Technology

59669 readers

2708 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

[email protected]

840

Roku has patented a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

231 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 3) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (11 children)

Anyone know what I should be running Plex on instead? I don't want to just hook my computer up to the TV. Rokus are like $10, so ideally around that price point lol

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Why not? To get a picture on a big screen, I just use a really long cable from my desktop.

I control mouse/keyboard input via KDE connect, or grab the actual wireless mouse and keyboard from my desk.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've had an Nvidia shield TV for like 6 years now. Very happy with it.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

There are tons of cheap android boxes on Amazon and AliExpress and stuff. Even a raspberry Pi does an ok job.

load more comments (8 replies)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Just a thought: What if I were to buy a TV with a port other than HDMI and use a converter from Roku device to that port? For example, hdmi to display port or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Is there a consumer tv out there that has display port as an option?

Monitors for sure, but I’m talking 70” OLEDs and whatnot.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The newest LG GX (4?) is actually removing ads from their UI, I think it is totally ad-free. It is expensive as fuck though, it makes sense to deliver a premium experience.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

*their tv

load more comments