Technology

59534 readers

3168 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

1295

Roku explores taking over HDMI feeds with ads (www.lowpass.cc)

submitted 7 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

488 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.

This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[+] lemmy_user_838586@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's not as bad as Dhark thinks, but still pretty bad. Read my last sentence and fully immerse yourself.

[–] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

It's absolutely insanely horrible and probably some of the most invasive drm I have ever seen even proposed.

This would require doing deep analysis on all of the content going through the stream. That analysis sure as hell isn't being done locally since smart TV's can barely run their own operating systems, so everything getting offloaded to Roku servers and then they get to put ads on whatever they determine to be an appropriate time.

This technology enables censoring and blacking out signals that Roku decides you don't get to see, or preventing the release of the hijacked stream unless you perform certain actions, or just not releasing the stream at all unless you pay, effectively extorting you.

These cheap smart TVs already give you the worst panels and the worst processors. And now get to be extorted out of your own data being delivered the ten feet from your computer or PlayStation to the TV.

It's beyond ridiculous.