Rooftops - they are pretty dismal. Not much up there because until recently few could see them. But now they are on public display as a person searching your address on Google and switching to satellite mode will be looking down on your roof. They will see your new air conditioner, and the remnants of the broken one, and those extra tiles and leftover roofing tar, and a bunch of empty beer bottles.

BUNGCO liked the idea of horizontal billboards on the roof to utilize this new ad space. But it turns out that horizontal things outside get dirty fast and invariably look horrible after 6 weeks. We could have learned that lesson from the solar panel adventure.

The Rooftop Data Matrix Device is a big square thing which motivated BUNGCO technicians will schlep up to your roof and assemble. Each potential pixel can be occluded by a slightly convex white aluminum square, or opened to reveal the black backing some inches beneath. Snow falling on the whiteness slides off into the adjacent blackness. The RDMD is designed to retain this blackness and whiteness despite maintenance by wind and rain only, and so retain its information content. Now when Google gazes down upon you, your rooftop will have a nice matrix on it - click through (should that functionality be added to google map) or scan it with your phone - and be delivered to a website, menu, advertisement, or what have you. Should you wish to change up the image and information contained - go right ahead! The BUNGCO website provides an app to figure out the configuration of the new image, and the white squares (wear gloves!) can slide out and back in for easy rearranging.
-- bungston, Oct 10 2012

Analogue version http://www.guardian...drawing-roof-google
[pocmloc, Oct 10 2012]

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