First it was air quality indicators on balloons. Now it's noise pollution on billboards. Data you can't avoid seeing.

The Noise Awareness Blog is highlighting an advertisement campaign in Europe (for a quiet washing machine, I think). The campaign has put up giant billboards that measure the decibel levels in the street and display current decibels in an LED display. Like this:

From the blog:

Also in London AEG-Electrolux has erected a giant poster to monitor the noise level ‘live, as it happens’ on a busy road: Old Street Foundry in Shoreditch.The poster is sited above a local night club and on a main route to local schools and local people have already started to take an interest - instead of just walking past the poster they are stopping and looking for a while before walking on. Local school kids are taking it a step further and are deliberately shouting at the sign in unison in order to make the numbers change. The Manager of the night club is finding the poster helpful too – he taking photos of the sign in the early hours of the morning to show the local council that he is not making too much noise!

(Hat tip: information aesthetics)