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Apologies up front; this is playing out in Dutch media and there do not seem to be English sources available. Nevertheless, I thought the following would be of interest to SN:
Philips TVs are manufactured by TP Vision. Recently, TP Vision announced that it would include more ads on its (Philips-branded) smart-tvs. Comment by Paulo Lopez of TP Vision to the media:
"We know very much about viewing behaviour. Which channels are being watched, which apps are being used. Based on that, we can make ads more relevant in the future." (translation mine).
Well that did cause a few ripples, amongst others with the data protection agency in the Netherlands. They already slapped TP Vision on the wrist back in 2013 for doing basically this. Now the data protection agency is starting another investigation. Moreover, tech-heads also noticed and kicked up a bit of a sh*tstorm at popular Dutch tech site Tweakers.net: more ads, warning, with 555 and 133 comments respectively (on a site where 100+ comments is a lot).
Do you know of any other brands that engage in such sleazy behaviour? And: would it be possible to block the ads while retaining the smart functionality (assuming a user who wants that), when the TV would try to detect/prevent that?
[Ed. Note: All I found in English is a press release from Improve Digital, the advertising company. Typical PR language there.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:03AM
Use an RPi, a NUC, an old (quiet) tower as HTPC... There is almost no benefit to using "smart" TVs.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday January 28 2017, @03:23AM
fuck that.
fanless 35w i7 for the win!
linux and intel video is now fast enough to display any software based movie encoding scheme, with no bad behavior.
plus, you can 'make -j8 bzImage' for extra fun ;)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 28 2017, @03:53AM
Our old tube screens were driven by DVD and VHS players.
In 2008 our first flatscreen was given a PS3 to drive it (BluRay + Netflix and video playback from a NAS)
The NAS wasn't a great idea, nor the PS3, but by 2011 we were about 50% driven by a "NetTop" low power, quiet PC playing movies off of an external USB connected drive.
By 2013, the PS3 was mostly shut off (on maybe 10 days a year to play old games) and a NUC now plays Netflix and videos from a pair of external drives that it mirrors every night with rsync.
2016 we got our 2nd flatscreen, 4K this time, driven 100% by a new NUC - it can play files from the other NUC over the network.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28 2017, @04:05AM
for me
1997 35 inch TV with DVD some point I added 3 400 disc DVD carousels
2003 Media center and DVR xbox360 as the extender whenever that popped up
2009 ditched cable (woot 70 extra bucks a month!)
2010 55 inch LED LCD
2011 TV unplugged from network due to LG logging all key presses to random internet server in the clear
2013 Intel NUC with XBMC (KODI) and 2000+ ripped DVDs/bluray, Synology NAS, and HDHomerun
Game consoles are always plugged in and used 2-3 times a month. Strictly game usage. Netflix is rarely used at this point as most of what we want to watch I already own and have ripped.
Looking forward to KODI 18. They have put retroplayer in the mainline code.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:48PM
< 1968 watched parents' TV
1968 12" monochrome Phillips CRT (still worked in 2004 when I left it behind in a move)
1976 25" color RCA CRT
2004 42" Sony Trinitron flat screen, played DVDs at 32" 720i
2017 55" Sony (I shouldn't have shopped wile sick with the flu; I swore off Sony when their XCP ruined my PC) 4K
I don't buy a lot of televisions. But then, I don;t watch a lot, either.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:26PM
By 2013, the PS3 was mostly shut off (on maybe 10 days a year to play old games) and a NUC now plays Netflix and videos from a pair of external drives
I've gone the other way. 90% of my TV time involves my PS3, the rest evenly divided between DVD and TV shows.
I just don't have it in my anymore to sit and passively watch TV.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:41PM
Agreed. It's hard to buy a dumb TV any more. I just bought a "smart" TV, but there's no way I'm giving it my wi-fi password or plugging it into my router.
It is pretty cool that the TV has a USB port. I can copy movies or music (sadly, ogg not supported in my TV) to a thumb drive and play them on the TV.
If I can find a Linux distro that will work on an old 32 bit Gateway laptop that's now running XP, I can plug its composite video to the VCR and watch movies from the network that way. Actually, the USB gives me far better resolution than composite video; that HGMI cable REALLY improved the DVD's picture. So even if I can make the Gatway safe for the network I may still be using USB.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org