the ransacked foyer, a policeman in riot gear suddenly stopped him and asked for identification papers, Ruwitch said.

“I showed him my press passes and passport, but it wasn’t enough,” he said.

The policeman insisted he could not stay without a LegCo pass.

Another officer intervened and they let Ruwitch go, perhaps aware of how out of place it was to enforce such a rule at 2 a.m. after all that had happened earlier.

Pang also finished her shift in the early hours of Tuesday and headed home, trying to make sense of what she’d borne witness to as a journalist and a Hong Konger.

“My arms were irritated by the pepper spray in the air and my legs were so tired … but nothing compared with the pain I felt with my people,” she said later.

“I don’t think it’s a weakness to admit we have emotion. We are human before we are reporters.”

Reporting by Jessie Pang, John Ruwitch, Thomas Peter, Sumeet Chatterjee, Lina Kittisilpa, Anne Marie Roantree, Joyce Zhou, Tyrone Siu and Felix Tam

 

California at risk of ‘even bigger earthquake’ after serious shocks

July 6, 2019

RT

California could be hit with a series of large earthquakes after the 7.1 magnitude quake that struck on Friday, and aftershocks could go on for years, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey has warned.

The south of the state was rocked by two earthquakes in as many days, with a 6.4-magnitude one hitting Ridgecrest on Thursday, the strongest in the state in over 20 years. Over 1,000 aftershocks have struck since.

“This is an earthquake sequence. It will be ongoing,” USGS seismologist Dr Lucy Jones told reporters Friday.

“There is about a one-in-twenty chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake within the next few days,” she reportedly added.

A state of emergency has been declared in the city of Ridgecrest as officials deal with damage and injuries sustained in the quake. The natural disaster ruptured gas lines, caused fires, water mains damage and knockouts to power and communications lines.

When an aftershock is bigger than the main quake, the first quake is renamed as a foreshock, Jones explained. “A magnitude seven usually has aftershocks for years,” she warned.

Friday’s earthquake was widely felt across Southern California, including greater Los Angeles, where shaking in some areas lasted about 40 seconds. Low-level rumbling extended as far north as the San Francisco Bay, beyond to Reno in neighboring Nevada, and as far east as Phoenix, Arizona.

 

House panel chair asks watchdog for probe of Homeland Security leaders

July 5, 2019

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chairman of a U.S. House panel asked an internal watchdog on Friday to investigate whether top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. border service knew about a Facebook group where agents posted racist and misogynistic comments.

“Such vile and threatening behavior from agents of the United States government is entirely unacceptable” and “should be grounds for immediate dismissal,” Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a letter to the DHS’s acting inspector general.

Noting that the issue was already being probed by the office of professional responsibility of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) service, Thompson asked the inspector general to open a probe into what DHS and CBP leadership knew about the groups and what action they had taken to address it.

Thompson said it had been reported that recently named CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan “knew about the group as early as 2016, when he was chief of the Border Patrol.”

“If accurate, this report calls into question Mr. Morgan’s fitness to hold any office in the United States government,” Thompson said.

He also asked the acting inspector general to investigate whether Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan knew about the Facebook groups. McAleenan has ordered a probe into the social media posts. He called them “disturbing & inexcusable” in a tweet on Wednesday.

The U.S. border service came under fire over the issue on Monday, when the non-profit news site ProPublica reported that offensive content had been posted on a private Facebook group for current and former CPB officers.

Posts included jokes about the deaths of migrants and sexually explicit comments referring to U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the news outlet said. Reuters did not independently confirm the report.

The report emerged as Ocasio-Cortez and other lawmakers visited a border patrol station in Texas and criticized conditions at the site. Ocasio-Cortez said migrants held at the station had been told to drink water out of toilets and were subjected to psychological abuse.

 

Encyclopedia of American Loons

William Campbell Douglass

Fundies do say the darndest things, but the whereabouts of the “Lee Douglas” supposedly associated with the Christian Coalition and described here cannot be determined and he probably doesn’t exist.

William Campbell Douglass II unfortunately does. Douglass is a doctor, woo peddler, hardcore conspiracy theorist and president of the Douglass Center for Nutrition and Preventive Medicine. In particular, Douglass believes that the WHO developed AIDS as a strategic element in their evil plan to usher in the New World Order by depopulating the Earth.

As for woo, well, Douglass has quite a number of … unusual ideas. He has been caught claiming that a little bit of tobacco smoking is good for you – in fact, he has written a book about that: The Health Benefits of Tobacco (I suppose “editor and researcher Tracy T. Douglass” is a relative), which seeks to rebut all those studies linking smoking to negative health effects and concluding that it’s a conspiracy. Probably by the government. The purpose of the conspiracy is left unclear. The quality of the rebuttals are well exemplified by his observation that even according to CDC studies, only 0.5% of the smoking population died at ages less than 35 – but 8% of the general population is dead before age 35; which prompts him to ask “does smoking prevent death in the relatively young – from murder, automobile and other accidents, infection or boredom?” No prize for spotting the rather obvious flaw in the reasoning (I haven’t even doublechecked the number).

Apart from his defense of smoking, Douglass has argued that exercise is overrated and that vegetarianism is bad. He has moreover promoted the idiotic raw milk fad (he is the author of The Milk of Human Kindness-Is Not Pasteurized – the title gives you a glimpse of the mind of W.C. Douglass methinks). Fluoride, however, is really bad and water fluoridation is yet another element in a grand conspiracy, as is aspartame. And sunlight, according to Douglass, prevents melanoma. Gary Null apparently really liked that claim.

Douglass has been most widely noticed, perhaps, for his anti-vaccine views. Vaccines don’t really prevent anything, according to Douglass (and the diseases they are meant to prevent aren’t really big deals anyways). Instead, vaccines are – you guessed it – a conspiracy. For instance, in his article “Pandemic Panic Hits World Health Organization”, published in the positively deranged pseudojournal Medical Voices (it’s actually a somewhat useful journal – anyone who has published anything in that journal can be safely dismissed as an insane crank), he claimed the H1N1 flu epidemic was faked by the WHO to sell drugs and vaccines. After all, according to Douglass the epidemic was “no more than a sniffle”, killing only a from a World War I battle commander standpoint insignificant number of people.

His relationship to critical thinking and evidence is, in other words, a matter of pick-and-choose. For instance, Douglass is – unusually for woo promoters – critical of the use of anecdotes in assessing a hypothesis. Of course, to Douglass, “anecdotal evidence” means any well-controlled, large study that yields results he don’t like. Personal anecdotes are, however, really valuable when they support his own, science-contrary beliefs.

Unsurprisingly, Douglass also runs a webstore that sells his special brand of supplements, and pushes at least two “periodicals” that have succeeded in making this list, Real Health and Second Opinion.

Diagnosis: A critical-thinking disaster that makes Mercola look positively wise (ok, so that’s an exaggeration). And though Douglass doesn’t quite enjoy Mercola’s level of influence, he is far from negligible.

Jock Doubleday

A standard ploy among denialists is to offer pseudo-challenges to scientists to prove that the scientific fact they deny is true or that their pseudoscientific delusions are false – where the protocol for testing or standards of proof are set by them, of course, to ensure that they will (with some exceptions) never be satisfied. Kent Hovind’s $250,000 challenge is probably the most famous, but Ray Comfort’s $10,000 prize to anyone who can present a “genuine living transitional form” has received its share of scorn as well (Comfort defines a transitional form as “a lizard that produced a bird, or a dog that produced kittens, or a sheep that produced a chicken, or even as Archaeopteryx–a dinosaur that produced a bird,” which is not what a transitional form is, making the challenge an impossible one). Deepak Chopra’s “explain consciousness” challenge is arguably even dumber.

Jock Doubleday, also known as the director or Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc. and the author of such intriguing works as ‘The Burning Time (Stories of the Modern-day Persecution of Midwives)’ and ‘Lolita Shrugged (THE MYTH OF AGE-SPECIFIC MATURITY )’ has, in the same vein, gained himself some ridicule for his offer of “$75,000.00 to the first medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine additives ingredients in the same amount as a six-year-old child is recommended to receive under the year-2005 guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (In the event that thimerosal has recently been removed from a particular vaccine, the thimerosal-containing version of that vaccine will be used.)” The mixture will be body weight calibrated. By 2006 Doubleday claimed that “14 doctors, or persons claiming to be doctors, have contacted me about publicly drinking the vaccine additives mixture. None have followed through.” And to ensure that no one actually follows through with the challenge, Doubleday has created a pretty substantial list of criteria to be satisfied: Any participant must go through a psychiatric evaluation, a history of any mental health based counseling, an email exam of 10 questions regarding vaccine theory and history, compulsory purchase and reading of at last five altmed anti-vaccine books, a 20 question written exam, a certificate of good health, and so on and so forth. In short: You’re not going to pass; just forget it. In fact, several doctors have approached Doubleday, but they have all been rejected by him because of various details with regard to their application or because Doubleday just rejected them – it is, after all, up to him to determine whether the challenger is eligible). Of course, the test itself has been passed with flying colors: In 1996 a German guy ingested a dose of at least 1500 times the maximum dose of thimerosal a 6-year old with a complete vaccine history would theoretically have received in one go (weight adjusted!). It seems to have been unpleasant, but the guy recovered completely and did not develop autism.

Doubleday is, of course, a hardcore anti-vaxx loon. Not only are vaccines dangerous, “vaccines have never been shown by science to prevent any disease (you’d need a long-term controlled study for that).” Yeah, it’s kind of precisely like claiming that no one has shown that falling to the ground from 9000 feet is harmful. And no, Doubleday doesn’t understand science, or how evidence is measured, at all. Not that it would matter; all the science in the world wouldn’t change Doubleday’s mind, since it is all a conspiracy. Writes Doubleday: “There is a dark force working to undermine all ecosystems on Earth. This force is a trans-century cult that calls itself the Illuminati – because its members believe that one day they will be ‘illuminated’ and become gods on Earth. Illuminati members have infiltrated all world politics and control all financial systems. They have engineered the present financial crisis and they are responsible for the events of 9/11 and for the majority of false-flag events in recent history. Through war and other means, they are responsible for the hyper-poisoning of the planet.” Why they would be deliberately trying to undermine “all ecosystems” is a bit unclear, but Morgoth and Ungoliant, Skynet, the Harkonnens and the aliens in the classic documentary “They Live” have all been up to stuff like that before.

Diagnosis: Mike Adams, Sherri Tenpenny and Ken Adachi all rolled into one, only dumber (well … less influential, at least). A joke, really.

 

The anti-vaxxer disease is now a Republican epidemic.

At least three GOP gubernatorial candidates want to roll back laws requiring vaccinations for school kids. This is a profound moral crisis.

by Jay Michaelson

The Daily Beast

What was once the provenance of a few fringe weirdos—mostly on the loony left—has now migrated into the mainstream. At least three Republican candidates for governor—in Oklahoma, Oregon, and Connecticut—are now open skeptics of requiring vaccinations for school kids.

In Connecticut, Bob Stefanowski, currently trailing his Democratic opponent, told a Tea Party group last summer that whether children should be required to be vaccinated in order to attend public school “depends on the vaccination.”

“We shouldn’t be dumping a lot of drugs into kids for no reason,” he added.

Asked to explain that remark, a Stefanowski aide said that “while [Stefanowski] believes that the best practice is to vaccinate your children, he does not believe that the government should be able to legally force you to do so.”

In Oregon, Dr. Knute Buehler—yes, a physician—said that “parents should have the right to opt out” of vaccinations “for personal beliefs, for religious beliefs or even if they have strong alternative medical beliefs.”

Buehler described the opt-out system as beneficial. “I think that gives people option and choice and that’s the policy I would continue to pursue as Oregon’s governor,” he said.

And in Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, the favorite in the governor’s race, said in February that “I believe in choice. And we’ve got six children and we don’t vaccinate, we don’t do vaccinations on all of our children. So we definitely pick and choose which ones we’re gonna do. It’s gotta be up to the parents, we can never mandate that. I think there’s legislation right now that are trying to mandate that to go to public schools, it’s absolutely wrong. My wife was home schooled, I went to public schools, our kids go to Christian school, and that’s back to a parent’s choice.”

This is no harmless, Gwyneth-Paltrow-style pseudoscience. Anti-vaxxer nonsense poses an existential risk to thousands of people on the basis of rumor, ignorance, and fear.

First, to be absolutely clear, there is no link whatsoever between the MMR vaccine and autism. Vaccinations are safe. Multiple vaccines at once are safe. Autism rates are not rising.

Second, vaccination is not a matter of personal choice. Since some people cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, they are vulnerable to preventable diseases like measles. Having non-vaccinated kids in their homeroom, because the kids’ parents believe in fairy tales rather than science, can cause them to get sick and even die.

That’s also true for babies who haven’t been vaccinated yet. The children of some ignorant anti-vaxxer could be carrying measles and then infect an infant without anyone knowing it.

Worst of all, thanks to the effect known as herd immunity, once a group’s overall vaccination level drops below a certain threshold (for measles, the threshold is around 94 percent), it makes it virtually impossible to contain the spread of disease. Too many unvaccinated people, and the disease has too many opportunities to travel throughout a population.

In other words, vaccination is a public health issue, not a private one.

So how did this happen? Part of it is ideology. Republicans don’t like government forcing people to do stuff, and requiring children to be vaccinated in order to attend public school runs afoul of that libertarian impulse. (Notably, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first nationally known Republicans to propose making vaccination non-mandatory.)

Part of it is the magnifying effect of social media, which flattens the difference between truth and lies.

Part of it, as a Daily Beast study showed in 2016, is Donald Trump personally. More than any other politician, Trump normalized anti-vaxx mythology, expressing doubts about the efficacy of vaccines and concerns about their (non-existent) link to autism. As measured in July, 2016, 23 percent of the respondents who said they would vote Trump said they were unlikely to get vaccinated. Of the pro-Clinton respondents, 13.5 percent felt the same way.

And part of it, surely, is the anti-science bias of the current administration. Sure, not a single peer-reviewed study has linked vaccination to autism. Sure, the entire myth, as is now known, derives from a single, wholly debunked bit of pseudoscience by Andrew Wakefield—a report discredited, withdrawn, refuted, and disavowed.

But who knows anything anyway? Seventy-three percent of Republicans think climate change isn’t a thing. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans think evolution isn’t a thing. And now the Trump administration wants to say that transgender isn’t a thing either. This despite the near-unanimous scientific consensus that all three are, indeed, things. The lack of causal connections between vaccines and neurological disorders are just the latest bit of reality denial.

The problem is, these three Republican candidates for governor, like all anti-vaxxers, are dead wrong, and their policies could lead to very sick and even dead schoolchildren.

And, let’s remember, the laws these quasi-libertarians are concerned about only govern public schools. Underscore public. If you really, truly believe that vaccinations are bad for you, or fluoridated water is a government plot, or whatever, keep your kids in private school that don’t require vaccinations or home-school. At least that way you’re only putting other people’s babies and vulnerable children at risk at playgrounds, restaurants, buses, and museums. Schools, at least, are safe.

Whatever its causes, the mainstreaming of anti-vaxx paranoia is a profound moral crisis for conservatives.

First, the silence of conservative leaders, especially religious leaders, is more than just the latest instance of moral cowardice in the face of political expediency. It’s a betrayal of one of the religious right’s supposedly central commitments: protecting the lives of the innocent. It represents the triumph of reflexive anti-government thinking over deeply held moral principles.(Never mind that the anti-vaxx myth initially sprung up on the left, not the right.)

Second, there appears to be no limit to the conservatives’ denial of the scientific method, rational truth, and objective reality. It’s one thing to deny climate change (there’s a whole industry that depends on that) or the realities of gender and sexual orientation—the truths about our bodies and minds run afoul of conservative Christian dogma about how the world supposedly is.

But public health? Since when did that become politicized? Is there any consensual reality that today’s Republican Party won’t deny? Is there any wacko conspiracy that Republican leaders won’t believe? What’s next: flat-earthers? I was joking earlier about fluoride in the water, but guess what, that particular conspiracy theory is making a comeback.

The vaccine issue is a canary in the coal mine of American civil society. If we can’t come together on protecting kids from getting measles, we really are coming apart at the seams.

Just a few years ago, the anti-vaxxer “movement” was a small fringe group of weirdos. At first, they were just ludicrous. Then, when the first kids started getting measles, they were dangerous wingnuts. Now, they are running for governor as the Republican nominees in at least three states. At least one is likely to win.

God help us.

Comment: Encouraging large death tolls by negating vaccinations is not a bad idea in an overcrowded planet. It will be years before the Great Elon Musk will attempt to colonize Mars and in the meantime, the expansion of the population will continue. Already there are over 95 million unemployed in America and this number is growing daily. Very soon we will see enormous civil insurrections redolent of the French Revolution as huge armies of the unemployed and unemployable launch Hong Kong-like attacks on the increasingly corrupt and vicious governments of state and federal entities. The American educational system has totally collapsed and as a manufacturing power, the United States is now a mass of screeching, poverty-stricken citizenry who have exceeded, by far,the limits of an orderly economic system.

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

July 6, 2019

by Dr. Peter Janney

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks. ”

Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publication.

 

Conversation No. 104

Date: Wednesday, September 10, 1997

Commenced: 11:14 AM CST

Concluded: 11:30 AM CST

 

RTC: Gregory, I have just finished reading over the latest Mueller material. I think you have done a wonderful job with this, I really do. Bill wanted to see it but I said you wanted it right back. If he got his hands on it, off to the Xerox machines and it would be all over the District. But what I wanted to discuss with you is the very strong probability, based on what I have been hearing, that you will never expand your readership beyond its present level.

GD: Bender does well.

RTC: How big a customer list does he have?

GD: About thirty five hundred.

RTC: And does he do any national advertising?

GD: No, just within his own circles.

RTC: In other words, not in any of the major book stores, right?

GD: Oh, I suppose if a customer came in and made a special order, they could get it for him but not to carry it.

RTC: Ah, you see there. So as informative and very readable though it might be, no major publishing house would ever dare to print the Mueller material nor, most especially, advertise it nationally. And believe it, Gregory, that even if some big house printed it, it would never see the light of day. Why? Because our people would block it. It’s that simple. They would ruin you as they have ruined many other authors who have gone before you for daring to speak ill of them. Can you imagine the New York Times reviewing it? I think not. I think not ever. One phone call from us and into the wastebasket with any kind of commentary, good or bad. Gregory, the blanket of silence would descend upon you, believe me. Silly idealists somehow believe we have a free press here but it is as tightly controlled as it is in Russia or it was in Hitler’s Germany. Oh yes, the paper out in Podunk, Kansas is not controlled but all it talks about are whose cow won a prize at the state fair and how the local football team is doing. No, those papers are not controlled because no one but a bunch of hicks read them. But the AP, all the major papers, magazines, publishing houses and television people are under tight control. The rumor about the Jews owning all the papers is only partially correct. The media is owned by corporations. Yes, Jews have a strong say in both corporations and the industry but they do not control it. Corporations control the media. If some article injures any one of them, or has the potential to do so, the article ends up in the trash along with the reporter. I know the New York Times does just what we wish them to do, print what we wish them to print and kill off any story we tell them to. Besides, we control the AP and all across the country, many of the national and international news stories come direct from the AP.

GD: I know. I was a newspaperman once. Boiler plate. Smaller papers can’t afford to have  reporters in Moscow or Washington so they depend entirely on the AP for such news.

RTC: Yes, it’s a very effective choke point. The public are fed pap and contrived stories and nothing, not a word, gets out that we don’t want out. And I am afraid that this will apply to your books. Sell them door to door or to a few military historians via your friend Mr. Bender but no matter how well-written they are and no matter how many uncomfortable truths they may reveal, I am afraid you will never, ever, get rich as a writer. Whispering campaigns will start about you and even though I know that your Mueller Gestapo boss worked for us…Christ I had lunch with him at the Jockey Club once and the Metropolitan Club twice….no one in Washington will ever mention this. And I have heard that they are now frantically trying to find out if you have any papers on this. They can make snide dismissal comments but they are really frightened that you might have something to prove that the head of Hitler’s secret police not only worked for the Company but lived in luxury in Georgetown. Jesus, the Hebrews would scream so loud the Capitol dome would collapse. And not to mention the entire left wing of both coasts. No, enjoy yourself while you can because the blanket is about to come down. They won’t shoot you because if no one outside a small group of people ever hears about your activities with a typewriter, why should they care. And don’t talk to Kimmel or Bill about any of this because neither of them are your friend. Anything you say goes right out the other door. Have you read over the Kennedy assassination material yet?

GD: Working on it.

RTC: Well, it’s a forlorn hope, Gregory, forlorn.

GD: Well, I don’t think a hack like Steven Ambrose would dare to tread outside the fixed boundaries of official history. Of course, I recommend Ambrose books to my friends because if you buy any Steven Ambrose book, you get at least five other books at the same time.

RTC: (Laughter) Well, Hitler and Stalin had their state historians and we have ours.

GD: And old Winnie Churchill wrote all about how wonderful he was and called it history.

RTC: But just a little word here about not elevating your expectations. They are watching you, Gregory, and you might consider another line of work.

GD: Oh, I can be very creative, Robert, and believe me, I am vicious as hell when I choose to be. I have enough on some of these people to have them hanged in public and they can push and I will shove. It will all come out in the wash, I think. And do you think some fat pin head with a ski mask will shoot me in a shopping mall? Maybe twenty years ago but the CIA people I have run into over the past few years are a bunch of gutless faggots who might gang up on me and hit me with their purses but nothing more serious than that. True, they have made trouble for me but believe me, I have also made trouble for them.  If I ever meet you somewhere, I can tell you some wonderful stories. Sometime we can talk about the story of the pinheaded SEAL in Berlin and how he came to be tossed out of the country. I have lots of nice stories like that. Well, I am still working up the Mueller things and I agree with you although my tattered idealism still gives me some hope that justice will prevail. If it doesn’t, why I might become very annoyed. Well, we shall see. And no, I never tell Kimmel or Corson a thing and no, I do not trust either of them and yes, I know they run bleating to higher authority when I tell them some secret. Actually, I rather enjoy the little game but it is a bit like playing chess with a blind man as an opponent, A little unfair but then so is life.

 

(Concluded 11:30 AM CST)

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas

 

Google Internet Spying

United States Patent 8,138,930

Heath March 20, 2012

Advertising based on environmental conditions

 

Current U.S. Class: 340/601 ; 340/540; 455/456.3; 705/14.21

Current International Class: G01W 1/00 (20060101)

Field of Search: 340/601,540,500 705/14.21,14.4,1.1,14.41,14.42

455/456.32006/0287913 December 2006 Baluja

2007/0005524 January 2007 Iwachin

2007/0073841 March 2007 Ryan et al.

2007/0083408 April 2007 Altberg et al.

2007/0208591 September 2007 Glenn et al.

2007/0260989 November 2007 Vakil et al.

2008/0046311 February 2008 Shahine et al.

2008/0109317 May 2008 Singh

2008/0146892 June 2008 LeBoeuf et al.

2008/0147488 June 2008 Tunick et al.

2009/0149199 June 2009 Maghoul

2010/0036717 February 2010 Trest

2011/0119137 May 2011 Morsa

Foreign Patent Documents

2002/056273 Feb., 2002

Other References

Feder, Barnaby “Billboards That Know You by Name” [online], New York Times, Jan. 29,

2007 [retrieved on 2009-xx-xx]. Retrieved from Internet <URL: http://www.nytimes.com

/2007/01/29/business/media/29cooper.html?.- sub.–r=2&oref=slogin&

USPTO Office Action for U.S. Appl. No. 12/017,597, dated Sep. 28, 2010. cited by other

 

Primary Examiner: Blount; Eric M

Attorney, Agent or Firm: Fish & Richardson P.C.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, from a computing device, a search request comprising (i) information about a first environmental condition of the computing device, and (ii) one or more search terms; parsing the search request; selecting, from the search request based on parsing, the information about the first environmental condition; identifying an advertisement based on the first environmental condition and at least one of the one or moresearch terms; providing the advertisement to the computing device; receiving one or more of an audio signal, an image signal, or a video signal from a sensor of the computing device; and

United States Patent: 8138930 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H…

2 of 23 3/28/2012 3:30 PM determining a second environmental condition based on the one or more of the audio signal, the image signal, or the video signal.

2. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, from a computing device, a search request comprising (i) information about a first environmental condition of the computing device, and (ii) one or more search terms; parsing the search request selecting, from the search request mbased on parsing, the information about the first environmental condition; identifying an madvertisement based on the first environmental condition and at least one of the one or more search terms; providing the advertisement to the computing device; receiving an audio signal that comprises a voice instruction from a user of the computing device; and determining a second environmental condition based on background sounds in the audio signal.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising providing information in addition to the advertisement to the computing device used by the user based on the voice instruction of the user.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises a mobile phone. 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises one or more of a mobile phone, a personal computer, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, or a vendor machine, and providing the advertisement to the computing device comprises providing a visual advertisement for displaying on a display of one or more of the mobile phone, the personal computer, the digital billboard, the digital kiosk, or the vending machine.
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises one or the mobile phone, the personal computer, the digital billboard, the digital kiosk, the vending mmachine, or the public address system.
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising identifying an event based on a signal output from a sensor of the computing device.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the event comprises at least one of a sports event or a musical event.
8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the advertisement is identified further based on the event. 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising placing the computing device in a public environment and sharing the computing device among a plurality of people.
9. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising providing information in addition to the advertisement from the computing device to the plurality of people.
10. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein providing information comprises providing at least one of text information, audio information, or video information.
11. An apparatus comprising: one or more processing devices; and one or more mach comprising (i) information about a first environmental condition of the computing device, and (ii)one or more search terms; parsing the search request; selecting, from the search request based on parsing, the information about the first environmental condition; identifying an advertisement based on the first environmental condition and at least one of the one or more search terms; providing the advertisement to the computing device; receiving one or more of an audio signal, animage signal, or a video signal from a sensor of the computing device; and determining a secondenvironmental condition based on the one or more of the audio signal, the image signal, or the video signal. 14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the computing device comprises at least one of a visual interface or an audio user interface.
12. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the computing device comprises one or more of a mobile phone, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, or a vending machine, and wherein the computing device is configured to receive visual advertisements from the one or more processing devices and to show the visual advertisements on a display of the computing device.
13. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the computing device comprises one or more of a mobile phone, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, a vending machine, or a public address system, and providing the advertisement to the computing device comprises providing an audio advertisement for playing through an audio output of the computing device. 17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein a sensor of the computing device is configured to sense at least one of temperature, humidity, sound, light, or air composition.
14. One or more machine-readable media configured to store instructions that are executable by one or more processing devices to perform operations comprising: receiving, from a computing device, a search request comprising (i) information about a first environmental condition of the computing device, and (ii) one or more search terms; parsing the search request; selecting, from the search request based on parsing, the information about the first environmental condition; identifying an advertisement based on the first environmental condition and at least one of the oneor more search terms; providing the advertisement to the computing device; receiving one or moreof an audio signal, an image signal, or a video signal from a sensor of the computing device; anddetermining a second environmental condition based on the one or more of the audio signal, the image signal, or the video signal.
15. One or more machine-readable media configuredto store instructions that are executable by one or more processing devices to perform operations comprising: receiving, from a computing device, a search request comprising (i) information about a first environmental condition of the computing device, and (ii) one or more search terms; parsing the search request selecting, from the search request based on parsing, the information about the first environmental condition; identifying an advertisement based on the first environmental condition and at least one of the one or more search terms; providing the advertisement to the computing device; receiving an audio signal that comprises a voice instruction from a user of the computing device; and determining a second environmental condition based on background sounds in the audio signal. 20. The one or more machine-readable media of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise: providing information in addition to the advertisement to the computing device used by the user based on the voice instruction of the user.

United States Patent: 8138930 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H…

4 of 23 3/28/201221. The one or more machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise: placing the computing device in a public environment; sharing the computing device among a plurality of people; and providing information in addition to the advertisement from the computing device to the plurality of people.

22. The one or more machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the computing device comprises one or more of a mobile phone, a personal computer, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, or a vendor machine, and providing the advertisement to the computing device comprises providing a visual advertisement for displaying on a display of the computing device. 23. The one or more machine-readable media of claim 18, wherein the computing device comprises one or more of a mobile phone, a personal computer, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, a vending machine, or a public address system, and providing the advertisement to the computing device comprises providing an audio advertisement for playing through an audio output of the computing device.

 

Description

 

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/017,597, titled “ADVERTISING

BASED ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS”, filed concurrently with this application, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This document generally relates to information management.

BACKGROUND

On-line advertisements allow advertisers to reach a wide range of viewers through the Internet.

The selection of advertisements for display, such as with search results and other information, and the ordering of those advertisements, may be achieved by various techniques. In one example, an initial determination is made to identify all advertisements that are a match or near match for the applied search terms or other query items or information. The match may be made, for example, between one or more words in a query, and key words identified by an advertiser and associated with a particular advertisement or group of advertisements, such as a campaign. For example, a company selling fishing tackle may have a line of large lures, and may thus identify terms such as “lunker,” “sturgeon,” and “muskie fever” as keywords to associate with their advertisements for such large lures. Those advertisements may then be considered by the system for display when a search results are displayed to a user who enters such terms. The comparison may also be madebetween a search or query, and the text in an advertisement or the text in a target of a hyperlink in an advertisement, or to a combination of keywords, target text, and advertisement text, among other possible techniques. For example, the system may effectively select terms from an advertisement as key words so that the advertisement is selected for possible display when a msearch or other user action associated with the key words is submitted. An advertisement may be mselected for possible display if there is a “near” match also, for example, if a query includes terms mthat are known synonyms or mistypings/misspellings of the key word terms for an advertisement.

United States Patent: 8138930 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H…

5 of 23 3

SUMMARY

This document describes a system for allowing advertisers to target on-line advertisements based on environmental factors of end users. When determining what ads to serve to end users, the menvironmental factors can be used independently or in combination with matching of keywords massociated with the advertisements and keywords in user search queries. A web browser or search engine located at the user’s site may obtain information on the environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, light, sound, air composition) from sensors. Advertisers may specify that the ads areshown to users whose environmental conditions meet certain criteria. For example, advertisements for air conditioners can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures above a first threshold, while advertisements for winter overcoats can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures below a second threshold. In general, in one aspect, information about an environmental condition of a remote user who is accessing a network is received at a server, an advertisement based on the environmental condition is identified at the server, the information about the environmental condition being derived from an output of a sensor located at the remote user, and the advertisement is provided mto the user through the network.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The sensor can include anenvironmental sensor that provides information about the environmental condition. The sensor can be part of or coupled to a machine used by the user for accessing the network. At the server, the advertisement can be identified from among a plurality of advertisements by matching an menvironmental condition associated with the advertisement with the environmental condition of the muser. The environmental condition can include at least one of temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, and speed of movement. The environmental condition can include at mleast one of soil, crop, or livestock conditions. The advertisement can be associated with a mpredetermined temperature condition, and the server can provide the advertisement to the user mwhen the temperature at the user’s site or at a geographical location of the user meets the predetermined temperature condition. The advertisement can be associated with a predetermined sound level condition, and the server provides the advertisement to the user when the ambient sound level at the user’s site meets the predetermined sound level conditionA keyword query can be received from the user, the keyword query including one or more keywords, wherein the advertisement provided by the server is associated with the one or more keywords. Traffic condition of the user can be determined based on the information about the environmental condition, and the advertisement can be provided based on the traffic condition.

Receiving information about the environmental condition can include identifying a geographical location of the user based on the sensor output, and receiving information about the environmental condition of the geographical location. Identifying the geographical location of the user can include identifying the geographical location of the user based on data from a global positioning system sensor or by signal triangulation.

In general, in another aspect, at a server, a request for information from a remote user accessing a network is received, a location of the remote user is determined without using location information stored in a pre-established user profile, an environmental condition of the remote user is determined based on the location of the remote user, and an advertisement is identified based on the environmental condition. The requested information and the advertisement are provided from the server to the remote user through the network. Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The network can include a mobile phone network having base stations, and determining the location of the remote user can include determining the location of the remote user using information provided by a base station that receives signals from the remote user. The request from the remote user can include a request for information. The request for information can include a request for phone directory information. The request for information can include a request for a document.

In general, in another aspect, from a client device, information about an environmental condition of ma user of the client device who is accessing a network is provided to a remote server, and an advertisement that is identified at the server based on the environmental condition is received at the client device. At the client device, the advertisement is presented to the user.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Providing to a remote serverinformation about an environmental condition can include providing to the remote server information about an environmental condition that is derived from an output of a sensor of the client device or a sensor coupled to the client device. The environmental condition can include temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, or speed of movement. A keyword query can be provided from the user to the server, the keyword query including one or more keywords, wherein the advertisement provided by the server can be associated with the one or more keywords. Traffic condition of the user can be provided based on the information about the environmental condition and advertisement that is identified based on the traffic condition can be received. In general, in another aspect, information about an environmental condition of a remote device isreceived, the environmental condition being determined based on a signal output from a sensor of the remote device or a sensor coupled to the remote device; an advertisement is identified based on the environmental condition; and the advertisement is provided to the remote device. Implementations may include one or more of the following features. An audio, image, or vide signal can be received from the sensor and the environmental condition can be determined based on the audio, image, or video signal, respectively. An audio signal that includes a voice instructionfrom a user of the remote device can be received, and the environmental condition can bedetermined based on background sounds in the audio signal. Information in addition to the advertisement can be provided to the user based on the voice instruction of the user. The remote device can include a mobile phone. The remote device can include a mobile phone, personal computer, digital billboard, a digital kiosk, or a vendor machine, and providing the advertisement tothe remote device can include providing a visual advertisement for displaying on a display of themobile phone, personal computer, digital billboard, digital kiosk, or vending machine, respectively.

The remote device can include a mobile phone, personal computer, digital billboard, a digital kiosk, a vending machine, or a public address system, and providing the advertisement to the remote device can include providing an audio advertisement for playing through an audio output ofthe mobile phone, personal computer, digital billboard, digital kiosk, vending machine, or publicaddress system, respectively. An event can be identified based on the signal output from the sensor. The event can include at least one of a sports event or a musical event. Identifying an advertisement based on the environmental condition can include identifying an advertisement based on the event. The remote device can be placed in a public environment and be shared by a plurality of people. Information in addition to the advertisement can be provided from the remote device to the user. Providing information can include providing at least one of text, audio, or video information. In general, in another aspect, content is displayed on a digital billboard laced in a public environment; a sensor of the display or a sensor coupled to the display senses an environmental condition; the environmental condition is sent to a server; an advertisement is received from the server, the advertisement being identified by the server based on the environmental condition; and the advertisement is displayed on the digital billboard.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Sensing the environmental condition can include sensing at least one of temperature, humidity, sound, light, or air composition. The digital billboard can be installed at an indoor location, and sensing the environmental condition can include sensing an indoor or outdoor environmental condition. In general, in another aspect, information is broadcast through a public address system; a sensor of the public address system or a sensor coupled to the public address system is used to sense an environmental condition; the environmental condition is sent to a server; an advertisement is received from the server, the advertisement being identified by the server based on the environmental condition; and the advertisement is broadcast through the public address system.

In general, in another aspect, a computer-implemented method includes enabling advertisers to associate advertisements with one or more environmental conditions to allow the advertisements to be provided to users whose environmental conditions match the environmental conditions associated with the advertisements; and enabling the advertisers to bid for environmental conditions associated with one or more keywords. Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The method can include providing a user interface to allow the advertiser to associate the advertisement with the       environmental condition, the user interface allowing the advertiser to bid for environmental conditions associated with one or more keywords. The environmental condition can include at least one of temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, and speed of movement. In general, in another aspect, a computer implemented method includes enabling a sponsor to configure an ad campaign based on criteria that include environmental conditions; receiving information about environmental conditions; and dynamically adjusting the ad campaign based on the environmental conditions.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Enabling a sponsor to configure an ad campaign can include enabling the sponsor to allocate ad budgets based on the environmental conditions. Enabling the sponsor to allocate ad budgets based on the environmental conditions can include enabling at least one of (a) adjusting allocation of ad budgets for different types of media, (b) adjusting bid amounts of ads for different types of media, (c) adjusting allocation of ad budgets for different products, or (d) adjusting bid amounts of ads for different products based on the environmental conditions.

In general, in another aspect, an apparatus includes a storage device to store advertisements each associated with an environmental condition; and a server to receive information about an environmental condition of a remote user who is accessing a network, the information about the environmental condition being derived from an output of a sensor located at the remote user, identify an advertisement based on the environmental condition, and provide the advertisement to the user. Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The server can identify the advertisement from among a plurality of advertisements by matching an environmental conditionassociated with the advertisement with the environmental condition of the user. The server can identify a geographical location of the user based on the sensor output and receive information about the environmental condition of the geographical location.

In general, in another aspect, an apparatus includes a storage device to store advertisements each associated with an environmental condition; and a server to receive a request for information from a remote user accessing a network, determine a location of the remote user without using location information stored in a pre-established user profile, determine an environmental conditionof the remote user based on the location of the remote user, identify an advertisement based on the environmental condition, and provide the requested information and the advertisement to the remote user through the network.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The server can include a mobile phone server.

In general, in another aspect, an apparatus includes a graphical user interface to enable advertisers to associate advertisements with one or more environmental conditions to allow the advertisements to be provided to users whose environmental conditions match the environmental conditions associated with the advertisements. The graphical user interface enables the advertisers to bid for environmental conditions associated with one or more keywords. Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The environmental condition includes temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, and/or speed of movement.

In general, in another aspect, an apparatus includes a device having a user interface to provideinformation to a user; and a sensor to sense a parameter and generate an output signal. The device is configured to provide the output signal to a remote server, receive an advertisement identified by the remote server based on an environmental condition determined according to the output signal of the sensor, and provide the advertisement in addition to the information to the user.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. The sensor can include an audio, image, or video sensor. The device can include at least one of a visual or audio user interface. The device can include a mobile phone, a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, or a vending machine, and can be configured to receive visual advertisements from the remote server and show the advertisements on a display of the mobile phone, the digital billboard, the digital kiosk, or the vending machine. The remote device can include a mobile phone, a digital billboard, a digital mkiosk, a vending machine, or a public address system, and providing the advertisement to the remote device can include providing an audio advertisement for playing through an audio output of the mobile phone, digital billboard, digital kiosk, vending machine, or public address system, respectively. The sensor can sense temperature, humidity, sound, light, or air compositionIn general, in another aspect, a system includes means for receiving information about an environmental condition of a remote user who is accessing a network, the information about the environmental condition being derived from an output of a sensor located at the remote user; means for identifying an advertisement based on the environmental condition; and means for providing the advertisement to the user through the network.

These and other aspects and features, and combinations of them, may be expressed as methods, apparatus, systems, means for performing functions, program products, and in other ways. The systems and methods disclosed herein may have one or more of the following advantages. By providing ads that are selected based in part on environmental conditions, more relevant ads may be shown to users, providing a better user experience. More relevant ads can be served to users, increasing the likelihood of the ads being clicked on or acted upon, increasing the effectiveness of the ads. The details of one or more embodiments are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an information retrieval system.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are diagrams of a system for providing information to users.

FIGS. 4 and 5 are diagrams of exemplary information delivery systems.

FIG. 6 is a diagram of a graphical user interface.

FIGS. 7 to 11 are flow diagrams of processes.

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram of a general computing system.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary information retrieval system 100 retrieves and provides information (e.g., web documents) and content 102 (e.g., advertisements or simply ads) that match search queries submitted by remote users 104. The system 100 includes a search server

106 that enables the users 104 to search for information using, for example, a keyword search.

The system 100 is configured to receive information about environmental conditions of the remote users 104, use the environmental conditions as one of the criteria for identifying ads 102, and provide the ads 102 to the users 104. Sponsors of the ads 102 generate higher revenue when their ads are clicked on or acted upon. By using environmental conditions of the users 104 as one of the criteria for selecting ads 102, more relevant ads 102 can be served to the users 104, increasing the likelihood of the ads 102 being clicked on or acted upon.

The content 102 is not limited to advertisements, and can include various types of information useful to the users 104, such as weather and traffic information.

The user 104 may use a web browser 108 executing on a client terminal 110 (e.g., personal computer, personal digital assistant, mobile phone, media player, in-vehicle terminal) to access theinformation about environmental conditions of the user 104. The sensors 114 can be configured to sense, for example, temperature, humidity, sound, light, and/or air composition. Sensing air composition may including sensing odors, smog, dust, pollen, pollutant, or other particles or molecules in the air. The sensors 114 can include a digital camera to obtain images of the environment. The sensors 114 can include a positioning sensor, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, that provides location information. The location information can be used to

United States Patent: 8138930 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H… access services (e.g., weather channel websites) that provide environmental conditions of a given location. Location information can also be inferred from other means. For example, the client terminal 110 can be a cell phone, and location information can be derived from information about base stations that the cell phone is connected to.

The sensors 114 can be integrated with the client terminal 110. The sensors 114 can also include a stand-alone device that is connected to the client terminal 110 through a wired or wireless connection, such as a USB (universal serial bus), Bluetooth.RTM., radio frequency, or infrared link.

An environmental condition monitor application 120 is executed on the client terminal 110 for mprocessing data generated by the environmental sensors 114. For example, the environmental condition monitor application 120 may process audio signals from an audio sensor and filte sporadic signals to determine a long term ambient noise level. The environmental condition mmonitor application 120 may process temperature signals from a temperature sensor to detect a mtemperature pattern, such as an average temperature above a certain level for a number of hours per day for a number of days. The environmental condition monitor application 120 may process ambient light signals from an ambient light sensor to detect an ambient light pattern, such as an average ambient brightness above a certain level for a number of hours per day for a number of days.

The environmental condition monitor application 120 may also access, through the network 112, services that provide information about general environmental conditions at the geographical region where the user 104 is located. The environmental condition monitor application 120 may request the user 104 to input address information during a setup process. The environmental condition monitor application 120 may access a weather service, a pollution alert, and an allergy alert to obtain information about local weather (e.g., outdoor temperature), pollution, and allergy conditions.

The environmental condition monitor application 120 may share the sensors 114 with other applications. For example, the sensors 114 can include a microphone of a personal computer or a mobile phone that is used in speech recognition, phone calling, or video conferencing applications. The microphone can also be used by the environmental condition monitor application

120 for sensing ambient noise. The sensors 114 can include a light sensor of a display of the client terminal 110 for sensing ambient light to determine the brightness of the display. The light sensor can also be used by the environmental condition monitor application 120 for sensing ambient light to determine a likelihood that the user 104 is in an indoor or outdoor environment. It is important to respect the privacy of the users 104. The environmental condition monitor application 120 may provide the user 104 with options of enabling or disabling some or all of thesensors 114 for the purpose of gathering information to support advertisements. A privacy policymay be provided to the user 104 to specify what information is gathered and how the information is used. The user 104 can turn off the environmental condition monitor application 120 to prevent any information about the environmental condition from being gathered.

The web browser 108 is configured to receive information from the environmental condition monitor application 120. When the user 104 accesses the search server 106 to search for information, the web browser 108 sends a search request that includes a search query and information about the environmental conditions of the user 104 to the search server 106. The search query may include one or more search terms (e.g., keywords or key phrases). In response, the search server 106 searches an index 118, returns a list of documents (e.g., web pages) having keywords that matchthe search query submitted by the user 104, and provides the list of documents in a sequenceaccording to rank scores of the documents. The search server 106 may also cause ads 102 to bedisplayed alongside the list of returned documents. The ads 102 may be provided by an ad server

116 that selects the ads 102 based on the keywords and environmental conditions.

The search server 106 sends the keywords in the user’s search query and information about the environmental conditions of the user 104 to the ad server 116. The ad server 116 selects ads 102 based on several criteria. One criterion is how close the keywords associated with the ads 102 match the keywords in the user’s search query. Another criterion is how close the environmental conditions of the user 104 match the environmental conditions associated with the ads 102. Thead server 116 selects a list of ads ranked according to the criteria specified above and sends thelist of ads to the search server 106. The search server 106 sends the search results and the ads

106 to the user 104. Some ads, such as video ads, may require the web browser 108 to connect to the ad server 116 to stream data (e.g., video) from the ad server 116.

When advertisers or sponsors provide the ads 102 to the system 100, the advertisers may specify the environmental conditions that are relevant to the ads 102. For example, a seller of air conditioners may specify that an ad 102 for air conditioners should be sent to users 104 who are searching for information about air conditioners and are situated in environments where the temperatures sensed by the sensors 114 are above a preset level (e.g., 80.degree. F.). When a user 104 searches for information about air conditioners and is situated in a high temperature environment, there is a high likelihood that the user 104 may be interested in purchasing an air conditioner in the near future.

The advertiser may specify that the air conditioner ad be served to a user 104 located in ageographical region (e.g., city) where the outdoor temperature is above a preset level (e.g., 80.degree. F.). The advertiser may specify that the air conditioner ad should not be served to a user 104 located in an environment where the room temperature as sensed by the sensors 114 is mbelow a first preset level (e.g., 75.degree. F.) and the outdoor temperature is above a second preset level (e.g., 80.degree. F.). This may indicate that the user 104 is already in an air conditioned environment (or otherwise cool environment, such as the basement) where air conditioners are not needed.

In order for the air conditioner ad 102 to reach a wide audience, the advertiser may specify that a mpercentage of the ad budget is used to serve the ad 102 to users 104 who search for information about air conditioners regardless of their environmental conditions, a percentage of the ad budget is used to serve the ad 102 to users 104 who search for information about air conditioners and are in high temperature environments, and a percentage of the ad budget is used to serve the ad 102 to users 104 who are in high temperature environments regardless of the information being sought by the users 104.

Similarly, a seller of heaters may specify that an ad 102 for heaters be served to users 104 whoare searching for information about heaters and situated in environments that meet certaintemperature conditions. Ads 102 for winter overcoats can be sent to users 104 located at regionshaving temperatures below a threshold. Ads 102 for humidifiers can be sent to users 104 situated in a humid environment. A seller of beers may specify that ads 102 showing cool beers be sent to  users 104 in high temperature environments. A restaurant serving hot pots may specify that ads

102 showing hot pots be sent to users 104 in low temperature environments.

For example, a seller of noise canceling headphones may specify that an ad 102 for noise canceling headphones be served to a user 104 located in an environment where the ambient noise is above a preset level (e.g., 70 dB). The advertiser may specify that the ambient noise levelbe above the preset level for more than a preset period of time (e.g., noisy levels detected for at least one hour per day for at least two consecutive days).

In some examples, the user 104 may sign up for a service provided by a service provider, in which provision of the service requires information from the sensors 114. For example, a farmer may use sensors 114 to sense soil, crop, and livestock conditions on a farm. The data from the sensors may be sent to a service provider that remotely diagnose and monitor health conditions of the crops and livestock. The sensors 114 may be provided to the farmer at a subsidized cost in exchange for the farmer agreeing to receive ads 102 that are delivered to a terminal on the farm based on data feed from the sensors 114. The data from the sensors 114 may be used to target ads 102 from sellers of seeds, fertilizers, feedstock, pesticides, farm machinery, or any other potential supplier of the farm.

In some examples, location information obtained from the sensors 114 can be used to infer that the user 104 is waiting in a traffic jam. For example, the location information may indicate that the user 104 is located on a highway and moving very slowly. Links to websites having information about mass transit and/or car pooling may be provided to the user 104. Location information may be used to infer that an earthquake has recently occurred in the geographical region where the user 104 is located. Ads 102 for structural engineers may be provided to the user 104.

Location information obtained from the sensors 114 can be used to infer a change of weather conditions at the locations of the users 104, and relevant ads 102 or announcements may be sentto the users 104. Various examples are given below. During seasonal changes, ads for outerwear suitable for the user’s location may be provided to the user 104. Ads 102 for light jackets may be provided to users 104 located in regions with mild winters, and ads 102 for heavy overcoats andsnow boots may be provided to users 104 in regions with severe winters. Near the start of winter season, ads 102 for snow blowers may be provided to users 104 located at geographical regions where heavy snowfalls occur.

In some implementations, the system 100 may provide business listing search service, e.g.,

Google Voice Local Search. The client terminal 110 can be a cell phone that includes sensors 114 msuch as a digital camera, a microphone, and a position sensor (e.g., a GPS sensor). When the user 104 calls 1-800-GOOG-411, the system 100 provides business listing information according to user request. The system 100 may also provide ads that are selected based on information obtained from one or more sensors 114, such as images of ambient environment, ambient noise, and location information.

For example, the user 104 may be in a sports stadium and calling GOOG-411 for information about a nearby restaurant. The cheering of crowds and announcements made during the sports event may be picked up by the cell phone microphone. The system 100 may be able to determine the type of sports event based on the background noise. If location information is available, the system 100 may compare the location information with locations of known sports events and determine which sports event the user 104 is attending. Ads that may be of interest to fans of the sports event may be served to the user 104. For example, links to websites that provide sports    news and statistics may be provided to the caller 104. Similarly, when a user 104 calls GOOG-411 for information about a nearby restaurant before a concert or during intermission, the tuning of instruments during the pre-concert or intermission period may be picked up by the cell phone microphone. If location information is available, the system 100 may compare the location information with locations of known musical events and determine which musical event the user 104 is attending. While GPS information may not beavailable indoors, such as in a music hall, the cell phone may store the last available GPS data prior to entering the music hall, and the GPS data can be provided to the system 100.

Alternatively, location information can be inferred by cell phone signal triangulation. Ads that may be of interest to fans of the musical event may be served to the user 104. For example, links to mwebsites that provide news of musicians, or ads of albums, instruments, or audio equipment may be provided to the caller 104.

When a user 104 is at a train or subway station, the background noise may include announcements of arriving or departing trains that can be used to infer the location of the user

104.

As discussed above, the client terminal 110 has privacy protection features and allows the user

104 to enable or disable some or all of the sensors 114 for the purpose of gathering information to support advertisements.

A feature of the system 100 is that it can deliver advertisements that target individual users 104 based on environmental conditions of the individual users. For example, one user may live next toThe system 100 includes an environmental condition determination engine 122 that determines general environmental conditions of the user 104 based on information about the user 104 that is not obtained by the sensors 114. For example, the environmental condition determination engine

122 can be used when the client terminal 110 does not have relevant sensors 114, when the environmental condition monitor application 120 is not installed on the client terminal 110, or whethe environmental condition monitor application 120 is turned off by the user 104. For example, when a user 104 accesses the search server 106, the system 100 may be able to derive the location of the user 104 based on an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the client terminal 110. The client terminal 110 may send location information (e.g., obtained from a GPS sensor) to the search server 106. The environmental condition determination engine 122 obtains information about general environmental conditions of the user 104 based on the user’s location using, for example, services that provide weather, pollution, or allergy conditions.

In some examples, the system 100 may provide a service (e.g., e-mail service) that requires registration. The users 104 provide residence address information as part of the registration process. When a user 104 accesses the service, the environmental condition determination engine122 determines the general environmental conditions (e.g., weather, air pollution, allergy conditions, etc.) of the user 104 based on the registered residence address. Information about the general environmental conditions can be used by the ad server 116 in selecting ads to be served to the user 104.

Referring to FIG. 2, in some implementations, users 104 access a server 160 of a third partyservice provider to request information. The service provider can be, e.g., a publisher of premium content, such as financial news and analyses. The service provider can be a member of an ad network that delivers ads served by the ad server 116. When users 104 sign up for services provided by the service provider, the users 104 provide residence addresses as part of theregistration process.

When a user 104 uses the web browser 108 to access the service provided by the server 160, the web browser 108 may forward information about environmental conditions (received from the environmental condition monitor application 120) to the server 160. The server 160 forwards the environmental condition information to the system 100. The server 160 also sends information about the user 104, such as the user’s residence address, to the system 100. The environmental condition determination engine 122 determines the general environmental conditions of the user

104 based on the information about the user, such as the user’s residence address. Information about the user’s environmental conditions provided by the environmental condition monitor application 120 and the environmental condition determination engine 122 can be used by the ad server 116 in selecting ads to be served to the server 160. The server 160 delivers requested information and the ads to the user 104. In some examples, the client machine 110 can be placed in a public location and viewed or accessed by several users. For example, the client machine 110 can be a digital billboard, a digital kiosk, a vending machine, or a public address system that delivers advertisements selected based on environmental conditions.

Referring to FIG. 3, a user 104 can use a client terminal 260 to access services provided by an application server 262, in which the application server 262 provides information and content items (e.g., ads) based on the environmental conditions of the user 104. The client terminal 260 does not necessarily execute a web browser 108 or an environmental condition monitor application 120.

For example, the client terminal 260 can be a mobile phone 260.

In one implementation, when the user 104 uses the mobile phone 260 to access a service provided by an application server 262, the application server 262 determines a location of the user

104 using information obtained from mobile phone base stations that receive signals from the mobile phone 260. When the user 104 dials a number to request information, the application server 262 determines the location of the user 104, identifies environmental conditions (e.g., weather) at the user’s location, and delivers the requested information and ads that are selected based on the environmental conditions. In some implementations, the application server 262 can infer the destination of the user 104, and select ads that are based on the environmental conditions of the destination.

For example, the application server 262 may provide a phone directory service, such asGOOG-411 service. As an example, when the user 104 dials GOOG-411 to look up information about a museum, if the application server 262 determines that the city where the user’s located has a high temperature, the application sever 262 may provide the user 104 information about the museum and a message indicating, for example, there is an ice cream store nearby.

For example, the application server 262 can provide the user 104 information about the museum, then ask the user 104 whether he/she is interested in hearing information about other local businesses or attractions. If the user 104 expresses interest in receiving additional information, the application server 262 can identify the businesses in the vicinity of the user and provide information about those businesses in a sequence determined based on criteria that include environmental conditions.

The information provided by the application server 262 to the user 104 can be advertisements provided by advertisers or other information available to the application server 262. When providing a list of local attractions to the user 104, the application server 262 may take into accountthe environmental condition (e.g., local weather) when ranking the local attractions. For example, when the user 104 is asking about local attractions on rainy days, the application server 262 may rank indoor facilities (e.g., museums) higher than outdoor facilities (e.g., parks), and vice versa on sunny days.

Referring to FIG. 4, an exemplary information delivery system 160 includes digital billboards 162 placed at public locations, such as train station platforms or pedestrian sidewalks. The digital mbillboard 162 has a display 170 that shows information 172, such as train schedules or other public announcements. The display 170 can also show advertisements. The digital billboard 162 has built-in sensors 164a and/or external sensors 164b (collectively referenced as 164). The sensors 164 may include, e.g., a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a rain gauge, and/or a msnow gauge. The external sensors 164b can be placed at, for example, roof tops to allow sensing of rain and/or snow, and communicate with the digital billboard 162 using wired or wireless links.

Information about environmental conditions detected by the sensors 164 is sent through a network112 to an ad server 116, which selects ads 102 according to the environmental conditions, e.g., in  addition to other criteria. For example, during the winter season, when the temperature is below a preset value (e.g., 32.degree. F.), the ad server 116 can deliver, e.g., ads for ski resorts 166 and ads for winter overcoats 168 to the digital billboard 162. During the summer season, when the temperature is above a preset value (e.g., 85.degree. F.), the ad server 116 can deliver, e.g., ads for beach resorts or air conditioners to the digital billboard 162.

Ads that are delivered based on environmental conditions may be more effective than ads delivered without consideration of environmental conditions. For example, it may be more effective to show ads for winter coats on the digital billboard 162 on the first chilly day in late autumn or early winter when shoppers are starting to buy winter clothes than showing the ads on warmer days. It may be more effective to show ads for snow boots on the digital billboard 162 during the first day of snow accumulation. It may also be more effective to show ads for rain gear on the digital billboard 162 during rainy days than sunny days. In some implementations, the system 160 may allow sponsors of ads to select various criteria for placement of ads, and the bidding price may vary depending on the selected criteria. For example, the system 160 may have several digital billboards at various locations across the country. The system 160 may allow sponsors of ads to specify particular days (e.g., ads shown on weekdays may be more expensive than ads shown on weekends), particular time slots within a day (e.g. rush hour time slots may be more expensive than non-rush hour time slots), particular locations

(e.g., ads shown at major train stations may be more expensive than ads shown at small train stations), particular billboards within a location (e.g., a train station may have several digital  billboards and ads shown on billboards located at higher traffic areas may be more expensive than ads shown on billboards located at lower traffic areas). The system may allow the sponsors to specify particular environmental conditions and time period after occurrence of particular environmental conditions. For example, ads for winter clothing shown on the first day of frost may be more expensive than similar ads shown a week later, and ads for air conditioners shown on the first day of occurrence of a heat wave may be more expensive than similar ads shown a week later.

For example, sponsors can bid for placement of ads at a particular digital billboard located at a particular major train station at a particular time slot during rush hour on weekdays. Sponsors can also bid for placement of ads at any one of a number of selected locations when certain environmental conditions are met (e.g., the temperature is below 32.degree. F.).

In some implementations, the system 160 may provide a preset schedule for showing ads on thedigital billboard 162, in which the preset schedule can be overridden when certain environmental conditions are met. For example, the billboard 162 can be configured to show a first ad A1 according to a regular schedule. If a predetermined environmental condition is met, the digital billboard 162 replaces the ad A1 with another ad A2 and provides a credit to the sponsor of the ad

A1.

A feature of the system 160 is that it allows effective placement of ads for items that are associated with certain environmental conditions. For example, rather than spending money advertising a new line of winter coats on a large number of digital billboards across the country, it may be more cost effective to advertise on a smaller number of digital billboards when the local temperature is below  a certain threshold. By providing ads that are selected based in part on environmental conditions, more relevant ads may be shown to the viewers of the digital billboard 162, providing a better user experience. In some implementations, the system 160 includes digital billboards 164 located in shopping malls or walkways of strip malls. Stores in the shopping mall may sign up for display of ads on the digital billboard 164 based on environmental conditions. For example, a store selling rain gear may bid for placement of an ad on the digital billboard 164 when it is raining, a store selling winter coats, winter sports goods, or heaters may bid for placement of an ad when the outdoors temperature is below a preset value, and a store selling air conditioners or fans may bid for placement of an ad when the outdoors temperature is above a preset value.

Shopping malls and strip malls may be large and often shoppers do not have time to visit everystore, or may not know the existence of certain stores. Shows ads on the digital billboard based on environmental conditions provides a way to attract the attention of shoppers when the shoppers are most likely to pay attention to the ads.

Referring to FIG. 5, an exemplary information delivery system 180 allows delivery of ads that are selected based on environmental conditions of a local region. For example, a shopping mall may have a wireless (e.g., Wi-Fi) network that allows shoppers 188 to use, e.g., mobile phones 190 to access a web site 184 hosted by a mall server computer 182. The shopping mall web site 184 may provide information about the stores in the mall, such as locations of the various stores and brief descriptions of the goods sold at the stores. The web site 184 may also display advertisements of the stores, in which the advertisements can be selected based on environmental conditions detected by sensors 186.

In some implementations, upon entering the shopping mall 182, a shopper 188 can use a mobilephone 190 to access the mall web site 184 and look up a list of ads 192 showing, e.g., stores having items on sale. Ads that are placed earlier in the list may be more expensive than those placed later in the list. Sponsors may bid different prices depending on environmental conditions.

For example, a store selling winter coats may bid $x1 for placement of an ad on the list when the outdoors temperature is above a preset value, and bid $x2 when the outdoors temperature is below the preset value. By providing ads that are selected based in part on environmental conditions, more relevant ads may be shown to the shoppers 188, providing a better shopping experience.

In some implementations, a public address system may broadcast pre-schedules programs (e.g.,background music or public announcements) and advertisements. The advertisements in the form of audio files may be selected dynamically by an ad server 116 according to environmental conditions and played during time slots allocated for advertisementsOther than selecting ads based on the environmental conditions, the system can adjust ad campaigns based on environmental conditions. For example, an ad network may allow advertisers to deliver ads to different types of media, such as Internet, radio, television, and digital billboards.

Ad consumption for different types of media may be different depending on environmental conditions.

For example, during cold and rainy days, people may spend more time indoors, whereas during warm and sunny days, people may spend more time outdoors. The system may provide the option to allow an advertiser to increase the percentage of ad budget or bid amount for delivering ads to outdoor digital billboards on warm and sunny days, and increase the percentage of ad budget or bid amount for delivering ads to indoor digital billboards on cold and rainy days. The system may provide the option to allow an advertiser to increase the ad budget or bid amount for Internet ads and television ads on cold and rainy days (perhaps on the assumption that more people will be staying home surfing the Internet or watching television) and decrease the ad budget or bidamount for Internet ads and television ads on warm and sunny days (perhaps on the assumption that more people will be enjoying outdoor activities).

Referring to FIG. 6, an exemplary graphical user interface (GUI) 130 is provided to allow an advertiser to configure parameters associated with an ad 102. The GUI 130 includes an area 132for showing the ad content that is displayed to the end user 104, an area 134 for configuring keywords associated with the ad 102, and an area 136 for specifying the environmental conditions associated with the ad 102. The area 136 include areas 138a, 138b, 138c for specifying temperature, ambient sound, and ambient light conditions, respectively. The area 138a allows the advertiser to specify conditions for room temperature and outdoor temperature. The GUI 130 can be used to configure other environmental conditions, or other parameters associated with the ad

102.

In some implementations, the GUI 130 may provide options to allow the advertiser to bid for different amounts depending on whether the ad 102 is delivered to users 104 based on environmental conditions. For example, the advertiser may specify a first price that he is willing to pay when an ad 102 for air conditioners is delivered to users 104 based on a matching of keywords alone, and a second price when the air conditioner ad 102 is delivered to users 104 based on a matching of keywords and environmental conditions.

In some implementations, the GUI 130 may provide options to allow the advertiser to bid for different amounts depending on time periods after occurrence of certain environmental conditions.

For example, an advertiser may specify a formula F1(t) for the price that he is willing to pay for delivery of an ad 102 for winter overcoats, where t is the time from the morning of the first day of frost, or specify a formula F2(t) for the price for delivery of an ad 102 for air conditioners, where it isReferring to FIG. 7, an exemplary process 150 can be used for serving ads using environmental conditions as one of the criteria for selecting the ads. The process 150 receives information about an environmental condition of a remote user who is accessing a network (152). For example, the information can be generated by the sensors 114 and received by the search sever 106 (FIG. 1).

The network can be the network 112. The environmental condition can be determined based on location information of the user. The location information of the user can be determined without musing location information stored in a pre-established user profile. For example, the environmental condition determination engine 122 can be used to determine the environmental condition of the user based on the IP address of the user 104 or a registered residence address of the user 104. The process 150 identifies on-line ads based on the environmental condition (154). For example, the ad server 116 may identify the on-line ads 102. The process 150 provides the on-line ads to the user through the network (156). For example, the system 100 can provide ads 102 to the user

104.

Referring to FIG. 8, an exemplary process 230 can be used for receiving ads that are identified based on environmental conditions. For example, a client device provides to a remote server information about an environmental condition of a user of the client device who is accessing a network, in which the information about the environmental condition is derived from an output of a sensor of the client device or a sensor coupled to the client device (232). For example, the client device can be the client terminal 110 (FIG. 1), and the remote server can be the ad server 116.

In some examples, the sensor can include an environmental sensor that provides information mabout the environmental condition. The environmental condition can include temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, or speed of movement. In some examples, the sensor includes a GPS sensor, and the process 230 includes identifying a geographical location of the user based on the sensor output and identifying information about the environmental condition mof the geographical location.

The client device receives an on-line advertisement that is identified at the server based on the environmental condition (234). The client device provides the on-line advertisement to the user(236).

In some examples, the process 230 includes providing a keyword query from the user to the server, the keyword query including one or more keywords, and the on-line advertisement are selected by the server based on the one or more keywords and the environmental condition. In some examples, the process 230 provides a traffic condition of the user based on the information about the environmental condition, and the on-line advertisement is identified based on the traffic condition.

Referring to FIG. 9, an exemplary process 240 can be used for serving ads that are identified based on environmental conditions. Information about an environmental condition of a remote device are received, in which the environmental condition is determined based on a signal outfrom a sensor of the remote device or a sensor coupled to the remote device (242).

In some examples, an audio, image, or video signal is received from the sensor, and the environmental condition is determined based on the audio, image, or video signal. In some examples, the remote device is a mobile phone. An audio signal including a voice instruction from a user is received at the mobile phone. The environmental condition can be determined based on background sounds in the audio signal. An event can be determined based on the signal output from the sensor and location information. For example, the event can be a sports event or a musical event. An on-line advertisement is identified based on the environmental condition (244). The on-line advertisement is provided to the remote device (246). In some examples, the remote device includes a visual or audio user interface. For example, the remote device can be a digital billboard, ma digital kiosk, a vendor machine, or a public address system. A visual advertisement can be provided for displaying on a display of the digital billboard, digital kiosk, or vending machine. An audio advertisement can be provided for playing through an audio output of the digital billboard, digital kiosk, vending machine, or public address system. Referring to FIG. 10, an exemplary process 250 can be used configure ad campaigns. The process 250 enables a sponsor to configure an ad campaign based on criteria that include environmental conditions (252). For example, a user interface can be provided to the sponsor to allow the sponsor to specify different ad budgets for different environmental conditions. For example, the user interface may allow the sponsor specify how allocation of ad budgets for different types of media, bid amounts of ads for different types of media, allocation of ad budgets mfor different products, or bid amounts of ads for different products are adjusted based on the environmental conditions.

The process 250 includes receiving information about environmental conditions, and dynamically adjusting the ad campaign based on the environmental conditions. For example, the allocation of ad budgets for different types of media, the bid amounts of ads for different types of media, the allocation of ad budgets for different products, or the bid amounts of ads for different products can be adjusted based on the environmental conditions.

Referring to FIG. 11, an exemplary process 270 can be used configure ad campaigns. The process 270 enables advertisers to associate advertisements with one or more environmental conditions to allow the advertisements to be provided to users whose environmental conditions match the environmental conditions associated with the advertisements (272). The process enables the advertisers to bid for environmental conditions associated with one or more keywords

(274). For example, a user interface can be provided to allow the advertiser to associate the advertisement with the environmental condition. The user interface can be configured to allow the advertiser to bid for environmental conditions associated with one or more keywords. The environmental condition can include, for example, at least one of temperature, humidity, sound, light, air composition, location, and speed of movement.

FIG. 12 shows a schematic representation of a general computing system 200 that can be used to implement the system 100 or a component of the system 100, such as the ad server 116 or search server 106. Computing device 200 is intended to represent various forms of digital computers, such as laptops, desktops, workstations, personal digital assistants, servers, blade servers, mainframes, and other appropriate computers. The components shown here, their connections and relationships, and their functions, are meant to be exemplary only, and are not meant to limit implementations of the inventions described and/or claimed in this document.

Computing device 200 includes a processor 202, memory 204, a storage device 206, a high-speedinterface 208 connecting to memory 204 and high-speed expansion ports 210, and a low speed interface 212 connecting to low speed bus 214 and storage device 206. Each of the components

202, 204, 206, 208, 210, and 212, are interconnected using various busses, and may be mounted on a common motherboard or in other manners as appropriate. The processor 202 can process instructions for execution within the computing device 200, including instructions stored in the memory 204 or on the storage device 206 to display graphical information for a GUI on an external input/output device, such as display 216 coupled to high speed interface 208. In other implementations, multiple processors and/or multiple buses may be used, as appropriate, along with multiple memories and types of memory. Also, multiple computing devices 200 may be connected, with each device providing portions of the necessary operations (e.g., as a server bank, a group of blade servers, or a multi-processor system).

The memory 204 stores information within the computing device 200. In one implementation, the memory 204 is a volatile memory unit or units. In another implementation, the memory 204 is anon-volatile memory unit or units. The memory 204 may also be another form of computerreadable medium, such as a magnetic or optical disk.

The storage device 206 is capable of providing mass storage for the computing device 200. In one implementation, the storage device 206 may be or contain a computer-readable medium, such as a floppy disk device, a hard disk device, an optical disk device, or a tape device, a flash memory or other similar solid state memory device, or an array of devices, including devices in a storage area network or other configurations. A computer program product can be tangibly embodied in an information carrier. The computer program product may also contain instructions that, when executed, perform one or more methods, such as those described above. The information carrier is a computer- or machine-readable medium, such as the memory 204, the storage device 206, memory on processor 202, or a propagated signal.

The high speed controller 208 manages bandwidth-intensive operations for the computing device200, while the low speed controller 212 manages lower bandwidth-intensive operations. Such allocation of functions is exemplary only. In one implementation, the high-speed controller 208 is coupled to memory 204, display 216 (e.g., through a graphics processor or accelerator), and tohigh-speed expansion ports 210, which may accept various expansion cards (not shown). In theimplementation, low-speed controller 212 is coupled to storage device 206 and low-speed expansion port 214. The low-speed expansion port, which may include various communication ports (e.g., USB, Bluetooth, Ethernet, wireless Ethernet) may be coupled to one or more input/output devices, such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a scanner, or a networking device such as a switch or router, e.g., through a network adapter.

The computing device 200 may be implemented in a number of different forms, as shown in the figure. For example, it may be implemented as a standard server 220, or multiple times in a group of such servers. It may also be implemented as part of a rack server system 224. In addition, it may be implemented in a personal computer such as a laptop computer 222. Each of such devices (e.g., standard server, rack server system, personal computer, laptop computer) may contain one or more of computing device 200, and an entire system may be made up of multiple computing devices 200 communicating with each other.

Various implementations of the systems and techniques describedhere can be realized in digital electronic circuitry, integrated circuitry, specially designed ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), computer hardware, firmware, software, and/or combinations thereof. These various implementations can include implementation in one or more computer programs that are

executable and/or interpretable on a programmable system including at least one programmable processor, which may be special or general purpose, coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, a storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device.

These computer programs (also known as programs, software, software applications or code) include machine instructions for a programmable processor, and can be implemented in a high-level procedural and/or object-oriented programming language, and/or in assembly/machine language. As used herein, the terms “machine-readable medium” “computer-readable medium” refers to any computer program product, apparatus and/or device (e.g., magnetic discs, optical disks, memory, Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs)) used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor, including a machine-readable medium that receives machine minstructions as a machine-readable signal. The term “machine-readable signal” refers to anysignal used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor. To provide for interaction with a user, the systems and techniques described here can be implemented on a computer having a display device (e.g., a CRT (cathode ray tube) or LCD (liquid crystal display) monitor) for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device (e.g., a mouse, trackball, touch-sensitive screen, or iDrive-like component) by which the user can provide input to the computer. Other kinds of devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user as well; for example, feedback provided to the user can be any form of sensory feedback (e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactile feedback); and input from the user can be received in any form, including acoustic, speech, or tactile input. The systems and techniques described here can be implemented in a computing system that includes a back end component (e.g., as a data server), or that includes a middleware component (e.g., an application server), or that includes a front end component (e.g., a client computer having a graphical user interface or a Web browser through which a user can interact with an implementation of the systems and techniques described here), or any combination of such back end, middleware, or front end components. The components of the system can be interconnected by any form or medium of digital data communication (e.g., a communication network). Examples of communication networks include a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”), and the Internet. The computing system can include clients and servers. A client and server are generally remote from each other and typically interact through a communication network. The relationship of client and server arises by virtue of computer programs running on the respective computers and having a client-server relationship to each other.

A number of embodiments of the invention have been described. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, various forms of the flows shown above may be used, with steps re-ordered, added, or removed. Also, although several applications and methods have been described, it should be recognized that numerous other applications are contemplated. User interfaces different from those described above can be used. Various types of sensors can be used. Ads can be selected based on information from a combination of sensors. The network 112 can be a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), any other type of network, or any combination of types of networks. The server 106, server 112, environmental condition determination engine 122, and index 118 may be integrated into a single device.

In addition, the logic flows depicted in the figures do not require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. Other steps may be provided, or steps may be eliminated, from the described flows, and other components may be added to, or removed from, the described systems. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.

*