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Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

sciencemag.org

251–260 of 329 posts

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#252
Investigating spooky claims:

"Facebook is always listening to you!": I assume that many researchers have attempted to figure this out by snooping traffic from the app. It takes a bit of technical skill to do this. If there was any strong sign of this, I assume it would have come out by now. Maybe there's a super secret bit of code that bypasses Android's microphone controls, does speech-to-text and intent processing so efficiently it doesn't cause much battery drain, then holds the data and transmits it back to Facebook using steganographic techniques?

"Smart speakers are playing messages while I'm asleep": Anyone could buy a $30 audio recorder and just let it run all night. Also, anyone might be a light sleeper or wake up at the wrong time and discover this. How would this even be possible to hide?

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#253
post #18

Leela : Didn't you have ads in the 21st century? Fry : Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

Fry always forgets movie product placement, manufactured consent, and manufactured insecurities.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#254
post #18

Leela : Didn't you have ads in the 21st century? Fry : Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

Thank god that at least google, fb, amazon etc. are trying so hard to improve our advertising experience as much as possible. Where would we be if the ads directed at us were not so personalized....

Please tell me this comment is satire... honestly can't tell these days.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#255
Advertising and marketing are more helpful to well oiled large companies because they are capable of paying to simply saturate their competition out.

Until we’re able to disable lobbying in politics ads will always be an issue. This is just another bastion to be invaded by this.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#256

Is there an amount of money I can pay monthly, which gets put into a pot and distributed to various companies? That way they get my money without needing to advertise to me and without needing to produce any products or pay salaries, and I get to live a calmer life.

Sure, but then that becomes the baseline and one company will advertise anyway to make even more money

“It's a gigantic social phenomenon. People find ways of getting money by impeding society. Once they can impede society, they can be paid to leave people alone.”

— Richard Stallman, 1986 https://www.gnu.org/gnu/byte-interview

“But we’ve proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.”

— Rudyard Kipling, 1911, Dane-geld

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#257
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it need any more data points? It's fairly incredible that it is legal that we are being bombarded 16 out of 24 hours per day with sponsored messages in one form or another. The only medium that is still inviolate is books.

Not so inviolate. There are a number of companies (usually high end designer brands; think Prada and jewelry) that commission authors to make books featuring their products. This has been going on for years, but I don't know the efficacy. Then again, no one really knows the efficacy of any kind of advertising.

Ugh, that never even crossed my mind. I'll be on the lookout for it.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You underestimate what people will sacrifice in order to be able to say "Alexa, what's the weather like today" rather than pull out their phone and open the weather app which is probably faster to do anyway. "But what if I have my hands full with stuff" they'll say. Well, will you really be able to remember what Alexa says about the weather if you're busy doing other stuff anyway? All everyone can ever point out as a…

You underestimate what people will sacrifice in order to be able to ask their phone about the weather instead of taking a look through the window. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Serious question since I've never owned a smart phone. Do they not come with a browser? If they do, you can look up your zip code on weather.gov [1] and then expand it to show more details, then bookmark the result. The URL will remain the same for that zip code. At least for the U.S. that is quite accurate. Does the E.U. have a similar site? If you want to hear the weather, then you could bookmark ATIS [2] for your area. Can you launch an app or a bookmarked page using built-in support for voice commands on smart phones?

[1] - https://www.weather.gov/

[2] - https://www.liveatc.net/

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that I had been venting about for years to anybody I met. There's that (Coca-Cola I think) ad that ends up with teenagers watching the sunrise after a party night, they sit on a roof in what I remember could be suburban California. The ad was in the style of All I need from Air. These are very delicate and precious moments when you are a teenager. But now it's Coca-cola telling people how to feel. F…

I don't get this. Sure, what you describe sounds like a precious moment. But why is it "stolen" if some company films an ad featuring a similar moment? I assume you wouldn't have the same reaction if you saw two real teenagers doing this, or even saw it fictionalized in a movie financed by some production company hoping to make money. What is it about seeing it in an ad that crosses a line?

As a teen (and an adult) Coca-cola certainly was not a prescriber. Anything they'd show in their ad would be immediately and correctly understood as fake and an attempt to get in. Action, reaction. Most (and my friends didn't care) would get over it but the moment is tainted by the brand. Everyone has a different line not to cross though.

Now my line is that this scene is strong, it has meaning. But it doesn't need Coca-cola for that. The product diminishes the experience, it taints it. Next time we get on that roof, what do we make of ourselves ? But as another poster commented: "what's in the coke ? Rhum or whisky ?" :).

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#260
post #93
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an Android phone you can use NewPipe app from FDroid repository, it gives you YT without ads (and you can use it in background for free too)

Is there any App that can do the same on Smart TV? Getting tired of ads on Youtube's ads.

As per the Sponsorblock extensions Github page only App for Android based Smart TVs with sponsorblock buitin appears to be Smart Tube Next [0]

[0] : https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext/

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