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Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

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Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#451

Post by ssl-3 »

ninkendo wrote: post #365
paxcoder wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Torvalds supported tivoization: https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/13/289

Because anti-tivoization doesn’t make sense in a software license. Imagine you make a smart toaster, and you make it entirely out of open source software. You release all the changes you made too, complying fully with the spirit of open source. People could take your software, buy some parts and make their own OSS toasters, everything’s great. But for safety reasons, since the software controls when the toaster pops,…

I have a toaster oven in my kitchen. It's a dumb thing with a bimetallic thermostatic switch, a simple mechanical timer (with a clockspring and a bell), and a switch to select different configurations of heating elements. The power-on indicator is a simple neon lamp. (It also certainly has some thermal fuses buried inside; hopefully, in the right places.)

And, you know, it works great. It's simple to operate and (so far!) has been completely reliable.

I can hack on it in any way that I want to. There's no aspect of it that seeks to prevent that kind of activity at all.

What would I hack it to do instead? Who knows, but I can think of a couple of things. Maybe instead of having some modes where the elements are in series, I want them in parallel instead so the combination operates at higher power. Maybe I want to bypass the thermostat with an SSR and use my own control logic so I can ramp the temperature on my own accord and finally achieve the holy grail of a perfect slice of toast, and make that a repeatable task.

Whatever it is, it won't stand in my way of doing it -- regardless of how potentially safe or unsafe that hack may be.

There are countless examples of similar toaster ovens in the world that anyone else can hack on if they're motivated to do so, and very similar 3-knob Black & Decker toaster ovens are still sold in stores today.

And yet despite the profoundly-accessible hackability of these potentially-dangerous cooking devices (they didn't even bother to weld the cover on or use pentalobular screws, much less utilize one-way cryptographic coding!), they seem fine. They're accepted in the marketplace and by safety testing facilities like Underwriters Laboratories, who seem satisfied with where the bar for safety is placed.

Why would a toaster oven (or indeed, just a pop-up toaster) that instead used electronic controls need the bar for safety to be placed at a different height?

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#452

Post by snoman »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #61
orwin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing history? Search history? Age? Also 'product interaction' is an euphemism to say "if you're sick, we'll sell this information for around 80€" (I think it's close to 200$ for Americans but I don't have any contact in this industry overseas). If you have a cancer and suddenly you see an increase in ads for pseudo-medicine and other scams whose only goal is to extract all the money you have left, and if lucky, y…

So exactly how do you suppose they sync your browsing history and bookmarks between devices if they don’t store the information? And your browsing history is e2e encrypted by keys on your device. Apple doesn’t have access to your browsing history. You can give Apple any age you want to. It’s not like it checks. And I have no idea about the other topics you are going off on and what they have to do with Apple..

Are trying to say it’s not possible to write terms that give them the ability to sync your history without also letting them mine and sell all the insights from it?

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#453

Post by ninkendo »

ssl-3 wrote: post #451
ninkendo wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because anti-tivoization doesn’t make sense in a software license. Imagine you make a smart toaster, and you make it entirely out of open source software. You release all the changes you made too, complying fully with the spirit of open source. People could take your software, buy some parts and make their own OSS toasters, everything’s great. But for safety reasons, since the software controls when the toaster pops,…

I have a toaster oven in my kitchen. It's a dumb thing with a bimetallic thermostatic switch, a simple mechanical timer (with a clockspring and a bell), and a switch to select different configurations of heating elements. The power-on indicator is a simple neon lamp. (It also certainly has some thermal fuses buried inside; hopefully, in the right places.) And, you know, it works great. It's simple to operate and (so…

> Why would a toaster oven (or indeed, just a pop-up toaster) that instead used electronic controls need the bar for safety to be placed at a different height?

It wouldn't. It's a thought experiment. I even said:

> Would the toaster be a better product if you could change the software? Of course.

The point is, nobody should be compelling you to make your products hackable. If you don't want to, that's your prerogative.

The problem is, before GPLv3 existed, the authors that picked GPLv2 never expressed that they wanted their software to be part of some anti-locked-bootloader manifesto... they picked it because GPLv2 represents a pretty straightforward "you can have the source so long as you keep it open for any changes you make" license. That's what the GPL was. But this whole "Or any future version" clause gave FSF carte blanche to just alter the deal and suddenly make it so anyone can fork a project and make it GPLv3. I can perfectly understand why this would make people (including Linus) very mad.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#454

Post by omgmajk »

nottorp wrote: post #437
omgmajk wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Lenovo used minipc connected to mine and I just use a Logitech K400+, it runs Linux with KDE. I will never need a smart tv, or want one, for that matter. I get that people would rather have a remote but I personally actually don't like remotes at all. My TV is basically a screen only.

Yeah the problem with a keyboard and trackpad is you need the lights on.

I do not, but I get what you mean :)

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#455

Post by MrMember »

mattacular wrote: post #450

1. buy any model that meets your specs (i like TCL) 2. setup a one time use wifi network with randomized SSID and password (hotspot from your phone works well) 3. connect your tv to it and update to latest software 4. delete the wifi config and reset that network (roll to new SSID and password) 5. connect an apple tv set top box and never use any of the tv features ever again

Smart TVs are so user hostile now that this doesn't work for me personally anymore. Every TV I've seen recently always tries to get back to the "home" screen so they can funnel you into more ads and/or content that makes them money. If I have the TV set to the HDMI source for my connected HTPC, turn off the TV, and turn it back on again, it will be back on the TV's home screen. If I switch to an HDMI source that isn't currently outputting video it will switch back to the home screen in five seconds. I was at a friend's house over Thanksgiving and when he tried to navigate away from the home screen on his Vizio TV to a different HDMI input he got a confirmation dialog box with an ad embedded in it asking him "are you SURE you want to change inputs?" It's ridiculous.

For now I spend the extra money for "digital display" TVs that are just dumb input for HDMI devices but I fear that someday that option will either disappear or fall significantly behind regular TVs in display technology.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#456

Post by djoldman »

sfilmeyer wrote: post #372
djoldman wrote: post #337

For the tech-savvy, I'm not too worried about smart TVs. I just do this: > If you want premium image quality or sound, you’re better off using a smart TV offline. In the future, if they add e-sims, we'll just remove them or de-solder or whatever. The real risk is cars: if they start not working without cell network connections.

I feel like there's a bit of a jump from "tech-savvy" to de-soldering things on an expensive piece of home electronics. As it stands now, though, I agree that turning off the smart TV features seems to be the way to go for most people.

Ha, yea it's been awhile since I've done that. Although if I was annoyed enough I might take one apart.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#457

Post by djoldman »

lkbm wrote: post #414
djoldman wrote: post #337

For the tech-savvy, I'm not too worried about smart TVs. I just do this: > If you want premium image quality or sound, you’re better off using a smart TV offline. In the future, if they add e-sims, we'll just remove them or de-solder or whatever. The real risk is cars: if they start not working without cell network connections.

> The real risk is cars: if they start not working without cell network connections. Given how limited cell service is in a lot of the US, I think we're a ways off from this.

I really hope so!

But also, it's unlikely I'll live long enough where keeping an older vehicle won't be an option.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#458

Post by Spivak »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #407
IshKebab wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with open source TV solutions like that is that they never support legal streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+ and so on.

I'm failing to see a problem with that.

Live sports / tv is the one you can't really work around when your device doesn't have DRM support.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#459

Post by clemiclemen »

xg15 wrote: post #310
kevin061 wrote: post #274

A while ago I had a discussion with my friends that it is possible that in the future if 5G is sufficiently cheap, smart tvs come with a 5G SIM so they can force ads and updates even if you refuse to connect it to WiFi. I wonder if this will ever be a real thing. Either 5G, 6G or whatever comes next.

I fear this won't even required SIM cards. I'm worried that Apple's Find My and Amazon's Sidewalk networks are the precursors of this: They're effectively company controlled p2p networks that lets the company use their customers' internet access points like a commodity. If one customer refuses to give a device access to the internet, they could use that network to route it through the access point of another customer…

The ISP named Free in France also did this a while ago.

It was fairly well implemented I think: separated from your network, bandwidth was limited (to avoid impacting the host), you could opt-out (which meant opting out of using the guest network), joining the wifi was automatic if you had a cellphone with the same ISP and it was the same "guest" network for all routers so in big cities, you could rely only on this to access Internet.

It was stopped a few years ago when they deemed cellular network was reliable enough to not need the guest network.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#460

Post by kelnos »

ninkendo wrote: post #453
ssl-3 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a toaster oven in my kitchen. It's a dumb thing with a bimetallic thermostatic switch, a simple mechanical timer (with a clockspring and a bell), and a switch to select different configurations of heating elements. The power-on indicator is a simple neon lamp. (It also certainly has some thermal fuses buried inside; hopefully, in the right places.) And, you know, it works great. It's simple to operate and (so…

> Why would a toaster oven (or indeed, just a pop-up toaster) that instead used electronic controls need the bar for safety to be placed at a different height? It wouldn't. It's a thought experiment. I even said: > Would the toaster be a better product if you could change the software? Of course. The point is, nobody should be compelling you to make your products hackable. If you don't want to, that's your prerogativ…

If an author wants, they can leave out the "or any future version" verbiage. If the author does not, then they are explicitly saying that they want their software to be part of whatever future manifesto the FSF puts forth, including the anti-locked-bootloader manifesto present in the GPLv3.

And that's why Torvalds left out "or any future version" when licensing Linux. So I'm not sure why he's "very mad" (I doubt he actually is?); his software remains on GPLv2 like he wanted.

> The point is, nobody should be compelling you to make your products hackable.

If you want to use my GPLv3 software on your product, then yes, I am requiring that you make it hackable. If you don't want to do that, tough shit. Either do so, or freeload off someone else's software.

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