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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] 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

still, others will have to pay for it which might reduce how widely its used.

Sometimes i wonder if it could be worth it to invent shit like this and patent it just so no one else cant do it themselves

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Nah, they'll patent it anyway and then tie you up in BS lawsuits over it. Fighting it will cost you way more than you're willing to spend, so you'll settle out of court for a licensing agreement that definitely doesn't benefit you but makes the lawsuit go away.