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Isn't it a bummer when urinal time interferes with game time? It can really interrupt the gaming flow, am I right, guys?

Fortunately, U.K.-based Captive Media has combined pee time and play time with urinal games controlled by, you guessed it, your own very personal game-whiz skills.

The system--patented in the U.K., with patents pending overseas--consists of a 12-inch high-definition LCD screen installed at eye level above the urinal.

When not in active use, the system plays a mixture of ads and content from one of six "PTV" channels. When a user approaches, the monitor flips from ad mode to gaming mode, using sensors to detect not only the urinator's presence, but the direction of his stream.

Just move left or right to demonstrate your gaming (and aiming) prowess in titles like On the Piste, in which you speed through the (presumably yellow) snowy mountains on a supercharged snowmobile, and Clever Dick, a wicked pisser of a trivia game. As the Telegraph rightly points out, "Never has Nintendo Wii sounded more apt." … Read more

Google just found another digital billboard for online ads: its Chrome Web browser.

I just started noticing the ads on one of my computers yesterday, and I'm not the only one to see them. Right now, the ads tout Google's Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks, which not coincidentally happen to be on sale for the holidays.

The ads don't interrupt ordinary Web browsing by pushing aside Web page content and don't compete with regular Web page ads. Rather, they appear in a yellow-tinted box at the top of the new-tab page in Chrome.

That page is typically a … Read more

The federal organization overseeing administration of funds from the 2008 bailout has shut down 85 alleged online mortgage scams that advertised with Google to target struggling homeowners.

The agency, known as the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, says that the alleged scammers preyed on homeowners seeking to lower their mortgages through a program created by the bailout. The program, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, offers homeowners who are having difficulty paying their mortgages a way to alter their payments to ease the burden.

In a press release today (PDF), … Read more

BrightRoll, a San Francisco startup providing digital video advertising services, has raised $30 million in financing.

BrightRoll currently manages 2.25 billion video ads monthly, or nearly one out of every three video ads served in the United States, according to data from comScore and BrightRoll's internal reporting. The company reports it has reached more unique viewers than Hulu and the top four television network websites combined.

The company says its year-old mobile network currently generates about 250 million monthly pre-roll video impressions on 6,000 mobile apps and websites.

"We challenge the assumption that the networks who … Read more

Borrowing a page from Amazon's playbook, Kobo has quietly launched an ad-supported e-book reader.

The Kobo Touch with Offers features a 6-inch E-ink touch screen, Wi-Fi, and a $99 price tag--a $30 price reduction from the regular model. The only difference, Kobo explains, is that the device's screen will feature an advertisement at the bottom of the home screen, as well as a screensaver ad when it's shut down or in sleep mode.

"Kobo Touch with Offers presents you with sponsored screens and valuable offers when your device is powered off or in sleep mode, and … Read more

Party foul! Ads for the Motorola Defy have been banned in the U.K. after the Advertising Standards Agency there declared that the rugged Android mobile isn't as party-proof as its advertisements would have you believe.

Two TV ads showed the Defy surviving being dropped on to the floor in a club, and doused at a sexy pool party. Onscreen accompanying text says it's "dance-floor proof" and "pool party proof." More text reads: "Water resistant, scratch resistant, dust proof. It's life proof."

Those ads have been branded misleading, however, after three Defy users complained that the screens on their phones had cracked after dropping them.

Read more of "Motorola Defy ads banned for being misleading" at Crave UK. … Read more

Whether or not Yahoo is going to be bought by anyone soon (including Microsoft and AOL, as previously rumored), the three are linked for now by new display advertising deals.

Basically, the agreements between Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL will allow ad networks operated by this trio to offer each other's premium, non-reserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers. It's touted to "dramatically improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory."

The companies first tipped this plan at a September dinner briefing in New York.

Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo's executive vice president … Read more

Much has been made of the "do not track" features built into the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari (the setting for Firefox is shown below). A do-not-track option is available in Google Chrome only as an add-in from Google called Keep My Opt-Outs.

As Wired.com's Ryan Singel reported last April on the Epicenter blog, Google's wait-and-see attitude toward do-not-track features reflects the uncertainty about what kind of tracking is prohibited.

(In a Privacy Inc. post earlier this month, Declan McCullagh examined the approach to Web tracking being taken by the Federal Trade … Read more

MoPub, a mobile advertising startup founded by former Google and AdMob employees, today is launching a Nasdaq-type exchange where buyers and sellers can bid in real-time for ad space on smartphones and tablets.

The San Francisco-based company, which in July scored $6.5 million in funding, is one of several firms trying to capture the swelling mobile advertising market, which is on track to double this year to $3.3. billion worldwide, according the Gartner research.

CEO and co-founder Jim Payne says that among several players, including Google, MoPub is the first to offer a self-service system--he calls it a &… Read more