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Wireless Networking Television

Wireless TVs Use Built-In Cameras, NFC Readers To Sell You Stuff You See On TV (techcrunch.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the features-nobody-asked-for dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's no secret that TV makers are seriously invested in pushing ads. Using TVs for advertising goes back to 1941 when the first TV commercial aired. But as we trudge our way through the 21st century, TV vendors are becoming more involved in ensuring that their hardware is used to sell stuff and add to their own recurring revenue. This has taken various forms, but in some cases, we're seeing increasingly invasive strategies for turning TVs into a primary place for shopping. The latest approach catching attention comes from the startup Displace. Its upcoming TVs will use integrated webcams and NFC payment readers to make it easy for people to buy stuff they see on TV. [...]

The two new TVs Displace is adding to its 2024 release plans, the Displace Flex and Displace Mini, are all about making TV shopping better. According to Displace's announcement, the Displace Flex (a 55-inch 4K OLED TV) and Displace Mini (a 27-inch 4K OLED TV) will use proprietary gesture technology and each TV's integrated 4K camera to tell when a user is raising their hand. It's unclear how accurate that will be (could the shopping experience accidentally be activated if I raised my hand to tie my hair up, for example?), but at that point, the TV is supposed to pause the content being played. Then, it uses computer vision to "analyze the screen to find products available for sale. Once they see something they want to purchase, viewers drag and drop the product into the global Displace Shopping Cart," the announcement says. Displace Shopping will work at any moment the TV is on, and users can buy stuff they see in commercials by using the TVs.

Displace's December 14 announcement said: "As soon as the viewer is ready to checkout, Displace Payments makes paying as easy as bringing a user's smartphone or watch near the TV's built-in NFC payment reader, a fully secure process that requires no credit card info. Viewers can also pay from within the Displace app." If the TV can't find a specific product for sale, it will "search for similar items" without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase. Displace hasn't provided full details about how it will make money off these transactions, but when reached for comment, founder and CEO Balaji Krishnan told Ars Technica that Displace has "different business models, and one of them is to take a transaction fee," and that Displace will share more details "later." Displace also sees people using Displace Payments to pay for telehealth applications and equipped the Flex and Mini with thermal cameras. To ease privacy concerns, Krishnan says the integrated cameras can be folded into the TVs if a user needs privacy.

Eventually, Displace sees itself working with content publishers to lay its shopping UI over actively playing content. "Users would see a workable buy button right on top of the playing video," adds Ars.
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Wireless TVs Use Built-In Cameras, NFC Readers To Sell You Stuff You See On TV More

Wireless TVs Use Built-In Cameras, NFC Readers To Sell You Stuff You See On TV

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  • Not one mention of AI in their marketing blurb.

  • Cold day in hell if I ever shell out my hard earned cash to get an infernal spying and advertising machine, disguised as a screen.

    Who in their right mind wants to "own" such a monstrosity? A machine whose raison d'etre is to get you to buy more useless crap you don't need.

    • My reaction is the same.

      Although, I can't think of any way in which a laptop is not already exactly this. It has a camera and is easy enough to make payments on. And yet this type of interaction has never taken off. So, I doubt putting it in a TV will, either.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Smart TVs have been doing this for at least half a decade in similar manner. Turns out, lots of people just don't know or don't care.

      Myself, I had "the talk" with friends and family on the topic of internet connected TVs. Some disconnected, some prefer the ease of use of things like Netflix straight out of the box. Can't fix that.

      • Smart TVs have been doing this for at least half a decade in similar manner. Turns out, lots of people just don't know or don't care.

        Myself, I had "the talk" with friends and family on the topic of internet connected TVs. Some disconnected, some prefer the ease of use of things like Netflix straight out of the box. Can't fix that.

        How many have had cameras though? That's gotta be a minefield. Just wait until it's found out Mr and Mrs. Smith's lovely 14 year old daughter 's activities are on these people's servers. We already had that with School issued computers in PA, The school was turning on the cameras to "track the laptops" locations". Hard to imagine them not figuring out that teens do their homework in their rooms, often bereft of clothing.

        People can be Idiots.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Not many, but almost all have microphones, which is actually worse.

          • Not many, but almost all have microphones, which is actually worse.

            True, dat. Anyhow, mine has never seen the intertoobz, although it tries to get me to attach it once a week or so.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              I've noticed an interesting issue with several androidTV based sets, where it actually displays that it can't connect to internet every once in a while on the screen... while in normal TV mode where it has no business connecting to the internet.

              Yup, it's telling me it's trying to phone home and can't because it's not connected.

          • uhhh, in most states isn't it illegal to record audio without consent/knowledge? i mean the homeowners might be covered by some weird and vague EULA about "by connecting this tv, you consent to be spied on for our own nefarious adbux purposes, because fuck you" but what about guests? minors?

            (this is why most CCTV cameras are video only, and don't record audio)

        • Mr and Mrs. Smith's lovely 14 year old daughter 's activities...

          No, no, no! Not Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown [youtube.com]!

          • Mr and Mrs. Smith's lovely 14 year old daughter 's activities... No, no, no! Not Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown [youtube.com]!

            She does have a lovely daughter!

            Herman's Hermits are criminally under-rated, IMO.

    • Re:Nope! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:47AM (#64095879) Journal

      infernal spying and advertising machine, disguised as a screen

      Isn't that called a smartphone?

  • New Era (Score:3)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @09:29AM (#64095711)

    First thing I do when I buy any technology device is dig through the menus and turn off all the creepy stuff. My last LG TV had some great "features" like unique tracking IDs for targeted ads, tracking what you watch so they can show you ads, tracking what you watch on OTA TV (presumably sending your location and tuner data), and more. You can turn it all off, but that doesn't mean they won't re-enable it again on the next update, or add new tracking options that are automatically enabled. They actually make you agree to a list of privacy policies and EULAs after every firmware update. And this was a $2000 TV. I'd hate to see what kind of tracking options are buried in the cheaper TVs that are basically sold at-cost so they can recoup their losses from ad revenue. At this point I'd pay more for a non-smart TV...

    • First thing I do when I buy any technology device is dig through the menus and turn off all the creepy stuff.

      First thing I do when I buy any technology device like that is to return that shit to the store and buy a dumber, "less capable" device.

      Seriously though, I expect that by the time I need a new TV they'll *all* have this shit in them, and it'll get harder and harder to neuter them.

      • First thing I do when I buy any technology device is dig through the menus and turn off all the creepy stuff.

        First thing I do when I buy any technology device like that is to return that shit to the store and buy a dumber, "less capable" device.

        Seriously though, I expect that by the time I need a new TV they'll *all* have this shit in them, and it'll get harder and harder to neuter them.

        the problem is price competition is so fierce in the mass market that TV manufacturers are trying to figure out how to make money. Given the demand for targeted advertising and its higher value I suspect you are right. At some point, AI may be good enough to analyze teh HDMI stream you input from a third party device so they still can collect viewership data and match it to things like location, etc.

      • First thing I do when I buy any technology device is dig through the menus and turn off all the creepy stuff.

        They either don't exist, or cost thousands of dollars more for some B2B version of the product that you're not going to get the same diversity of options on or kind of retail support for. Speaking as someone who fairly recently bought a OLED TV.

        That said, I was planning on cutting off the internet entirely from my new LG TV, but I actually like the software on it for the most part (paired with the remote with the gyroscopic pointer). So disabling the ad tracking that they present in the options plus a few f

    • When I bought my LG Plasma TV I did not know about its "smart" features. At first I connected it to the internet and there were multiple agreements - I had to agree to one to use the TV at all, but the other was optional. Without agreeing to it, I could not use the smart features (app store and something else). I did not care, I just unplugged the network cable.

      I have no intention of replacing it, but if it failed and was impossible to repair, I would either replace it with a big CRT (I tend to watch movies

      • That was one of the nice things about LG, they actually thought through all their "agreements" and had individual EULAs for each feature. Most were optional, and I did not opt into some of them which effectively disabled some of those smart features. LG actually did a good job as far as that went. It's the shadier companies that worry me...

    • Re:New Era (Score:5, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:39AM (#64095861) Homepage Journal

      At this point I'd pay more for a non-smart TV...

      Step 1, go to Amazon or whatever
      Step 2, search for "signage lcd display"
      Step 3, get non-smart TV

      Some of those have smart features too, but AFAICT the majority do not. Some of them don't have a tuner, but AFAICT at least half do.

      • Sweet tip, thanks

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's okay if you want a basic display, but they don't have the high end stuff like proper HDR and colour accuracy. They also tend to cost more.

        A simpler option is just to buy a smart TV and not connect it to the internet.

        • That's okay if you want a basic display, but they don't have the high end stuff like proper HDR and colour accuracy.

          Whoever told you that lied and you should not believe the things they say. You can buy signage displays of all descriptions. Some are cheap and nasty like you imagine they all are. Some are fancy-pants. Many of them are the same exact panel that's sold as a TV but with a different controller board, sometimes even in the same case.

          They also tend to cost more.

          Sometimes yes, sometimes no. That is at least a real thing, though, unlike the idea that they have inferior panels.

    • Remember that television grew up on ads, but they were very very different ads. They weren't on every 5 minutes (youtube), they came in a chunk so you could get a sandwich or go to the restroom, and every single ad shown was curated and known about by the television station and often the show itself. None of the ads were targeted, most weren't creepy. If an advertisement was offensive it would be canceled by the show or station. For example, beer ads did not show during commercial breaks for children's pr

    • My personal solution with a 3 year old LG TV was pihole (or equivalent) with https://raw.githubusercontent.... [githubusercontent.com] , and NOT accepting the terms and conditions. No smart features work, and it's effectively a dumb TV, hooked up to Kodi.

      Stupid thing is, I can't "not accept" forever. Just clicking the wrong button brings up "consent forms".
      About a year ago I accidentally discovered, that the pihole list prevents the TV from accepting the conditions anyway. So that's fun. Also might have changed, won't try again on

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Don't even trust those settings. Just don't give them Intenret connections.

  • while you are watching your TV.
  • Mental note: Future stock to short, "Displace".

  • If the TV can't find a specific product for sale, it will "search for similar items" without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase.

    I've seen the results of google's "shopping" search and it's damn near worthless. Someone searches for hot cocoa and gets a bottle of Coco Chanel perfume instead.

    • If the TV can't find a specific product for sale, it will "search for similar items" without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase.

      I've seen the results of google's "shopping" search and it's damn near worthless. Someone searches for hot cocoa and gets a bottle of Coco Chanel perfume instead.

      But their breath will smell fabulous!

  • Eventually, Displace sees itself working with content publishers to lay its shopping UI over actively playing content. "Users would see a workable buy button right on top of the playing video," adds Ars.

    I, as I am sure many fellow /.’rs, have often been watching TV and wondering “Why can’t I just buy something while I watch the show?”

    • "Why can't I just buy something while I watch the show"

      That's the entire business model of QVC and Home Shopping Network, both of which have been around since the mid-1980's.

      • "Why can't I just buy something while I watch the show"

        That's the entire business model of QVC and Home Shopping Network, both of which have been around since the mid-1980's.

        Of course, and Displace specifically mentioned them in TFA. it's the:

        Displace delivers an automated, ambient, seamless shopping experience. It offers viewers true interactivity with ads and product placements," Displace's announcement said.

        that leads me suspect QVC and HSN are only the tip of the iceberg.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Yes, but you went to those channels with the express intent of either shopping or window shopping.

      • "Why can't I just buy something while I watch the show"

        That's the entire business model of QVC and Home Shopping Network, both of which have been around since the mid-1980's.

        I was wondering this. When reading the fine summary, I was thinking "so this...optimized QVC?" But I don't think so. I think they want you to pause Suits and buy one of Jessica's fabulous handbags or Harvey's suits. It's kind of product placement on steroids.

        I can't imaging actually doing this. I watch shows for the escape. I'm imagining being in environments which I don't fit into, will never fit into, and for the most part don't actually exist. What in the world am I going to buy? The coffee maker from a

  • in Soviet Russia... (Score:3)

    by mad7777 ( 946676 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:26AM (#64095841)

    in Soviet Russia... TVs were too dumb to watch you.

  • That has such people in it.

  • So a glorified home shopping network. As if people had trouble shopping for crap already.

  • The next time I buy a TV, my first question will be; what is the dumbest TV you have?
  • IMO this is something that absofuckinglutely needs legislation, and needed it yesterday. This is getting beyond stupid.
  • I see a TV with a camera and any kind of 'smart ads' and I don't f-ing buy it.

    A TV is meant to spout news, lolcats and similar nonsense I want to see, not record me without my permission.

  • We all thought 1984... (Score:4, Funny)

    by thrillseeker ( 518224 ) on Thursday December 21, 2023 @12:02PM (#64096091)
    ...was an imagination of a dystopian future where the government watches you constantly, but the truth is turning out to be far worse. It's a future where advertisers convince you that you really want to buy cargo planes full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.

    • That's why Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" is mentioned here. In many ways that world is worse than that of "1984".

      • ... that world is worse ...

        What psychopathic tendencies are in Brave New World that haven't been institutionalized in real life? A society where everyone is guaranteed a job and neighbours with the same socio-economic status is comforting to most humans. We don't see a downside to the brainwashing, which seems to minimal and probably be the same as cultural imperialism.

        The story is about a religious zealot telling a more technological society, his psychopathy and (sexual) discrimination is better than their psychopathy and (genet

  • Guys, what are they talking about?
    • Neighbor: "What cha doing on your computer?"
      Smug little snot: "What's a computer?"
      Remember that ipad commercial? Yeah me too.

  • Eventually, Displace sees itself working with content publishers to lay its shopping UI over actively playing content. "Users would see a workable buy button right on top of the playing video," adds Ars.

    This is the next logical step toward "Ow, My Balls!"

    The business world, once it realized the internet existed, saw it as the best possible way to get people to buy things. I still remember the squicky feeling I got from hearing, "The internet can be like a TV but with a great big buy button on it!" And now it's coming full-circle, streaming content inside an overlay of advertising, where you can presumably buy things you see on screen.

    If there's any supreme beings in the local area? Could you hit the system

  • If it does, well, then, no need to purchase anything from that manufacturer. Frankly, their statement about 'turning the camera to the wall' makes no sense either, I would just destroy it if I didn't have other options.

    (the wife likes streaming, so we need to have the thing connected to the interwebz)

    Frankly, this is too dystopian for me. Fortunately my old 52 inch plasma from 2007 is still running fine.

  • "lay its shopping UI over actively playing content" I got rid of my last TV a few years ago. Something tells me I will have company.
  • 2024 headline: 'Dog buys yacht; owner smashes his TV with sledgehammer."

  • I realize it's popular to say "not in my home" regarding tech like this, but I, for one, welcome our retail overlords. ;)

    We say these devices are to sell us "crap" but it's only crap if we don't want or need the stuff.

    Frankly, if my television learned that I will never buy perfume, conditioner, tampons, lawn mowers, garden furniture and instead showed me ads for motorcycling jackets, computers, sneakers, electronics and other stuff I'm interested in, well, I might be up for that.

    There's a dude on a show i w

  • I do not understand why people even connect those so called SmartTVs? The software is outdated and pretty bad pretty quickly, the hardware is slow, any Apple/Chrome/FireTV that you connect is faster and a better option.
    I just want a DumbTV that displays a good picture. And a conforming CEC link.

  • If I know something intends to push adverts on me, I will feel less keen on buying it.

    If I get enough adverts for something to notice, I will put them on my mental "try to avoid" list.

    I generally don't see the content of adverts. They set off my attention switching. If they come up on the TV, I will go to the toilet. If they pop up on a website, I will look up from the screen. I do not think about doing this. I pay no attention to them because they are meaningless. I had been using Gmail for ages befo

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