An interesting thinkpiece from the NY Times. Reminds me of Minority Report, when Tom Cruise gets inundated with personalised adverts... Philip K. Dick once again may not be far off. Needs and Wants, people!

Attention is a resource; a person has only so much of it. And yet we’ve auctioned off more and more of our public space to private commercial interests, with their constant demands on us to look at the products on display or simply absorb some bit of corporate messaging.

via The Cost of Paying Attention - NYTimes.com.