One of the phone companies has been running a series of commericals which falsely pretends: (i) that wireless TV is a new thing, (ii) that they invented it, and (iii) that it is difficult for kids to live without it. This is odd, since TV in our house was wireless from the beginning and still is.
Moreover, not once did I (or my kids) ever ask to take advantage of its wireless nature by moving the TV to the garage or to the closet. Is it really OK to pay children to broadcast a self-servingly false history of communications technology in this way?
What does it suggest about the technical competence and/or professional ethics of the people responsible for such uses of electronic media? Is this an occasion to ask advertisers to flag: (a) the audience they are targeting, (b) the soft spots within the target audience they are trying to hit, and (c) the places where technical and historical observations are being distorted to falsely-inflate the status of the organization running the ad.
