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"...in fifty years, do you believe that people will be recognizably human?"
- Greg Bear

Pocket-Sized Ad-Blocker  
  A device that prevented targeted advertisements from reaching you.  

Depahli De walked through the mall, and was immediately targeted by mobile advertisements that used recognition technology to see her as young, female and upper-class.

Like transparent balloons, automated ads drifted through the multiple converging halls of the mall, rising and falling from floor to floor as easily as they negotiated side passages and entryways...

Employing aerogel cameras, adverts designed to appeal specifically to the young, female and middle-to-upper class zeroed in on her repeatedly. The constant battle between manufacturers of pocket-sized ad-blockers and the designers of mobile advertisements had spurred technological leaps among both. Depahli rarely used the blocker that Taneer had bought for her. Truth be told, she enjoyed enough of the ads to allow them access...

Technovelgy from Sagramanda, by Alan Dean Foster.
Published by Pyr in 2006
Additional resources -

Compare to the antiholo generator from John Varley's 1977 novel The Ophiuchi Hotline and the home ad blocker from Alfred Bester's wild and wooly 1974 novel The Computer Connection.

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  More Ideas and Technology from Sagramanda
  More Ideas and Technology by Alan Dean Foster
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