A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted.
The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there’s no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata “to identify one or more objects” in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a “relevant ad” over top of whatever the paused content is.
I’m glad they patented it so that any of the products I actually buy won’t be able to do this
If it’s patented, it can also be hacked more easily.
Why?
not sure why people are losing their minds, there are lots of absurd patents out there - actually making it to market is a whole different step
It’s not the release, but the idea/intent.
and every few weeks/months a stupid patent that never makes it to market shows up in the news
Now, if only they would invent the exact opposite of this, I would buy it
I want zero ads. Ever.
They did! Its called a pihole plus ublock origin plus piracy.
You can’t buy it, only the hardware, but the software is all free.
You can’t defend against ads with pihole if the ads server has the same address as content server
This is true. Hence the piracy. Only way to go ad free.
But with the risk of malware infection, unfortunately.
When something is free, you’re the product.
I’d advise to continue to use non-pirated products, but only from those companies, whose service you’re satisfied with.
And if there’s none, don’t consume product at all. It’s not like movies are vital for you.Vlc is pretty good, and I run a pretty strange distro. If I’m extra scared, I’ll use qubes or get a sacrifice machine.
I think the poor having culture is important. Either art is important, or it Fucking isn’t. You seem to be arguing its the frivolity, not the substance and fruit of civilization.
Video isnt my favorite medium, I have a lot of criticisms of it, but its still art, still precious. And so everyone deserves to have it.
And so everyone deserves to have it.
And authors along with those, who maintain content distributing infrastructure, deserve to be rewarded for their labour.
But I can’t pay them. Its not generally an option. Have you seen the terms on their Fucking contracts?
Literally the closest I can get is wandering around Los Angeles giving money to people who look vaguely familiar or give off writerly vibes.
if the video being displayed is static
Imagine you’re playing Skyrim and while reading one of the books your TV covers up the content with an ad! That would be infuriating!
I was thinking Diablo 2 is gonna be rendered unplayable. It’ll probably view “IL” in “SKILL” or a rune or small charm as a pause symbol and make it so you can’t open your inventory
Edit: Oh shit, the ‘II’ in Diablo II
I’m pretty sure there is points in some movies that have static content briefly as well.
Or maybe just reading any text on your TV ever. Say you use an epub reader on your screen because you like reading rhat way. Do these corpo guys even think this will make ads any more effective and likable? The opposite! I’ve been avoid ads ever more and any time I see a new technology to bring ads in any context I leave a little middle finger behind.
Thanks to OP for reinforcing my choice to forever avoid smart TV’s.
Edit: if you want a non-smart TV look for hospitality TVs.
Also, “how to ask everyone capable to hack your shit product without asking everyone to hack your shit product.”
Or just buy whatever TV you want, never connect it to the internet, and then plug in a separate box where you’ll actually get the content from.
Smart TVs aren’t actually that smart if they have no internet and you entirely bypass their home screen to go straight to whatever box you have.
Some will show ads anyway, or so I e heard. They’re fn asshats
Or for computer monitor
tl;dr never buy anything Roku, ever again. Got it.
Yeah… I’ve been evaluating moving to Plex or Jellyfin.
Kinda getting done with a lot of this smart stuff. The Monopolies are flexing and I don’t enjoy it.
Roku has patented a way to ensure I don’t buy their junk.
Roku about to patent a way to make you buy their junk.
I’ve just invented a way to never use a Roku product again, and I’ve chosen not to patent it.
The process is this:
- Don’t buy anything from Roku anymore.
I would assume that these ads still need an internet connection to play. Another great reason to use an external box to play your media and leave the smart TV offline.
The whole point of having a Roku tv, however is for it to be connected to the internet and it works between all of the apps and your phone.
We have a 10 year old Roku TV and it’s actually been pretty great that’s streaming.
Ever since Roku deplatformed Alex Jones I knew they were unprincipled and no good. Glad I left and never looked back.
Fuck Roku. If we stop buying their shit. They’ll eventually be bankrupt to implement this feature. So Fuck roku
So then some other ad-tech company can buy the patent for cheap during the wind-down.
This is like Windows putting ads in the fucking startmenu…
More like Windows showing ads even when you boot Linux
More like your monitor showing you ads is while using Linux.
Please don’t give them ideas.
Is this real? I’ve never seen a native ad in windows and honestly don’t know if maybe it’s some kind of a regional thing.
On fresh installs before running the debloater scripts there’s plenty of Try Candy Crush and it’s already got Office 365 pinned and accidentally clicking that takes you to the store page, and there’s some other shit I can’t remember by name
Sounds like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
Imagine that you pay for an ad free streaming service through your roku, like HBO for example. And now you have ads streaming over it?
People will sue for a way to disable it over ad free paid content.
Also, this will lead to way more pirating. People are sick of advertisements.That’ll be why they just pushed a “agree to our new license with arbitrage or your tv is a brick” update
Even if people sue, doesn’t mean they have any legal grounds to win. What law is Roku breaking? You can’t sue your TV manufacturer for not being 4k when you pay for 4k content. Your content display technology has the right to display content how they see fit.
I see this as a job for the free market. As consumers we need to show Roku how we feel about that.
People who don’t pirate already are fools.
avoid integrated smart technology, buy a separate box preferably Foss or with possibility to load a custom rom/os
What is your setup if you don’t mind me asking
On this episode of Black Mirror…
So we just ordered a new tv and just want the universe to know that Roku wasn’t even considered and this shit is why.
I mean, yeah sure, but are the alternatives that much better in this respect? Which alternative non-ad-ridden, privacy-respecting smart tv would you recommend (or ended up buying)? Asking for my future tv choice…
We have a HiSense Android TV (most are now Google TV, but they’re essentially the same). There are ads by default, but you can install a custom launcher with no ads, so the experience is much better.
I use Projectivity launcher and it looks nicer, has no ads, and it’s much faster and more responsive.
As soon as I figured out how to install a custom launcher, I researched how to disable ads similarly on our Roku TVs and discovered all of the secret menus that could have disabled them, except they no longer work.
So the Roku level of lockdown on their custom OS is much worse now versus an android-based OS.
