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.
Well, that would be a way to guarantee I buy a new TV…
Roku, somehow becoming shittier than Twitter
The shittiest of enshitifications.
I like that. If there was a site that did like The Razzies for movies but for technology enshitification, I would definitely watch, and probably follow a blog if it was done well
Youre in luck!
Roku has always been a shitty company that wants to monetize everything. People are finally waking up. How many of us have a Roku remote that advertises a useless or bankrupt streaming service?
I know I’m old, but I miss having numbers on my remote.
Now I have a “sling” and a “crackle” button. 🙁
Yeah, I do miss being able to quickly type a code to jump to a known broadcaster. Opening up a menu is slower than jumping direct to said thing.
The Roku buttons solves that a little bit, but there is only 4, you can’t change them, and they prioritize featuring whoever pays up.
Any company trying to use the HDMI-CEC protocol in such a subversive manner should lose their license to the HDMI standard IMO.
I’m sure that a DisplayPort device in a chain can also inject video, but I have to admit that I would kind of like to not have two competing video standards, and my impression is that DisplayPort tends to lead HDMI technically, so…
I’m mad that they did their broken implementation of sending control codes between devices that never works. I have to disable it on everything so that the correct input gets set.
And then they are killing the universal remote industry so there is nothing to replace it with.
The bastards that control the hdmi standard: yeah!
Roku: 💰
Bastards: actually no
You know HDMI is not some big secret they can use it without the license and ship from overseas like 90% of shit shipped from China.
For cheap gizmos I can see a chinese seller getting away with it (rebranding under another weird name like AWOYO or something, in a sea of identical devices under different brand names), but not a large business like Roku.
Funnily enough, Flipper did exactly that and the Zero is still doing fine. It’s a loophole, but it does seem to be working fine-ish.
HDMI Forum have instead resorted to taking GPU manufacturers hostage because they don’t want any specs leaking, that’s why AMD were denied being allowed to support latest HDMI in their free Linux drivers.
Our TV can fortunately bypass all the “smart” shit, and run like dumb monitor, maybe because it’s an older TV? We use it with an external computer with Linux mediacenter, where we have full control and no adds.
Would it even be possible to run a new “smart” TV as a dumb monitor?
We are very happy with our TV, because we can run it as a plain monitor no problem, but it could break.
Would it even be possible to run a new “smart” TV as a dumb monitor?
Never connecting the TV to the internet and never updating the firmware usually works. If they are determined to show you ads, they may not let you use the TV without an internet connection though. I would suggest that you avoid buying a roku TV.
Okay but they can also mesh the TVs with your neighbour’s tv of the same brand so that if your neighbour’s TV has internet, your TV can leapfrog onto his tv to download the ads
