my roku TV can’t talk to the internet anymore because it was foolish enough to show me a banner ad while I was gaming
its a dumb TV now 🥰💕
AI generated ads
It doesn’t happen a lot that headlines make me vomit a little in my mouth but this one did
This just made me realise… with AI-generated videos, ads could be tailor-made for you. Could even feature you on it.
Facebook was already doing this. But how terrifying would it be to see this on live-ish tv?
Facebook has ads with your face slapped on them?
Not mine, because I’m not on there. But my mates were showing me that their feeds had adverts with ai versions of them using the advertised products.
Wait, for real?! What the…
Yeah, it was bonkers!
You’re Not Buying a TV; You’re Buying a Roku
My TV (dumb but attached to a Roku Express) died last month and since then I’ve been watching on computer + Zen Browser + uBlock Origin, with zero ads.
And noticing that I don’t see a single TV for sale in nearby shops that is not a (usually Roku) smart TV, i.e. data surveillance capitalist tool.
Instead of looking for a tv, look for a commercial display. They’re basically a computer monitor the size of a TV. Samsung makes a line that we use at work, and the cost is similar to a mid-range TV. They can function completely without internet.
Something like these: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/commercial-displays/ci/35567/N/3538895735
The funny thing is you can just use an external box and never connect your tv to the internet at all. Let it collect all the data it wants. It’s not like it can tell anybody.
It may not be that way for much longer. Take a look at Amazon Sidewalk. They’re using low power, long range mesh technology so Ring Doorbells and Echos can communicate without access to the internet. That may not sound like a big deal, but the potential is huge.
If companies like Amazon/Google are able to create a “side network” they could use it to provide low bandwidth backhaul for other companies that want to get telemetry from their airgapped devices.
So, for example, you get a new Roku smart TV and don’t connect it to your Wi-Fi, but your neighbour has a Ring doorbell so it just uses that.
Mesh tech is awesome, and so is tech in general, but we are so slow at regulating it. This stuff needs to be opt in at the absolute minimum.
