'Ads Are Popping Up On the Fridge and It Isn't Going Over Well' (msn.com) 122
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Walking into his kitchen, Tim Yoder recoiled at a message on his refrigerator door: "Shop Samsung water filters." Yoder, a supply-chain manager in Chicago, owns a Samsung Electronics Family Hub fridge. He paid $1,400 for an appliance that came with a 32-inch screen on the door that allows him to control other Samsung gadgets, pull up recipes or stream music. But since last fall, it's been intermittently serving up ads, part of a pilot program being tested on some of Samsung's smart fridges sold in the U.S. The response? Not warm. "I guess this is another place for somebody to shove an ad in your face," said the 47-year-old Yoder, recalling the first time he noticed one...
The ads are only on certain Family Hub fridges that have screens and internet connectivity. They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom — part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar. Samsung declined to say how long the pilot might last or whether it would end. The firm recently unveiled a "Screens Everywhere" initiative that also includes washers, dryers and ovens.... Samsung launched the banner-type fridge ads that come as part of the widget via an October software update. In a footnote of a news release at the time, Samsung pledged to "serve contextual or non-personal ads" and respect data privacy. The banner ads can be turned off in settings.
Samsung said the purpose of the pilot is to explore whether ads relevant to home chores can be useful to owners, and that overall pushback has been negligible. The "turn-off" rate for the pilot ad program remains in the bottom single-digit range, it said... While owners can turn off the banner ads, doing so eliminates the widget altogether, a bummer for Brian Bosworth, a media-industry engineer who liked the feature. Bosworth thinks it's wrong to take away the new feature as a condition. Wanting to keep the widget but not the ads, the 49-year-old in Edgewater, Md., made sure his home router's ad-blocking software extended to his fridge. He hasn't seen another since.
One 27-year-old plans to return his refrigerator after the entire display "lit up with a full-screen ad for Apple TV's sci-fi show Pluribus," according to the article. The all-caps ad beckoned him "with an oft-used refrain directed at protagonist Carol Sturka: 'We're Sorry We Upset You, Carol.'"
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
The ads are only on certain Family Hub fridges that have screens and internet connectivity. They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom — part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar. Samsung declined to say how long the pilot might last or whether it would end. The firm recently unveiled a "Screens Everywhere" initiative that also includes washers, dryers and ovens.... Samsung launched the banner-type fridge ads that come as part of the widget via an October software update. In a footnote of a news release at the time, Samsung pledged to "serve contextual or non-personal ads" and respect data privacy. The banner ads can be turned off in settings.
Samsung said the purpose of the pilot is to explore whether ads relevant to home chores can be useful to owners, and that overall pushback has been negligible. The "turn-off" rate for the pilot ad program remains in the bottom single-digit range, it said... While owners can turn off the banner ads, doing so eliminates the widget altogether, a bummer for Brian Bosworth, a media-industry engineer who liked the feature. Bosworth thinks it's wrong to take away the new feature as a condition. Wanting to keep the widget but not the ads, the 49-year-old in Edgewater, Md., made sure his home router's ad-blocking software extended to his fridge. He hasn't seen another since.
One 27-year-old plans to return his refrigerator after the entire display "lit up with a full-screen ad for Apple TV's sci-fi show Pluribus," according to the article. The all-caps ad beckoned him "with an oft-used refrain directed at protagonist Carol Sturka: 'We're Sorry We Upset You, Carol.'"
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
What did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't but anything with a screen that doesn't need it.
Re:What did he expect? (Score:5, Funny)
I’m waiting for the day when they forget to renew a domain and porn ads start showing up.
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Or someone hacks Samsung's ad server and uploads an image for which simple possession is against the law.
Re:What did he expect? (Score:5, Funny)
You can get porn for free you know, there's no need to wait 5 years for your fridge to show it to you.
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I’m waiting for the day when they forget to renew a domain and porn ads start showing up.
(CEO) ”So, what would you say is the most critical component in IT to secur..”
(IT) ”Porn spam!”
(CEO) ”Wait, wut?”
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I’m waiting for the day when they forget to renew a domain and porn ads start showing up.
That reminds me..."Hey Siri, add bananas to the grocery list."
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Good point. Those things tend to add hundreds of dollars to the price, if not the cost, of a device. There was a time when LED/LCD readouts were there for some relevant and useful, but limited functionality. Nowadays, screens are supposedly cheap enough to replace them, but then again, so is software that they then use, and then feature creep takes over
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Also, avoid Samsung appliances. They have a reputation as junk. I had a Samsung range that broke more than once. The second time the repair parts had been discontinued.
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I love our samsung fridge and microwave. They "just work", have no screens, and the features they had were perfect for us. We replaced old GE devices, that were about 5-6 years old and broke. Not saying you should change your opinion, just that individuals can have different experiences.
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Don't but anything with a screen that doesn't need it.
Definitely don't buy anything that wants to get online that doesn't need it
Re: What did he expect? (Score:2)
We are in the Max Headroom world.
Only way out would be a nasty way.
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He didn't expect ads. He thought the device would act as a home smart hub.
If you're trying to avoid ads and vendor-lock in, your only realistic choice is to roll your own with a cheap TV and a Raspberry Pi. Or just go old fashioned with a magnetic whiteboard.
Re: What did he expect? (Score:3)
When does a tech company not infest everything with ads? Thatâ(TM)s the point of tech - seek rent everywhere
Re:What did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're buying a online computer you can't control what is installed on it, you should expect it to not work for you.
Re:What did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool. You've just described literally ever piece of consumer electronics on the market currently. What do you propose the consumer do? I guess I shouldn't expect my car to work? My TV? Games console? My home security camera? Lightbulbs?
I should expect none of this to work for me?
What a truly absurd comment. No we should very much expect them to work the way we expect them to, and then rally together to hold vendors accountable when they don't.
Your view is defeatist and doesn't help anyone.
Re: What did he expect? (Score:3)
This is why open source is important. If the fridge was running Linux, there would be some kind of source available so you could compile your own fridgeos and avoid their spy/ad ware.
Re: What did he expect? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: What did he expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
there would be some kind of source available so you could compile your own fridgeos and avoid their spy/ad ware.
Someone else already pointed out the fridge is running Linux but you missed some other crucial fact. No the fact that something is open source doesn't not impart you magic powers to do what you want with ease. This is not a computer that you slot an SSD into, change some UEFI settings and watch it boot to a FDE (Fridge Desktop Environment). You can't just throw a memory stick in to boot from your fancy custom distro and click an install button.
This is an embedded system. Changing the OS on an embedded system will require you to either be blessed to have a vendor management interface exposed (and hope it's non proprietary and not password protected), or required probing and accessing certain areas of a circuit board. End users won't do that.
My TV runs Linux as well, yet I have ZERO way to install something custom on it without completely disassembling it and getting out a soldering iron since the initial firmware was baked in during production.
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The consumer should be aware and buy things that are not in this situation.
And yes, everything you listed has some instances where the vendor's will override the consumer will. cars with components that are locked behind payment and can be disabled remotely, televisions that display advertising, game consoles that can do things like deleting games you own, security cameras that just go to shodan (the website), lightbulbs that require you to use your mobile device to "register"...
Not saying that EVERY CAR et
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They didn't say "expect it not to work", they said "expect it not to work for you". As in, it's working for the manufacturer/software owner, with their interests in mind first and foremost. And it is likely to eventually start doing things that make your life worse and their lives (and bottom line) better, because only they have control over it and why wouldn't they start to extract more value at your expense if they can?
Laptops still let you install what you want. Android tablets and phones (now with a
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Re:What did he expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
A better thing to rail against, more than either screen or ads, would be network. I can understand devices that have software features, but why would they need to be on the internet? At most, they should be manageable from a home console that handles the switch that they're connected to, if there is actually software that needs to run on them. But why would they need internet access?
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So they can serve ads and spy on you, of course.
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but why would they need to be on the internet?
Because isolated networks are largely a thing of the past? You talk about the home console as if the general consumer wouldn't prefer to use their phone. The thing is as soon as something then is on the phone you expect it to work away from you home network (assuming you're not one of those people who actually don't even bother jumping on the wifi in their house and just use 5G even when at home like many many people do).
Help me by proof reading the marketing for your product:
"Our product is just like the c
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There is no reason why IoT devices, such as fridges, TVs, beds,.... need to be exposed to the general internet. There are various techniques by which devices can just have the connections they need, and nothing more. You're assuming that everyone wants their toys to be on the general internet, when all they want is themselves alone to have control on it from anywhere. That can be done using VLANs, and all these IoT toys can be in secure enclaves that have no internet access
I'm willing to bet that the p
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I'm willing to bet that the people who buy these "smart" devices also are geeky enough to have home labs and special setups to manage them. If they're not that geeky, they probably don't buy these fridges w/ screens in the first place
I disagree completely. I have plenty of friends and family that like shit like this but don't really understand how it works or the dangers it could open their home networks to. They just see it as "magic" and neat future technology. The word geeky doesn't apply to them, they just like gadgets.
The only people I know that have home labs and special setups are actual nerds that do understand the stuff. The sort that actually know what a raspberry pi is. This does not mean the people that like gadgets are dumb
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Just telling people to not buy something with a screen is not only not going to influence them, it's going to make them dismiss you as just another old man yelling at clouds.
Maybe if we were talking about screens in cars, where it's a different way of getting information and interacting with the vehicle controls, but this is a refrigerator. It has one job - to keep your food cold, and nowhere in that mode of operation is a ginormous display part of the equation.
It's like putting a margarita mixer on a toilet. You could, but you shouldn't.
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The only thing about a "smart fridge" that I can imagine is it having internal cameras that show one what's inside, so that one can then create a shopping list. Of course, it's nothing that can't be done by simply opening the fridge, inspecting all the items and then putting together a list, but if a fridge has to have special bells & whistles, that's what would strike me. But certainly no screens! Then if it had a way of forwarding those images to the main home server, that would help
However, even
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I think you are over-estimating what the 99% know about networking. VLAN management? Their eyes will gloss over. It's not that you couldn't explain it to them and teach them, but they just don't know about these things because they aren't computer and network nerds.
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hahaha, I needed a laugh. That was rich.
Your are 100% correct, but I don't think that was REALLY their intentions. Selling ads is. Sadly.
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It has one job
Why does it have to have one job? Your TV also had one job, play broadcasted content. Did you expect to buy a difference device to play media from a cassette? Phones had one job, make calls. Did you refuse a smartphone for the same reason?
The premise of a device having "one job" again is the position of a luddite.
It's like putting a margarita mixer on a toilet. You could, but you shouldn't.
That depends, do you often find yourself drinking in the toilet? On the flip side I do find many people who take their smart phones or tablets into the kitchen, take notes, write shopping lists, re
Re:What did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
> The premise of a device having "one job" again is the position of a luddite.
No, it's the position of being anti-enshitification.
A refrigerator's main function is to keep food cold. That's the reason you buy a refrigerator. If putting a screen on a TV actually had a demonstrable benefit to that purpose then fine; but it doesn't. It actually has no objective benefit whatsoever, and the increased complexity not only increases cost but also reduces reliability. That's literally the definition of enshitification.
If having a computer screen in your kitchen, mounted to your fridge, is that useful... get a tablet and mount it to the fridge. Not only would that be cheaper, but if the tablet fails it doesn't make the refrigerator scrap metal and vice-versa and you can upgrade one without throwing out the other. Bonus is you can take the table off the fridge and put it where you need it.
I have a leatherman multitool that I keep on me whenever I'm out of the house. It does a lot of things, but it does none of those things as good as a dedicated single-purpose tool of the same kind. It's a good knife but it will never be as good as an actual knife. It's a good pair of pliers but it will never be as good as a proper pair of pliers. It's a decent screwdriver but I will always reach for a normal proper screwdriver if there's one available. Does it make me a luddite to not want a single item that does all things kinda shitty instead of many items that each do their one thing well?
=Smidge=
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No, it's the position of being anti-enshitification.
No it's not. Multifunction devices existed long before enshitification. The two concepts are not remotely related.
A refrigerator's main function is to keep food cold. That's the reason you buy a refrigerator.
Your phone's main purpose is to make phone calls. If you own a smartphone I'm going to call you either a hypocrite or an idiot, but I'll give you the curtesy of choosing which label.
If putting a screen on a TV actually had a demonstrable benefit to that purpose then fine; but it doesn't. It actually has no objective benefit whatsoever
Obviously you meant fridge, but then given this is an optional extra that costs money it is clear that someone deemed it a benefit. The fact you don't understand it is not withstanding. Now if you'll excuse me I'm go
Re:What did he expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
On the flip side I do find many people who take their smart phones or tablets into the kitchen, take notes, write shopping lists, read recipes while cooking. If only there were a convenient place we could simply put a screen.
I have a whole collection of obsolete tablets that are newer than my fridge. My fridge keeps chuggin' along fine, keeping food perfectly chilled, while the tablets are just e-waste that I've been procrastinating on taking them to be disposed of properly (except for my 5th gen iPad mini, which is still somewhat useful for checking the Ring cameras and responding to texts - it's otherwise too slow to do much else). It seems like if someone really wanted a smart device stuck to their fridge, they should just attach it with magnets. That way when the tablet becomes too long in the tooth, you replace it and don't have to scrap a fridge that otherwise still works just fine at its primary function.
I feel pretty much the same way with infotainment systems in cars. If I was stuck with whatever homebrew app system GM implemented in 2018 in my Bolt, that'd be miserable, but it has CarPlay and Android Auto support.
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to be disposed of properly
LOL. [youtu.be]
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I have a whole collection of obsolete tablets that are newer than my fridge.
What makes your tablet obsolete? The desire to run some latest shininess? I notice you said "obsolete" and not "broken" or "non-functional". Are you concerned you will buy a new fridge every couple of years because you don't like the existing one? That seems to be a you problem.
There's nothing wrong with obsolete hardware. Obsolete just means no longer supported by the vendor. I am under no delusion that I could get complete replacement components for everything in my fridge either, and just like a tablet
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Other responders have done a good job of responding to most of this, so I won't try, except to say that being a luddite isn't a bad thing. Go look up who the Luddites were. For all the shit we give them on this site, they weren't wrong.
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The question isn't wrong or right, the question is do they belong on this site - one that has it's primary basis in tech and nerds.
Simultaneously Paid For And Became the Product (Score:2)
Re:Simultaneously Paid For And Became the Product (Score:4, Insightful)
And companies today are greedy enough to not give a fuck about the negative sentiment it generates among consumers.
You underestimate how much power consumers have. They can vote with their wallets.
Oh wait, you said Apple consumers. Never mind.
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Your wallet is tiny next to the investors and shareholder's wallets
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Investors and shareholders need consumers. Not the other way around. If consumers abandoned a product because they found it annoying, you can be sure investors and shareholders would want to see some changes.
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And companies today are greedy enough to not give a fuck about the negative sentiment it generates among consumers.
You underestimate how much power consumers have. They can vote with their wallets.
Oh wait, you said Apple consumers. Never mind.
* Glances over at The Rest of the razor-thin unitard-chassis computing market now dripping with soldered-on components *
Tell me again how the rest of the industry didn’t follow THAT fucking Glock design like a wanna-be lost puppy.
Greed, isn’t merely contagious anymore. It has infected the human race to the point where our species will most likely die right here on this rock, forever addicted to it.
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I'm guessing that when the price doesn't cover the total costs of everything, then your scenario applies - we pay for the product, but still remain the product. Not that that precludes a company from making money on both ends
I'm pretty sure their boards approve
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Based on the cost of products from China vs the price of products made in China but sold by non-Chinese companies, I'd say the price well more than covers the cost of everything for practically any product where they also choose to display ads.
They just want more, more, always more.
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This is a very popular sentiment among Apple users despite the fact that there's nothing stopping a company from making money from both sides.
You were saying? [reddit.com]
The WSJ and most other papers have become jokes (Score:3, Insightful)
> Samsung said the purpose of the pilot is to explore whether ads relevant to home chores can be useful to owners,
Whatever happened to, oh, I don't know, integrity in journalism? Its one thing to post a quote that's clearly somewhere between disingenuous and an outright lie (after all we deserve to know how people / companies are trying to [mis]represent the truth) but to do so without offering an opposing point of view, counterpoint, or just plain old calling it out for what it is? Instead they just publish it as if it should be normal to accept this kind of garbage without questioning it at all.
Re:The WSJ and most other papers have become jokes (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you read the article? It contains several opposing points of view. However, the first question anyone would have is: What does Samsung have to say about this? The journalist got the answer to that question.
Re: The WSJ and most other papers have become joke (Score:3)
This is slashdot. Of course they didn't read the actual article. That would take done extra clicks and maybe a scroll or two of moment because of ads.
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The WSJ does, and always has, relied on advertising for a large portion of its revenue. Why would we expect that they would suddenly talk about how bad advertising is?
at least it hasn't exploded (yet) (Score:3)
Exploding washing machines: https://www.consumerreports.or... [consumerreports.org] See also https://www.elliott.org/?s=sam... [elliott.org] Consumer issues with Samsung where help was needed to resolve the issue.
Given both the quality issues and the enshittification issues, I don't know why anyone would buy Samsung -anything-.
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Speed Queen is the only reliable washer/drier brand available in US. More expensive, but you get that back the first time it doesn't need to be repaired. 7 year warranty for the top load washers. No internet connectively, no LCD, no app...
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Speed Queen is the only reliable washer/drier brand available in US.
They discontinued their old school design for the home/consumer market a few years ago. Their current offerings aren't meaningfully different from what other major appliance manufacturers are selling.
On a related note, I used to think the same thing regarding washing machines - that the "built like a tank" designs from my childhood were the best. Turns out they actually use a shit ton of detergent (which has become expensive in recent years) and are rough on your clothes. I switched to a modern front-loa
Re: at least it hasn't exploded (yet) (Score:2)
How do you quantify those savings?
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Could you really not image this solution as soon as you read the problem?
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Their washers available in the US today no longer have electro-mechanical timers, but rather electronic ones; this was to meet some (likely misguided) US regulations. But there are some models that s
Why (Score:2)
Is this "news"?
I'm waiting for... (Score:2)
I'm waiting for something like the "verb alert" system...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Although the screen could dissuade someone from raiding the icebox at the wee hours of night.
--JoshK.
K)eep I)t S)imple, S)tupid (Score:3)
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Re: K)eep I)t S)imple, S)tupid (Score:4, Funny)
Eventually they will embed cameras in the screens to monitor your eyes. The ads will pause until youâ(TM)re looking at them.
Re: K)eep I)t S)imple, S)tupid (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also, the internet / screen part of such an appliance, always becomes outdated much faster than the appliance itself. A refrigerator is expected to last 10+ years, a computer attached to it, not so much.
Pi-hole FTW (Score:3)
Not perfect, but still very effective.
If you DO have IoT devices... (Score:2)
Then have a home lab and server that separately controls each of these. Do not allow any one of these devices to be a gateway to other devices. What business does the fridge have playing music for the owner? Maybe follow the Unix philosophy - do ONE thing and do it well! For a fridge, I wouldn't mind it having a feature such as a list of contained items - vegetables, meats, drinks, ice cream,..... I don't need it to be my media player
Good for Brian Bosworth in the above story for extending his firewa
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The manufacturer's answer to this will be cellular modems. You'll have to tear into your fridge and disconnect the antenna or place a cellular jammer next to the fridge. Of course these actions might cause the fridge to stop working and spoil all of your food or just void the warranty.
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I worked for a company which DID include a cellular modem in its rental product. With this they could shut down the product if the customer failed to make the monthly rental payment.
Cellular modems are now very cheap to implement, and if the cellular bit rate is low and usage is low, the connection fees are low as well.
With cheap cellular data rates, I would expect more appliances to implement cellular modems and become "monetized:" to increase the appliance manufacturers profit margins.
Eventually you might
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There's a cell IOT signal designed for single kb/s that is so cheap it's basically free. I know because my former company did some testing on these for IOT devices like temp sensors, water sensors, etc. Those devices were usually less than $20, and included a battery that lasted months.
Something like that can't serve visual ads, but it can send fingerprints of your activities so they can be served to other devices with higher speed connectivity.
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Cellular modems speak TCP/IP they look like a Ethernet interface in Linux.
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In that case, one would be able to establish firewall rules around the traffic they bring in
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User access to the system?....No. The embedded Linux system in the appliance would be locked down so the user never gets access to make this change. I know how this goes, since I worked for a company which did this. They blow one-time fuses in the microprocessor which prevent the bootloader from being changed without a signing key. They disable all serial ports and run SSH with the requirement that a logins be done via certificate. All the external SSD memory fetches are encrypted so removing the SSD and a
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The manufacturer's answer to this will be cellular modems.
A few companies have tried this with products that cost less than a car. Usually you're on the hook for a service plan if you want the connectivity to continue working, or in the case of what Bird did with a scooter they used to sell, they just announced one day that everyone is losing their connectivity and too bad if you weren't expecting that. [reddit.com] Back in the day, Amazon used to offer Kindles with free cellular connectivity, but they discontinued that awhile go.
I don't think we're quite at the point where
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Recurring costs can be very inexpensive if you have low data rates ( e.g. no graphical ads).
Here is one example:
https://tealcom.io/cellular-iot-connectivity-unlimited-5g/
Here is another:
https://www.hologram.io/pricing/
And another:
https://www.volersystems.com/blog/wearable-devices/inexpensive-low-data-rate-links-for-the-internet-of-things
That's what I would expect (Score:3)
What did he expect? That there wouldn't be ads? That's quite naive. If there is space, and money to be made, and they can do it, you can expect it to be done.
I will never get an appliance with internet connectivity. It's stupidly unnecessary and just a vulnerability. I don't want to be like that Vegas casino that got hacked through their thermometer.
Btw, some Samsung fridges from 2020 (Score:2)
However, the ice machine will ice up and stop working randomly because it's so poorly sealed and will need extra foam and foil tape to better seal the compartment.
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YES! I replaced my GE fridge because it broke with a new Samsung and I was amazed that the fridge was perfectly happy to work without a filter. The GE one had a goddamn RFID sticker on it, which made replacements $80-100 as opposed to the previous RFID-less ones (which were internally the same damn thing) which cost about $20. If you wanted to put in one of the $20 filters, you had to watch a YouTube explainer video of how to carefully remove the RFID from a "donor" filter, carefully install it on the ne
fuck your ads it ceased to be your screen (Score:2)
I don't get how this kind of thing works (Score:2)
I'm too wily to buy something like that. But if I did buy one of those things, and an advertisement appeared on it, my reaction would be "how dare you put advertisements on my fridge which I paid money for! I'm not buying anything from your company now unless there's absolutely no alternative!"
Advertising-supported free services? Fair enough, I understand the bargain there. Showing advertisements on something that's paid for? You are now my enemy.
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Even if there is no alternative, and internet for some reason is an absolute must, I'm not above cutting a ribbon cable with an exacto knife. Dead screen on fridge is better than ads on fridge.
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50 year old refrigerators (Score:2)
In my building there is a fridge that's 50 years old and still going strong. If I were building a new house say, I'd scour around for old appliances (fridge, washers etc) to furnish it with. (I did recently see a youtube video about some companies that still make products that last. More expensive to buy but cheaper in the long run. The video emphasized they were all family owned companies.)
article lies (Score:2, Insightful)
"They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom — part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar. "
False, they run in an optional screen saver, not when the display is being used for interaction. It's not a "widget", it's a screen saver, and only a transitional one.
"...and that overall pushback has been negligible."
Right, because the ads run in a screen saver, and no one sees the screen saver. They've walked away already.
"Bosworth thinks it's wrong to take away the new feature as
"The response? Not warm." (Score:4, Funny)
New fridges (Score:2)
I just bought a new fridge. I really would have liked a big tablet on the front and the interior camera to play with... but the manufacturers insist on using their custom Android you can't do much with, and it must always spy on you and feed you ads.
So my new fridge was a lot less expensive and doesn't have a built-in screen.
Who would buy a "smart fridge" (Score:2)
Maybe reconsider fridge purchases? (Score:2)
IMHO, for the high prices of some of those units, I'd rather pay for a fridge that is a multi-fuel fridge (uses absorption cooling, and can run the burner from electric) and have that. This way, if there is a long power blackout, the fridge can run from natural gas or propane, with the only thing needing electricity is the light inside.
Fridge Clippy, "Fridgy" is the next step (Score:2)
The truth, missing (Score:2)
Hiding a feature/service because the end-user doesn't like being monetized, has a name: Enshitification. That's the truth missing from this report.
places advertising does not belong (Score:2)
advertisers already own TV and Broadcast radio, billboards in cities and highways, I think the advertising business need to learn their boundaries because they keep pushing advertising where it does not belong
Sue the shit out of them (Score:2)
Ads are violence. Destroy Samsung.
Just nope on smart fridge... (Score:2)
fuck them (Score:2)
They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom â" part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar.
Don't care. If your shit shows me ads, it's not getting into my kitchen. Note to self: Don't buy appliances from Samsung anymore.
Yes, I am vocal in how much I hate ads. I believe the CEOs of advertising companies should get one hit with a stick for every time their ad bothered someone even in the slightest.
Re: (Score:2)
funny how this /. webpage has 5 ads on it, wonder how many yours had when you posted that?
Re: (Score:2)