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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]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

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.

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

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