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I’m Terrified of My New TV

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Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#301

Post by tmuir »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #299
tmuir wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services. I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Ma…

>I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services Most of these devices are priced at less than $50. Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, a Roku. I don't know where you're finding multiple hundred dollar devices. > A small form factor Wi…

I mean that the integrated media players in the TVs themselves add $300 to the price of the TV.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#302

Post by wahsd »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #271
imgabe wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they w…

> Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. This is what I don't get. I used to play with Microsoft's SpeechAPI back in 2007 and it was pretty decent at real-time speech recognition - almost perfect, if you limited your program to a pre-defined command grammar. It was all done completely off-line, real-time on a machine that had much less proces…

The point is that it is a choice, a deliberate choice. Without sending the date, i.e., your output, to corporate servers, they can't profit from your person. Hate to say this and many may believe that it's over the top, but humans are ever increasingly becoming nothing more than a commodity. Kind of like a cow on a ranch. You monitor it and groom it and prepare its feed in accordance with stages of development and tweak your inputs all in order to squeeze the optimal amount of profit out of the cow....I mean human.

Unfortunately, even YCombinator, just like a vast majority of tech companies, are guilty of supporting this notion. There is no respect or regard for privacy and ownership of your person. if it escapes your flesh and bones, it is deemed fair game to harvest by anyone. You and your actions and your speech and your image and your location are a commodity to be optimized for profit. Say moo, mothertrucker.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#303

Post by Fuzzwah »

tmuir wrote: post #275
freehunter wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A wireless mouse always trumps a remote. Absolutely not. I do not want a mouse being used at my couch. I do not want my movie interrupted with Windows Update. I do not want to fiddle with XBMC or some other hacked together, unintegrated system. I subscribe to the Unix philosophy when it comes to my home entertainment. I have a stereo that only plays audio. I have a TV that only plays video. I have a set-top box that…

Perhaps Windows would be a problem, but I've been using a Mac Mini in this fashion for 3 years now, and have never once been interrupted by OSX. Would you at least concede that everything else being equal, there is no faster input to start media than with a mouse? Every TV/Set Top remote interface I've ever used requires at least 3x the steps of the equivalent with a mouse, because you have a D-Pad. Maybe DVD players…

I use XBMC running on an R-Pi and control it with a cheap "media center" remote control [1]. While it does include a "mouse function" via a kind of d-pad I've only ever had to use it a handful of times to do things which are so rare I haven't bothered to bind a button to them; ie: force a video to a certain aspect ratio because it was encoded badly.

For the 99.9% of interactions with the system the remote is superior to a mouse.

1: http://www.amazon.com/Ortek-Windows-Infrared-Receiver-Ultima...

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#304

Post by Rudism »

johnnymonster wrote: post #300

This is the reason why I buy the "Dumb" TV version, and its cheaper too. No reason my tv needs to be hooked up to the internet, have apps, or a camera/microphone! I just need it to display images, I don't even need it to output any sound! If I could pay less for no speakers that would be awesome!

I'm the same way, but this is slowly becoming a non-option. Even the cheap TVs are "smart" these days--it's no longer really a premium feature and just something that every TV has tacked on as a marketing bullet point. If you limit your new TV search to only "dumb" models your selection of options becomes almost comically tiny.

Fortunately, leaving the TV unplugged from the internet is still a viable option.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#305

Post by phkahler »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #269
imgabe wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they w…

Almost. The phone can do the TTS on the fly, but it can't calibrate itself without server-aggregated data. So it needs to send off SOME voice captures to central in order to work at peak performance.

Great, so have the user explicitly put it in training mode.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#306

Post by NDizzle »

downandout wrote: post #155

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on…

Doesn't this apply directly to the Xbox One as well? "Xbox On" will turn that on.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#307

Post by john_b »

imgabe wrote: post #214
enobrev wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google led me to Samsung. Under the "Voice Recognition" section [1] Voice Recognition You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a thi…

Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they w…

Even assuming that the lack of processing power on the TV is a correct theory, your comment misses the point here.

The issue is not about the intent of the manufacturer. Noble intent or not, the story is about what is enabled by this device. Any time you rely on noble intent of a 3rd party you are putting a lot of trust in them. Especially when those third parties can monetize your data without you ever knowing about it.

Technology provides the tools for mass surveilance and globally undermining trust, but it also provides tools for removing the need for trust, and apparently this smart TV adopts a "just trust us" approach.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#308

Post by rsync »

Rudism wrote: post #304
johnnymonster wrote: post #300

This is the reason why I buy the "Dumb" TV version, and its cheaper too. No reason my tv needs to be hooked up to the internet, have apps, or a camera/microphone! I just need it to display images, I don't even need it to output any sound! If I could pay less for no speakers that would be awesome!

I'm the same way, but this is slowly becoming a non-option. Even the cheap TVs are "smart" these days--it's no longer really a premium feature and just something that every TV has tacked on as a marketing bullet point. If you limit your new TV search to only "dumb" models your selection of options becomes almost comically tiny. Fortunately, leaving the TV unplugged from the internet is still a viable option.

Buy commercial displays / signage displays. Like the ones they have in airports.

I have a NEC commercial display as my TV. It's great and is built to last forever. Oh and it has no network capability or "smarts" of any kind. It's as dumb as a monitor gets.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#309

Post by dragonwriter »

tmuir wrote: post #103
bruce511 wrote: post #19

I'm probably not normal, but frankly I would just leave it unplugged from the Internet. At the end of the day my current tv does what I need to do (ie act as a big monitor) without an internet connection. Given the number of devices already floating around here for browsing the web, I don't really need my tv to do that. For streaming I have Chromecast or whatever. I get that tv makers want to sell me something, but t…

I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services. I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Ma…

> I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price.

Price is a pretty big deal. The SFF Windows box or Mac Mini, however, are inferior to Chromecast in a number of other ways, however: size, power consumption, setup effort, etc.

> A wireless mouse always trumps a remote.

A wireless mouse requires a surface. A remote doesn't. Nor does my phone (the main control I use with a Chromecast). So, no, I don't think a wireless mouse always trumps a remote, particularly for typical living room media control use.

> The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites.

I've used Netflix on a number of devices, including using the full website. IMO, the full website certainly has the most appropriate UI for desktop/laptop use, but equally certainly is not the best UI for typical living room use.

> Not to mention all of the other features you get with a full blown computer.

Sure, a full blown computer is great, but tying it up as an STB isn't a particularly efficient use of resources given most people's STB use cases. Especially when with many much cheaper set-top devices you can get much of the effect of having the full-blown computer that you use connected to the TV without having it dedicated to that purpose as an STB.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#310

Post by tmuir »

freehunter wrote: post #295
tmuir wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Windows would be a problem, but I've been using a Mac Mini in this fashion for 3 years now, and have never once been interrupted by OSX. Would you at least concede that everything else being equal, there is no faster input to start media than with a mouse? Every TV/Set Top remote interface I've ever used requires at least 3x the steps of the equivalent with a mouse, because you have a D-Pad. Maybe DVD players…

But I don't want to point. That's far too interactive for any media player design. Even PC-based things like Winamp, iTunes, or Windows Media player, it's just a list or at best, a grid. I don't need to have more than eight directions of movement, and just four is sufficient. If I'm going through a list with a mouse cursor, there's a chance I can move the cursor off that list, necessitating that I have to then move t…

Too interactive? That's like saying a type of food is too healthy. Pointing is essentially random access. It's the difference between RAM and cassette tapes. Why punish me for having lots of content?

It is _completely_ about how many steps it takes.

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