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Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing
An anonymous reader writes "According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished." From the article: "Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
When ads are on I go read articles on /.
Do you see what I did there?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?
Hard to resent something you will never buy.
A TV that won't let me turn it off when it catches fire sounds great !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I need to get snacks and go to the bathroom.
a tv that realizes you've gotten up to get a sandwich and replays the commercials when you return.
MY GOD, THIS IS PROGRESS?!!?
In other news, people stop buying Philips DVRs. What is the point of having a DVR if you can't skip the commercials again?
Just start a lottery, where the winner gets to beat the piss out of the guy who thought of "forced advertisement".
A sure winner.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
the next step is to simply have metallic arms come out of your chair, pin your arms down, peel your eyeballs open, and moisturize those pupils for 3 minutes.
"when you fall in a bottomless pit you die of starvation."
...if they patent this, then nobody *else* will do it, and than we can all just go and not buy Philips TVs.
Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished.
DVDs did that years ago and I've hated it the whole time. Especially after I've waited for it for previous viewings of a movie, and I'ev already decided to or not to buy that thing or watch that other movie coming soon (ie. 4 years ago) to a theater or DVD near me. Is this prior art, or do they have a loophole aroung it? Though I wouldn't mind if the threat of lawsuit over such a patent prevented any media distributors from doing any mroe of this really annoying crap.
My desire to buy a Philips product ever again in my lifetime just plummetted to zero. Nice work, marketing department!
IMHO it is not a great marketing strategy!
Why not tie me to my seat as well while you are at just in case I need to go to the bathroom?
Just off the top of my head, it seems unlikely that consumers are going to come beating on Phillips door to get this marvelous new invention, but I guess they can always sell it to cable companies for incorporation in set top boxes so the consumer doesn't get a choice. And I suppose that eventually, they can 'persuade' somebody to introduce legislation to require TV's to include this 'feature'. It wouldn't be the first time.
Isn't CSS prior art for this? Plenty of DVDs have commercials you can't fast forward or otherwise skip.
I hate the forced adverts on DVD. what pisses me off even more is when they aren't even advertising products, they're just forcing me to watch their "copying DVDs is piracy and is the same as mugguing someone so don't do it" bullshit. on a DVD I've just fucking bought anyway.
stuff like this, like computer game protection, just makes it easier as well as cheaper to get things illegally.
Let's hope they charge ridiculous fees to license this so nobody uses it.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
I'm so glad that I gave up TV watching a few years ago...
Do something the victim hates and make them pay you to stop.
It's called "extortiom".
*sits down to watch movie*
*tries to skip adverts*
Me: WTF?
*Tries again to no avail*
*introduces movie player to business end of 12-gauge*
*takes movie player back to store and says it was defective*
*recommends same procedure to many friends*
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Nothing like having adverstising stuffed down your throat I guess. What's next? An annual send-your-tv-to-an-unexploited-yet-cheap-labor-thi rd-world-country day? Maybe I'll just give up now and sign all my saving right over to fox.
and I am going to recommend to my friends and family that they do so to. They are dead to me.
And my friends laugh at my 19" Zenith TV with real knobs (including fine tune rings!) to change the channels! Force that, Philips!
Because as long as Phillips has a patent on it, other companies will be less likely to implement anything so stupid.
Shall be made of my bashing the shit out of the first Philips component with such a "feature."
Imagine the irony.
Is it just me or does it seem like their competitors would have to be morons to implement this (not to mention pay licensing fees for the patent).
If Philips wants to make a very quick exit from the television making business, I think they found the way.
The only way it would make its way into my house is if the cable company replaced the digital cable box with it. Then I would have to search for a "solution" to the problem online. This is maybe one of the reasons why you can't leagally buy one, and or why there aren't any pc cards that descramble the video. Or am I wrong? Does anyone know of a tuner card that descrables Digital cable? Please tell me. It would be interesting to look at for educational purposes.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Blinking, jumping, flashing, popping up and overlaying ads on the web that force you into viewing them ..
somehow is less effective than:
simple, text-only, non-intrusive or obstrusive, small and nicely blending-in ads such as those offered by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
When will people learn?
that's it I'm going back to books.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Maybe Philips will sue for patent infringement anyone else who forces users to watch ads, and we'll never be forced to watch ads again!
If only life were like that.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Philips acknowledges that (etc, etc)
Well, duh. But not because I think my equipment is broken.. because the company that made it is clearly looking to get support from the people who stand to make money from all those (shiatty) commercials I'm forced to watch.
So Philips wants to make it easier for broadcasters to force me into watching ads for stuff I won't buy anyway, and then they've the audacity to attempt to chalk up their user's (inevitable) complaints to 'improperly working equipment'.So we need to watch more crap, and we're stupid to boot.
Har-de-har-har.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
If they want to beat me, they're just going to have to patent putting my fingers in my ears and going "lalalala".
Of course, just because Philips patents it doesn't mean that the FCC will sign off on it, or the networks will use it. Imagine how pissed off viewers would get if they can't speed through the channels to see what lights their fire. It would render remotes virtually useless.
Luke, help me take this mask off
EVIL...!
Remember the episode where Marge asks for the tv producers to ban Itchy and Scratchy?
Suddenly all the kids "wake up" like the Awakenings movie, and begin playing outside.
_IF_ this product is "successfully" imposed on the people, we'll see more and more people go away from the TV into the internet / books / games / radio / whatever.
"Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers'" I don't think resented is a strong enough word. Maybe loathed, but even that, I don't think, is strong enough.
I'd like to see something that lets you pay extra to not see any adverts but still has the programmes starting and ending at the same time. It would do this by slowing the programmes down so the length of the programme covers the time slot...
Will we still be able to mute commercials? Can't care about what they're selling if the volume's off...
Incidently, the captcha slashdot uses is fucking retarded, I hope they replace it w/ KittenAuth, and soon...
[o]_O
I give it about 1 day from the first unit goes to market and two things will happen:
1) A suit to block the sale of these units which will get litigated over the next 5-10 years.
2) Some smart being out there figures out a way around it and spreads it around.
'Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong
Dude, we gotta definitely license that!
- Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony
Anyone else here see A Clockwork Orange?
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
This is a brilliant insight, which is totally no-obvious. I can't think of a single instance of prior art. ( After all no one has ever had to sit through commercials before watching rented DVD's that you can't skip or fast forward through. )
to convince a majority of consumers to boycott products advertised using these forceful methods.
I don't mind product placement, though it can sometimes be over the top, it is never as bad as stupid commercials. The only time I even watch commercials anymore is the Super Bowl.
The point is, any device I pay money for to bring into my home needs to be under my control. I watch DVDs on Linux so I can more easily skip the increasing sh*t they pack on those.
Most of the time I skip commercials because they are too racy in my opinion for my young children who I like to encourage to watch sports with me. It seems that every commercial is for beer or impotence drug...
I skip when watching their shows because I don't want a headache because they whine about wanting yet another piece of garbage manufactured in China backed by umpteen marketing dollars spent just to put the lipstick on the proverbial pig.
One thing is for certain IMHO fascist marketing has to go, and the only way to do that is actively speak out against companies that employ that tactic.
-MS2k
This type of patent should be illegal as it removes choice from the consumer. If the consumer has no other choice than to watch advertising, pay a fine (for not watching the advert), or commit a criminal act (by downloading the content without adverts), then the companies that hold the patent and use the patent should be charged if any consumers take the last option. Consumers like free passive entertainment and will usually do whatever is the easiest to obtain that goal. Telling consumers they have a choice not to consume is not giving consumers a realistic choice.
...Anybody remember those Magnavox TVs that actually detected when a commercial was playing and attenuated the volume to make them less annoying? I believe it detected the audio compression technique that commercials use to seem louder than the actual program or something like that. Now that was technology for the consumer.
And I am not being facetious. I can't wait for them to start adding flags identifying commercials to TV signals. One day later I bet there is a plugging to MythTV that perfectly edits your recordings to be commercial free.
What with Digital TV lock-ins & broadcast flags I have no intention of ever buying mass market cable equipment again anyway. In the future all of my TV watching will be downloads anyway. This will just make it easier to get commercial free programming.
I hope people buy these TVs like hot cakes, cause I won't.
Actually, this is a great thing.
Now, companies can't do this (force you to watch ads) without PAYING PHILIPS for the privlidge.
I guess the absolutely ridiculous patent system works in the public's favor once in a while, too.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I had thought about buying one of their portable DVD players (PET1000) for around $399. However, after reading this article, they lost a sale!
I will NEVER buy anything made by those arse-heads again and tell others to avoid them. Do they really think people will buy products with this "feature"???
If they license it to cable companies for use in cable TV boxes, I will go out of my way to take my business to the competitor who ISN'T using this technology, even if it means $$$.
I'm not watching porn ! *Clicks button desperately*
I have ads that are now parts of my slashdot rss.
I have therefore removed slashdot from my rss feeds.
I don't think you get it. You're FORCED to watch the advertisements.
Part of this system will be eye-instruments similar to the ones used in A Clockwork Orange that keep the lids of your eyes fully open and staring directly into the screen. There will be no way of skipping the ads nor averting your eyes away from the ads.
Of course, for a small fee you can avoid all of this.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Pretty soon it will be cheaper and less annoying to go see movies in the theater.
I guess I'll have plenty of former TV time to perfect my Civilization IV skills. Or I could write another book.
But Civ IV first.
The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
It also offers the viewers the chance to tell Philips to stick up their @$$ by buying a non-philips product.
This is just like AT&T telling Google and other content providers, 'Pay us because we're carrying the information. Nevermind that you're paying us for access, and the customer is paying us for access, if you want your content delivered on time, you HAVE to pay us.'
As I recall, I pay for cable television already. If you want me to PAY to watch advertising on a channel that I am already ostensibly 'paying for', you're fricking high on solder fumes. Change your model a bit and maybe you can figure out a method that doesn't require me to pay for content with both unwarranted use of my time (oh boy, insert reality TV joke here) and actual monetary instruments.
Wrong in the sense that it's morally wrong (it *feels* wrong anyway) Wrong in the sense that it's insane that you can patent something as vauge as this, Wrong in the sense that it's yet another attempt by mega-corporations to confiscate wealth from consumers by finding another way to charge them for something they either already had or never asked for. It's insane.
There has to be a path to reward companies and individuals who innovate and produce new products, or real wealth while not rewarding jerks who figure out how to charge us extra for something that either used to be free, or that we never needed.
I pay my TV, I pay my SKY+ box, I pay my subsciption fees and I pay a TV Tax, what more do they want? Blood?
Maybe, just maybe, if there wasn't adverts every 5 minutes of a program, each lasting 3 minutes, I would not mind. Heck, yeah I do anyways...It's like going to the movies and not being able to take your own can of coke, instead paying 3x as much for one on site...
Next up: TV's that can detect your eye movement and pause the ads until you are directly looking at the TV...Reminds me of a clockwork orange...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
When I buy something, I buy it for one very simple purpose: to gain exclusive control over it.
If Philips wants to keep control over a TV or other device, that's fine. Give it to me, loan it to me, and I can accept that the owner keeps control over it - and I'm not the owner. But we have a technical term for selling property without turning over control, and that term is 'Fraud'.
When I sold my previous home, I surrendered control over it to the new owner. I no longer control how that house is used, who may come and go, and which TV shows may be watched in the living room.
It looks like Philips wants to pretend to sell me a device, while keeping control over it. That's not a sale, and presenting it as one is a clear case of fraud.
Implementation of this during ads, however, could have a very positive effect.
It could easily force "John Q. Public" to realize that just because something is newer, it is not necessarily better.
For all too long, John Q. Public has done whatever it took to keep the salespeople happy.
He sacrificed his savings, mortgaged his home to the tilt, and obediently opened his wallet every time the vendors said so, even though his existing stuff still worked fine.
If Philips can help us slow down this relentless acceptance of restrictive technologies, by irritating the consumer enough to make them realize the loss of freedoms it presents in exchange for a few tidbits of eye candy, we will have a stronger hand in convincing the public on the advantages of technologies that are not remotely controlled.
I am convinced if Microsoft will only increase the DRM on music enough to render all the kids toys inoperable on a Windows box unless they jump through all the hoops, that would provide sufficient incentive for our youth to know Linux and brag of their prowess using it much like they brag today on their useless videogame skills.
Once they have a salable skill wielding Linux, business will see they have a viable sourc e of skilled technologists and the "proprietary technology bubble" will burst, much like the "religious technology bubble" of the dark ages burst when the printing press came to be - when Johh Q. Public could read the holy words himself without requiring all the useless priestly overhead which had been keeping him hostage.
Invasive DRM will help us break the bonds by getting people on OUR side!
So, I applaud all the DRM they wanna throw at me. The quicker we get this DRM crap over with, the quicker we can get onto more productive things than plowing someone else's field.
to a Brave New 1984...
Help test the
I wholeheartedly support this idea.
I can feel a new market in advanced skipping equipment coming on...
Oh well, what the hell...
one acronym
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
You've got a choice. It's called not watching TV.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
a system which sends personal contact information of people who produce systems like this to spammers and telemarketers?
Death to America.
That will be sweet! I can just see it now, sitting at home, channel surfing, and everytime you hit a channel that has a commercial on it, the TV just locks up so you can't surf.. Nevermind that it just stopped you on that TV premire of Brokeback Mountain that you didnt want to stop and watch anyway.. lol... Get real, this is pathetic. I will *NEVER* own a device which has this feature in it, I promise.
+++ATH0 NO CARRIER
"A power switch? That's illegal!"
To patent the electrification of the fridge handle and the toilet seat during commercials...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Somewhat offtopic, but ... has anyone else noticed the new bombardment of ads in the Slashdot RSS feed (I think they just started today)? I find them extremely obnoxious, especially since the same exact ad is sent with every third story. I think most people come and check out the comments if the story seems interesting, thus generating ad revenue, so this seems like a quite obnoxious and unnecessary intrusion that might lead me to block the site's ads altogether... just like I will now be avoiding all of Phillips' products.
at least we still have the hebrew prophets
It seems likely that we have until the patent expires before non-Phillips products can use this technology without paying licensing fees. :-) Also means no open source implementations for about 17 years...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Nobody in their right mind would be willing to buy a device if this sort of technology would be implemented in it. The only way to make it workable would be to legally mandate it in new players, which would be viciously opposed and have no chance of being implemented.
Besides, the innovative amongst us will no doubt find ways of bypassing any such systems.
Media Control HQ 'heh i love making people watch these commercials' 'yea, i've heard there is a new model which inserts a rod into your arse.' 'heh lets turn it on, i'm so glad its not us.' Corp. Office 'I've decided to beta test the new model on some of our employees, hehe lets turn it on!' HQ 'OH DANG!' Indeed, we shall ban such patents due to cruel and unusual punishment law!
But they can't patent this.
RFC 3514 proposed the Evil Bit in 2003.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Could we cite "A Clockwork Orange" as prior art?
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
How about I just download everything off the internet and then I don't have to put up with being forced to watch your adverts? You won't be making any money at all then. Try making a device consumers will want rather than exploiting your position in the market to try and force this type of device on everyone.
Presumably Philips wouldn't charge much (if anything) for other manufacturers to license this "idea", as otherwise they will be the only people selling systems with enforced adverts and the market will avoid their products like the plague.
This should make it possible for programs which automatically skip ads... albiet illegally. How is this not a good thing? :P
the vile things one watches on television (and the interweb)
This is such a stupid fucking idea I can't even believe it flied.
Suppose you're channel flipping, and you happen on a commercial. What then? You have to finish watching the fucking thing?
First no one would buy this shit. My dog wouldn't buy this shit even if he could; and he's a spoilt mother fucker.
Second, even if we were force to buy this shit, people would quickly learn to change the channel when they hear "and when we come back...".
And what kind of shitty mechanism have they implemented anyway? I bet it'll be hacked lickety split. Hell, in the worst case one just has to make a box that takes each frame, finds the flag (they move, apparently), and then drops it from the signal. Phillips make a system that doesn't allow streams without occasional flags? Fuck them.
Hell is cold, pigs are flying. Do I seem mildly enraged?
It's not like anybody with half a brain would want to beat you to the market with that kind of technology, or even run down your doors applying for a license. Anyone willing to bet that Phillips will bring this to the market, as the only manufacturer?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
See kids, this is why we shouldn't legalise pot.
There can be only 2 reasonable explanations for this.
1) They're patenting it so that noone can do this, ever, including themselves. I feel the "patent because they can" falls into this category.
2) The only real economic possibility I can see here? Free TVs. You have the choice between pricey boxes that allow you to skip commercials, or cheap ones that force you to watch them. Likely we'll start seeing modchips for televisions around that time...
...as long as they spend some of their ill-gotten gains fixing the viewer-exploding problem.
For one, it means only the patent holder can do this without paying for the rights to do this. But unfortunately, I believe the present implementation of many DVDs could be perceived as prior art. How many times have you been prevented from skipping the commercials and movie previews when watching a DVD? Feels like the same thing to me.
the tv forces you not to watch it
This is the best thing that ever happened ever, and I can't wait to buy me a Sony!
This is not my sandwich.
some other users have suggested that we beat the Philips group senseless for this but it's much more appropriate that we thank them for a) patenting this and avoiding others doing the same and b) anouncing it so that we can avoid voluntarily obtaining such a device for our own use. We might also consider that certain governments who haven't a problem with torture might be very grateful.
-Tim Louden
Sorry, but I have prior art from 1978 where I used a 'flag' to mark
the edge of a dungeon wall in my TI 99/4 game. Perhaps they will pay me
to keep quiet.
The best thing about any restrictive technology is that it opens up the opportunity to break or work around the restrictions. If it's not region-free DVD players or modchips for your Playstation, it'll be HDMI dongle hacks and Philips adbusters.
It doesn't matter what they do, the only people who really gain from restrictive techs are the shady people who sell the hacks and modchips.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
My DVD player already does this! It especially ticks me off on DVDs I own! It does not allow me to skip the adds at the front of the DVD. I can fast-forward, but when I try to skip, a little red icon appears. Maybe the new patent disables the fast-forward as well as the skip? Why does the manufacturer of the HARDWARE side with the makers of the DVDs over their CUSTOMERS, the ones who buy the hardware? Seems like poor marketing to me!
"The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
I already pay a monthly $80 "fee" for TV, does that count for anything?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I think I'm going to file a patent that requires you to watch the Super Bowl. No longer will you be allowed to skip through the game and just view the commercials...
I'm not fat, just big boned...
You were thinking that this was about choice in the first place? At first, the ads were on TV to "Pay for the programming". Then, cable tv came out and for about 2 months, NO COMMERCIALS. Then they thought... "Hey wait a minute. I can get people to pay for something that used to be free....AND make money off the commercials because there's really no alternative!" Modern CableTV was born.
There are *no* "legal" alternatives anymore, even if you pay...look at movies with the 10-15 minutes worth of commercials in them now.
However, the solution is really simple if you ask me....
Don't watch TV. Don't go to movies. Don't buy movies...or TV programs on DVD.
Do that for about a year....and if a *majority* of people did that, they would have no choice but to change, or try to pass a law a la Clockwork Orange treatment.
Now the trick is...
Getting all these consumer-bots to stop buying every little thing their heart desires for a while.
This would work for gas prices too...you'd just have to reduce because it's not really a viable option to eliminate gas yet.
All the power in the world is in the consumers hands....it's just that the market-droids have convinced them that they NEEED this shit.
My 2c
A.A
Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
This is the first time that I can remember the Slashdot community complaining about a patent application when there was still time for the site's resident cheapskates^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcurmudgeons to do something about it. Do you think that you have killer prior art that shows that the claims in the case are anticipated or non-obvious? Well, it's time to get moving.
For the next ~6 weeks, you can submit patents and printed publications to the USPTO and have the examiner consider the submission. This opportunity comes at the low, low price of $180.
Just think about it, for $180 you can have the satisfaction of thwarting Philips and showing the USPTO your superior research skills. When you consider that an ex parte reexamination costs $2520, an inter partes reexamination costs $8800, and litigation costs several hundred thousand dollars, minimum, you can clearly see that this is an amazing bargain! A once in a lifetime opportunity! Surely something that you can't afford to miss!
Now, get going! Drag out your textbooks, IEEE journals, USENET archives, and web search tool of choice, and show The Man what you're made of!
[Disclosure: I'm quite certain that when I review this application file in PAIR in two months, I will see that absolutely nothing has been filed in the USPTO. I'd be shocked if I'm proven wrong.]
"Warning: Phillips electronics engineers are clueless asspirates. Their marketing weasels are worse. While you're watching this shit, they're busy thinking up the next stupid-ass idea."
Also known as extortion.
It seems 3M holds a patent on Scotch tape and God has a patent on eyelids. The court found Phillip's inoovative combination of the two not innovative enough to warrant a separate patent.
Phillips was just not thinking clearly when they invented this. There will be a flag at the start of commercials, and another at the end, to tell the anti-skip system when to activate. Just how long do you think it will be before someone figures out how to use the flags to start and stop the fast-forward button? This system of flags would be just as effective at automatically skipping ads.
and I think yer talking about shrek 2, which I own, and watch..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Philips has been trying to get out of the consumer electronics business for several years.
It looks like they've finally managed it.
I, for one, wish to be first to welcome our new Korean/Chinese/Malaysian/... consumer electronics manufacturers who are more concerned with providing value to the people who actually PAY for their products than with sucking up to the MPAA.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
When I download the shows there's definitely no advertisements =P Thank god for bittorrent...
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
i'm assuming the commerials will have some special tag that the programming doesn't have. does this mean you could have a hacked tv that is able to accurately strip out the commercials? thanx philips!
all you have to do is basically find out what the commercial flag integrated into the system is composed of and then either hack the firmware or use other hardware (computer recording device) to basically see when commercials start and stopped based on this flag then you just have to stop and start recording as desired...instant no commercial tv rips
Say you turn on your TV and it's 3 minutes into something stupid, but the flag is enabled for the show itself! You can't change the channel!
Let's play Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'll be Pestilence.
The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts.
Pay a fee to go back to skipping adverts. I assume that this would be money paid to the content provider, who would in turn give a cut to all companies whose commercials were skipped. So the net result is that even though no commercial for Coca-Cola or what have you was seen, and no Coca-Cola product was used in the TV show, Coca-Cola still makes a profit off of the viewing of this show.
It's win-win for the corporation, and absurd for the consumer. If the corporation's ad gets seen, they get more money through traditional marketing routes. Now, in places where their ad DOESN'T get seen, they get money too. We are effectively unconditionally throwing money at megacorps.
My MythTV will be able to remove commercials much faster once there's a flag showing where the ads are.
- No ripping to a PC; excuse: piracy.
- No shooting of copyrighted objects with a camera; excuse: piracy.
- No open formats such as mp3; excuse: piracy.
- No skipping ads and copyright ads on DVD's or TV; excuse: piracy.
- Fetch your seearch history and habits from search engines; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.
- Back door on cryptographic solutions for the government; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.
- Storing your e-mail and traffic for later review by the authorities; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.
We're looking for further excuses to install RFID chips under your skin, and electric zappers to control your actions, stay tuned.
I'm sure glad this one was patented because it will prevent any other company from using the technique!
You ask a very interesting question.
How does one award the content creators.
Remember, in a capitalist society, 'market forces' are meant to regulate the efficiency of the market.
If you restrict or charge too much for your product, the less people buy, and if you give it a away, your volumes are high but you make no money. Its the profit bell curve.
Previously, cost of duplication/distribution has been one of the main regultators in the content creation market. There is now a disruptive technology (the internet) that is taking away this previous 'stabiliser'. What we are seeing now is the free market, trying to recorrect its inefficiency (loss of profits). This will always cause pain. What suprises me, is the internet is huge opportunity to make squillions more money out of consumers (can you say back catalouges peoples!) though much increased volume and less cost per unit item.
This I think is where the RIAA etc have got it wrong. 99% of people want to do the right thing. 99% of western consumers do not steal from their local store. Even in Australia now, we have 'self checkouts'.
If the RIAA were run Kmart/Walmart, all the product would be behind glass locked cabinets.
Treat the consumer with respect, offer the product at a much more reasonable price, and people will generally do the right thing.
The problem I see, is that the RIAA etc, have played hardball for so long, the consumer has got quite adept at (and cultured themselves) to using P2P, AllofMP3 etc, making the battle to change that culture much harder than it needed to be.
46137
This will hopefully be yet another thing that makes it easier to not watch TV.
Did it ever occur to these people that decreasing show times, editing old shows for length, and stuffing more and more ads in would create the inevitable demand and popularity of something like Tivo?
Probably not. They figured we just wouldn't notice how shitty broadcast and cable television was becoming? And making it 10 times shittier is apparently somebody's idea of a solution?
Fuck 'em. Addiction is when you can't live without something. Most heavy TV watchers aren't truly addicted, they just can't think of anything better to do. Directly attacking them with garbage like this is the first step towards making them aware of that.
I'm intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I let my wallet speak for me when it comes to this crap...
:) Bleh!
I won't buy a philips product if it enforces viewing of ads...
Or anyone else's product of like features...
This is why I DO NOT have Tivo and do NOT watch much TV.
Heck, Most of the time I still use my VCR to record any "MUST SEE TV" - (c)NBC And just FF through commercials... Unless it is one I WANT to see (heard from friends after souper bowle or some such reason.)
No, My computer is not an 8088 either, but yes, sometimes lowtech is the way...
oh, and of course there is the famous (Click) surf or (Click) off buttons.
If Phil & Co were smart they would make note of this... It's ashame that I already skip going to the movies because they force you to watch adds after purchasing a license to experience the content of the film in comfy seats with loud surround sound.
But then again, I don't think I've missed toooo many movies that were worth seeing anyways.
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Because the moment they put digital flags on ads in TV, someone else will realise that they can make a small fortune by creating a HD-recorder that cuts out the ads. The market being what it will, that company will become rich while philips will be reduced to selling toasters.
Philips TVs watch you!
hmm, are they going to block you from muting your audio system too? My Motorola DVR used to have a 30 second skip. Then Insight Communications disabled it. I now have to fast forward.
And when I watch tv live, I mute audio during commercials, mainly because the volume is much louder than the programming. But their attempt to get my attention results in my muting the entire thing. Funny that it has the exact opposite effect.
I've also stopped watching shows that try to inject commercials in the programming itself. There are just too many choices available for me to waste my time with something that attempts to sell me products during the course of an actual program. I realize few people are aware that they are even advertisements. But then again, the average IQ is around 100.
it's called the "go fuck yourself, i won't buy your hardware or watch your shitty content" device.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Technology to keep you from going to the bathroom or fridge
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's still better than vanishing in a cloud of someone else's vomit (to paraphrase a line from Spinal Tap)...
If it's patented by Philips, it can't be implemented by anyone else! And certainly not by free software.. :->
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Nice of them to flag the commercials for me, so that I can program my MythTV box not to record them in the first place. Hitting that fast forward button every ten minutes was getting to be such a bother.
The headline should have read: "Philips patents technology forcing people to not buy Philips products".
Tv off (tv ad appears) , tv on (a few minutes later).
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
There's a lot going on right now in television that resembles what happened on the Max Headroom television series. A dystopian future where the people who don't pay for education can't get it (even things as simple as the ABC's, but we're not there, YET), intellectual property controls, corporations the size of governments with the same amount of power, and even this patent by phillips was part of an episode.
There's a scene where an officer walks to a woman's apartment, pushes the off switch on the TV and exclaims, "An off switch! She'll get 20 years for that!".
Ah well, It's primetime and it's time for dancing poodles on TV. Gotta go.
Blank is beautiful!
never. never. never
Just because something CAN be done, it doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. People who think this stuff up and promote it (especially when they know exactly what kind of negative reaction it will create) ought to be put up against the wall and shot.
Time to read a book. I am NOT paying money just to skip a commercial. If I have to, I will hack the system or just stop watching TV. I love to read and if I stopped watching TV I would have a bit more free time to read. By the way, I do watch ads if they intrigue me or are funny or catch my attention in some way. I will even watch ads that I really like more than once, like the Domino ads with the stretching pizza cheese. If they try to control too much, I'll just say goodbye, I have better uses for my time than to see a commercial for the fiftieth time.
Brilliant!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
PLEASE, Mr. Philips, can I go to the bathroom now?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I thought there would be some sort of prior art with this on DVDs? Which is even worse... I've already PAID for the damn DVD, and still you want to force your shit on me??
Honestly I can see no reason whatsoever for anyone to ever want to rip their own DVD collection
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The first few weeks are hard, but after a while, you actually figure out things to do with your time that are far more enriching and interesting than watching TV.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This is what I see happening:
- The companies that sell these devices leave out the part about them forcing you to watch commercials.
- A huge amount of people buy them.
- Less than a month later, customers get pissed off at the company and return the devices to wherever they bought them.
After loosing tons of money over this, the companies finally realise that they have to listen to consumers.
Of course, this would only happen in a perfect world. Something is bound to come up that will prevent people from receiving refunds or something of that matter.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Do you have any idea how expensive it is to patent something? It can be as much as $8,000 to $10,000.
The patent system is designed to give companies an advantage. Individual inventors often don't have the resources to patent something as soon as they come up with it, and by the time they do, several companies will have filed several patents covering the same ground.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Oddly, I kind of want them to get this patent.
;)
If Philips ties the idea of forcing ads on those of us with their equipment, it keeps everyone else from doing the same without licensing the technology.
Might as well enjoy the handful of accidental benefits of the borked patent system. . .
~EEE~
I used to think that Sony the most evil tech company, but now I'm not quite sure they hold the crown any more.
This idea goes exactly against what successful companies like Google and Overture are doing. This will totally turn off consumers to anyone who implements this. Good luck.
No Sigs!
Death is too good for them.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Just like nobody bought the DVD player for the same reasons, right?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
well all i can say is everyone go buy a tivo direct tv dvr...i work swing shifts so my wife records our shows..so i can watch 24 whenever...lost whenever....alias whenvever..oh and by the way you can SKIP commercials!!!!!yee haa
ps. except victoria's secret i put those on slo-mo
This would make it a bitch to change the channel. Say your show just got over, its 6:55pm, and you wanna switch from channel 4 to channel 13. At 8, when the next show on channel 4 starts, you're free to change to 5, but its on its first commercial break. So once that show gets started, time to move to channel 6. Oh damn, channel 6 is on a commercial break, we have to sit here and wait for it... Even if you could move from 4 to 13 instantly, you'd still miss the begining of your next show.
Retarded.
Once you hang out here for a while you will realize that the only patent articles we get are about patents for amazingly obvious "inventions".
We are no longer surprised or shocked at obvious patents since they are the norm here. What would be truly shocking would be an article about a patent that was not obvious. But I don't think that's possible because it appears that either:
Welcome to Slashdot.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
We have over 900 channels all largely showing the same crap and the same re-runs. I see little reason to even have a TV.
This will be yet another reason for people to (1) not buy the product and (2) find something that meets their needs - which may be a home grown product and (3) cancel their cable or satelite subscription as well.
Oh they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - this isn't even a good intention.
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to..."
Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over.
So I'm surfing through channels, click, don't want that, click, nope, click, nope, click, nope, click ADVERTISEMENT and I'm stuck. I have to watch the add according to this until it's over and then i can go back to surfing to find out there's nothing on. Now THAT will suck.
-=JML=-
Everyone who wants a Philips TV raise your hand!
Everyone hates advertising anyway. Just make good products, you idiots! God help us when nanotech is mainstream. We'll be getting spyware bots latching onto our brainstems. Popups integrated into your perception of reality on the lowest level. The only escape is suicide.
Anyon else see this as a great opportunity to help us avoid ads even easier?
Currently the ad skip technology revolves around detecting black frames and pauses in transmissions to skip ads - but once broadcasters start using a flag in the transmission that says "ads are on NOW" then some enterprising individuals will have patches and hacks for open source HTPC/Set top boxes that will immediately detect the flag and skip the ads. Every open source HTPC will easily incorporate the code, and probably hacks will pop up over night for commercial PVRs.
http://www.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/secti on-13070/index.html
What's next? That the telly only works in combination with a restraining seat that stops us from going to the dunny when the ads are on? Quite frankly, I don't give a toss about digital quality and convenience, if that's the price to pay for it.
That has to be the first commercial. "Got Milk" -- I kill me.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Except in this case, rather than block stuff with the evil bit set, you're forced to watch it instead. Amazing!
Still... will be interested in seeing how this manages to stop me going to get a beer while the adds are showing - or if it's a dvd (is it? cbf reading the article) just not buying this shit in the first place.
How very 20th century.
Look, why haven't any of the majors yet realised that if you want me to watch your advertisements, then you have to pay me to watch them?
It's simple really. 6 years ago I developed a "Pay per view" TV-on-demand business model as follows:
Subscribers must fill out a rather lengthy and complex demographic questionaire before joining. Every program has a dollar figure attached to it. You can watch any paid-for program any number of times you like, in the 30 days following the order.
At the end of each month, you are invoiced for the programmes you bought. If you are rich, and lazy, you can simply pay the bill and be done with it: no advertisements watched. (YAY!)
However, if you are poor, or you watched a lot of expensive stuff, then you switch to the "advertising channel":
Here's where you can see adverts listed in several ways: most popular, richest, best, shortest, longest, by manufacturer etc.
The price you see for each advertisement is calculated according to your demographic questionaire. In other words, if you are poor, you might get 25 cents for watching a new Mercedes commercial, but if you earn $100,000 a year, you might get $2.50 to watch it.
After watching a commercial, you must use your remote to answer a simple, multi-choice question about the advert, to prove you watched it. There are say, 5 questions for each advert. A wrong answer results in the advert playing again, followed by a different question, or the same question if you choose. Once they have watched an advert, they get to "rate" it, by another multichoice option - and the current rating of the advert is displayed while you add your own vote.
Here's the beauty: the content provider is ALWAYS paid, because the revenue either comes from the subscribers, or the advertisers, so your income is only limited by the number of subscribers. This enforces high quality content, otherwise no one will watch anything.
A subscriber can choose to watch as many adverts as they like, right up until they have paid for their entire monthly bill by watching adverts. Thus, there is no "barrier to entry" for this service - the provider pays for the delivery (via Internet, or satelite, or whatever) so even the poorest people can "afford" it.
The advertisers are equipped with the most powerful medium of all time: they get to target their adverts 100% - they can decide who gets to see their adverts, how much they'll pay those viewers to watch it, and they know that the advert has been retained amazingly well because of the multichoice question after the advert. Thus, there are no "wasted" adverts, and all this stuff can be analysed statistically quite easily. The advertisers also get to limit their exposure - like Google Adwords does right now - so there is a maximum monthly bill. Advertisers can tweak the amount they pay depending on the way the budget is being consumed throughout the month. (Similar to the way advertisers monitor Adwords expenditure).
Advertisers also get a never-before-opportunity in that they can decide HOW to get people to watch their adverts! They can use money, by offering a bundle to watch their adverts, or they can be smarter, and poorer, by trying to make commercials which get rated highly, while paying bugger all to have them watched. This means an advertiser may spend a fortune on creating an advert, to try and turn it into a "viral" thing, whereby people watch it because it's good - and they don't care that they're being paid only 5 cents to watch it.
Advertisers can also make adds sexy, violent, dramatic, funny - or whatever the hell they like: they could even make R18 adverts especially for adult-targetted campaigns.
Think about it: the face of advertising would be changed forever.
The only real problem with the model, and it's why I never sought 500 Million to get it off the ground, is the delivery system: Internet would work fine, but it requires at least a 15mb/s connection with zero data traffic fees. 6 years ago
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
And I quote:
"Where I was taken to, brothers was like no cinnie I ever viddied before. I was bound up in a straightjacket and my gulliver was strapped to a headrest with like wires running away from it. Then they clamped like lodlocks on my eyes so that I could not shut them, no matter how hard I tried."
Sorry guys. This has already been done by the guys who made A Clockwork Orange, circa 1971.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Just when you think it can't get any worse than the Emergency Broadcast System.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
So, it's just another flag, which the MPAA is extorting businesses via lawsuit threats to implement anyway? How is this revolutionary? How is this newsworthy?
from connecting with that clever Phillips device
How fast can you say....hacked!
force ad viewing? Really?! half the ads now a days are crap. all they do is try to sell a drug to you or something you dont need
I can see how this can backfire horribly. Imagine you're channel surfing, and you come across a station that's currently playing commercials...
Mind you, marketing types relish the idea that you won't be able to watch anything *but* commercials. Mind you, marketing types should be dragged out into the street and beaten, burned, and shot. Repeatedly. And the survivors prosecuted.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Will flags be constantly on during infomercials? Since they don't have ads throughout it could be quite a problem if channel surfing and you stumble across one.
(I also had to install VLC for someone just so he could play a DVD he legally bought).
AFAIK the region locks were never about preventing piracy. They were about greed for power and money.
Anyone who believed it was about preventing piracy was either ignorant or stupid. Because pirates could just make bit-for-bit copies of the DVD and the DVDs would work EXACTLY as the originals (not talking about the small time pirates who just make 50 copies or something silly - talking about those who stamp out thousands of copies).
Copying encrypted/encoded data is like photocopying a document written in a language you don't understand. It doesn't matter. Just pass the copied document to the "player/translator" who will understand the copy just like it will understand the original.
However it does seem the pirates tend to make region-free DVDs - it could be a side effect of making DVD5 stuff (single layer = cheaper). But DVD9 versions are often available and do command higher prices too - and those are region-free as well.
A company that exhibits this level of judgement will not be in business for long. This ranks right up there with Sony's rootkit DRM implementation...
If we are going to be stuck with patents, can someone form an organisation that patents the evil stuff and makes it extremely expensive to do?
Exactly. I buy a lot of DVD's but I also rip a lot of rentals too. Every time I learn of some bullshit scheme like this the numbers rise on the ripping side. As things stand right now I rip a lot of the ones I buy anyway to make "disposable copies" while protecting the originals.
When I rent a movie and rip it to make a keeper is it stealing? I guess so but I don't really care at this point. They hack away at my rights and in return I hack away at their profits.
Sure I'm not right but neither are they. They might be "legal" but that doesn't make them right.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
[Anti-circumvention law] holds no sway over what I can and cannot do here in Canada
How did you get into Canada? How much did it cost?
See above... hah! yeah that'd be nice.
could it be?
1. You cannot "file a patent." You file an application, and you that application can be anything you damn well please. You could file your local telephone book if you like. Tell Slashdot you filed your phone book as a patent application. It will be all over the headlines and you'll be famous for "patenting the phone book," although anyone with 22 seconds of experience working with the patent system would know that statement is unquestionably false.
2. The article itself links to "the full patent" which is unquestionably not a patent. There is literally no story here.
It's not like this is funny - an application for sex toys or resurrection machines. It's not like it's morally offensive - an application for a suicide machine. It's simply an application for a way to make some money. Sure, people might not like it, but any idiot who can force people to watch advertisements is a marketing genius. Whether or not it's fit to be patented is another story altogether, and one that won't be answered for years. The 371(c) date of that application is June 2005 - it probably won't even be glanced at by a patent examiner until 2007 or 2008.
This informative post was brought to you free of charge. Sorry for the interruption. If you scroll down (or up), you'll read the normal Slashdot non-sequitur deliberate ignorance that brings you back to this website time after time. I just wonder if anybody but myself gets tired of reading systematically false and erroneous "news" reports on Slashdot.
I think this ship sailed when corporations realized that the average consumer doesn't care what their software EULA says. You certainly don't own any software you've purchased, and the idea is starting to migrate to other things....
Let me guess... a couple arms reach out of the TV to hold me in place, and hold my eyelids open?
No, they're not able to force people to watch ads - just make it impossible to skip playing them.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
The on/off switch, particularly if placed "upstream" of the viewer itself, is still under the consumer's control.
And I'm waiting for PC-based sandboxing technologies to catch up with this bullshit.
...that everyone here just assumes all problems started =6 years ago.
or else it wont do you much good. This is why Illuminated Business Microsun Inc. aka "the industry" patents everything from the mouseclick to "organizing data on a means of retaining state over long periods of time in organizational subunits of variable or invariable size"). To them a $10,000 is as much as a dime to you. However when they want to cash in on their patents (or to squeeze you and everybody else out of business), if you don't fold like a good boy they take you to court over these patents and sue for infringement and of course damage. You know what happens in court, I don't have to tell you, now do I.
To me, this is Yet Another Example of how the patent system is completely broken. They have patented modifying the behavior of a device based on the value of a software flag. This is almost as absurd as swinging sideways.
And the brethren went away edified.
...is my pulling the plug out of the wall on their equipment.
Chip H.
They show you the commercials and then in order to view the next segment you have to
answer a quiz about the commercials that were on. If you fail the quiz you have to watch the commercials
over you failed on. Questions could be as easy as "Why is XYZ so yummy!" Answer: Ad slogan to
difficult question like "Please mark the commercials that showed a dog".
I just got this idea from a science fiction story I read as a kid where people lived in a society where
they had to attentively watch the evening news - or be severely punished for missing them. The "News Police" would
ring doorbells at random and give pop quizzes. I'd say a rather scary thought, especially with the implication
that you have to be home after 8pm so they can check up on you.
"sex toys or resurrection machines" Those would be seen as the same thing for quite a few couples...
I see a lot of comments of the type: It will limit you and its unavoidable.... laws would be passed for it... etc.
Well, how about, no? For as long as we still have some version of "democracy", the citizens can simply choose to do something else with their time than use a limiting/annoying product.
"It" has no power unless you hand yours over.
Stop talking about things in such a way as if they're not affected by us, the consumers/citizens
Should be hung by their balls and shot with baby cat shit for even thinking of it.
Use of this technology will guarantee I NEVER purchase said device.
Rick B.
...It's the [beginning] of the world as we know it, and I feel fiiiiiiine.
I wish I was ROTFLOL instead of paraphrasing pop songs...
In a heavily-modified form. If DVD players had a sort of method for storing information about previously played DVD's (a "history" of sorts, dating back to the initial power-on of the product, and editable/resettable), advertisers could distinguish between movies you'd actually already seen and movies you haven't. Add in an information page to store information about "Your favorite type of movie" or "Your favorite director", and you could even make the ads distinguish between movies you might want to see and movies you have no interest in. That way, much like Google ads, the advertisements could be targetted more directly at what you might want to watch - Not what they might like you to watch. Even if the commercials couldn't be skipped, if they're matched up with your history and your input, they might actually provide a service to users, rather than prove a nuisance. Not only that, but it could very well improve sales.
For example, you buy your brand new HD2-DVD player, turn it on and it asks you some questions; You input your basic likes and dislikes, favourite this and that, and then it starts normal operation. When you put in your copy of Jurassic Park V: The Insanity Drags On, the advertisements are tagged with metadata including genre, director, and other information, and the advertisements that most closely match the type of content you enjoy watching are played, with movies you'd already seen excluded. As you play more and more movies on your DVD payer, it "learns" what you like, and internally rates each genre for you based on what you play. It could even ask you at the end how you enjoyed the film, to save that into its database as well, and possibly even provide feedback to the producers (why not? Everything else is online these days).
It's win-win-win. Movie labels win, advertisers win, and consumers win. No need for this "You will watch what we want you to" stuff, and no need to completely skip it, either. And if it sends feedback to the producers, maybe we'll see some better movies coming out, too.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
...said one Phillips executive as he vanished in a cloud of his own vomit.
So, if he were a vampire, would that make him Count Barfula?
Or maybe he'd be Count Bulimia! Oh noes! Look out! It's Count Bulimia! He strikes fear into 7-Elevens, all-you-can-eat-buffets, ice cream aisles and toilets everywhere!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Corporations are just trying to push consumers further and further. Eventually, enough consumers will get smart enough to realize what the companies are doing to them.
Let's imagine that Philips brings a TV like this to market. 5 or 10 percent of potential buyers (maybe less, who knows) will realize that this is an evil product and stay away from it. The other 90 to 95 percent will see the pretty picture on the box, not read any of the specs, and buy it.
Hopefully, the FCC is still effective enough that they'll never approve this. Oh wait... yes they will.
Why don't they just reserve one channel ONLY for ads? Maybe they can even categorize these ads so that if someone wants to buy a car, they don't have to just sit and watch ads for burger king until a chevrolet ad finally comes by. That way, the person can choose not only what ads to see, but also WHEN to see them. Statistically, there is probably more time devoted to the ads than the programs/movies themselves. And forcing the viewer to watch ads may just result in a long-needed revolution or total boycott of entertainment media. Its simmering, just about ready to pop. I say, don't force anyone to do anything, it takes away the joy, the purpose and most importantly, the freedom created by the media. No cybernazis please.
Two wrongs make a right.
..that make a right!
Replace AT&T with Philips
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Exactly. I've always wondered how long it would be before we start seeing EULAs attached to hardware products. I think we can start expecting such things very soon. The number of hardware products out there that make use of some kind of software is growing, and each one represents something that can be EULAized.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Seriously. I was gradually tapering off for years. Finally I was down to Enterprise and I quit that after a year. Best decision I ever made. If it weren't for DVDs I wouldn't even own one now.
Seriously. How much more of this shit are people going to take before they realize how much of their lives they're wasting?
We only want a quiet place to finish working while God eats our brains.
--Bruce Sterling
I don't understand why Philips would do this. They make TV sets and VCRs and DVDs and such - but they don't own TV stations or cable networks so they don't profit from advertising. All this would do would be to make people not want to buy their equipment...where is the profit motive?
I used to work for Philips Research Labs - they encourage employees to patent stuff - but that doesn't mean that they intend to make products that use the patent. Often they just want a large pile of patents to threaten other companies with - or patents may be defensive in nature. (There is a great story that Philips made a PacMan clone on one of their game consoles years ago - and just like every other company in that business, they got sued by Atari over it. Everyone else caved in and paid up - but Philips dug out an incredibly ancient Magnavox patent that covered the use of TV sets for synthetic video entertainments of all kinds...Atari dropped the law suite - but Philips didn't ever use their broad patent offensively. So defensive patents - when used ethically - are not necessarily a bad thing).
Anyway - it's very dangerous to assign motives to a company due to some random patent.
Personally, I can see a hidden advantage here. If the TV can lock out the controls when there are adverts present - that means that there must be some kind of flag embedded in the advert so the TV can recognise it. This flag would be a wonderful thing because it would mean that someone could use that very same flag to cause a PVR to skip over the advert completely automatically!
www.sjbaker.org
because I just posted a PPDALA (Programming provider device access license agreement) on my television set (it's nicely framed, easily viewable by anyone within 50 feet with a direct line of sight) that basically states that all advertisement must be stripped from the programming provided to my device.
Failure to comply with the PPDALA will result in fines of $1,000 per violation.
So far, DishNetwork owes me $3,312,232 from this last week alone...
Can't wait to get that check....
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Maybe they are planning to give away the hardware since it is advertising supported. The concept works with software - why not try it with hardware?
Would you accept and use a malware infested TV if it were free or very cheap?
I'm tired of all this double dipping! They should be trying to recover any potential lost revenue from the cable companies, or the companies that make recording devices, not the consumers. Well of course it would get passed onto us in some fashion but they could call it something like a "Fast Forward Tax."
How would they handle the increased product placement that is going on in TV shows? Would the Pepsi cans be blurred out? Would they negotiate some special agreements with the 100+ networks that run ads, each and every one of them, and then give them a cut of that subscriber revenue each month? How could they possibly legally negotiate that and afford it?
I don't see this happening unless they got some kind of exclusive - like you could only watch Lost or Desperate Housewives on their TV. HAh, not happening.
Lane Myer: I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it.
They made things better!
I think your assumption may be less than perfect and your language unclear.
If we start at the end, there is nothing wrong if charging for something that used to be free or we never needed. This is the basis of any economy. For example, one may have never considered the need for a king, but when the king comes a knocking, one needs to pay the dues. In modern terms, it is simply a matter of adding value. This might be as simple as bottling city water so that consumers can get cold fresh water instead of just our fo the water fountain. My favorite is that one now buys prefab Rice crispy treats. I mean how lazy can be that they cannot spend 15 minutes and 1/10th the cost making a batch of these things. For another example, how about selling land that your grandparents got for free?
Then there is the issue of 'real wealth'. If you mean cash or cash equivelents, then I must respectfully disagree. There is nothing less important to the long term economy than the accumulation of paper wealth. Spain of the 19th century learned this. The only real wealth is the technolgoy of a culture. This allows the culture to grow and prosper even after the easy money goes away. I mean look at the US today. We have a lot of people who use to make good money, but because these people never had any real wealth, just money, they are totaly screwed when the factory shuts down or the mall closes.
What is wrong is that we are patenting the basics of wealth, the technology and ideas, instead of the physical manisfestations of those ideas. Patents are supposed to be for things that are real. This allows for the free growth of wealth because then others can build equally real things that are similiar but different from the patented thing. This is the basic of the patent system. In exchange for a period of exclusive right, you expose the technology so that others may build upon it and increase the wealth. By patenting this that are not real, we are back to valueing monies over wealth.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Lets see- they puff smoke out their rectum about you 'having' to watch adds. I stick with the old POS semi-analog tv, VCR and hit fast forward, They waste money. I dance in the streat. One down 3million to that's what I say. I meen honestly. Cartoon Network has adult swim with adds that I don't mind as much, they even sometimes put up old seasons for free or a nominal fee without adds, so does comedy central. So I say: untill my old POS VCR gives out (or I can't get tapes and or netflix): Let them waste all the money they want.
This needs to be presented to a court. A very high court, where it will win.
I suggest you read Slashdot
I wont be buying a 52inch screen TV from you!
Maybe a 50 inch one then...
Personally I HATE it when people channel surf during the commercials... I always end up missing the first 30 seconds of the show after each commercial break
Just another crappy blog
Like most large electronics companies, there seem to be a lot of heads working in different directions at Philips. They may be the ones to have invented this ad-locking technology, but they were also among the first to mass-produce DVD players that can play DivX and distribute them to the mass American audience. So in effect, they are helping to make it possible for you to give up on all the ad-saturated channels of media and entertainment and just download those episodes of Lost from BitTorrent sites (like you do now).
Breakfast served all day!
I've already patented the boolean flag which can turn any feature on or off in any system.
Yes, I do own software that I've purchased. I don't own software that I've licensed. The distinction is a contract.
A wide variety of restrictions and conditions may be included in a sales contract. But a contract requires that all parties to the contract understand and agree to the terms in advance of the exchange of value. I've licensed software under a true contract, and was required to read, understand, agree, sign, and date that contract before I received the software or before the vendor would accept my money.
If you buy retail software, that's an ordinary sale, not a sales contract. If you gave your money and received the software, then the transaction is final. No EULA revealed after the fact of the sale changes the nature of the sale. Click-throughs and sealed envelops do not represent agreement, because the time for any agreement passed once the goods and money changed hands.
That's why the average consumer doesn't care what the EULA claims. They understand that the typical EULA is a fiction, that a so-called License Agreement lacks the one true indication of agreement: acceptance of the terms shown by the exchange of value. The deal is done when the exchange is made. The terms are those that were disclosed and agreed to in advance of the exchange. It's a simple concept, even children understand agreement must occur before the deal is closed, and changes after the fact are not binding.
There have always been, and will always be, those who profit from creating complication and confusion around business transactions. Some swindles and frauds are illegal, some trickery and sharp practice is just inside the law. But it's all dishonest.
If Philips discloses, in advance, that others will keep partial control of the device, and buyers read and agree to those terms, then I have no problem with such informed consent. Just as I can sell my house with the condition that I will have the use of it for the rest of my life. The price will reflect those terms. What I can't do is agree to sell, take the money, and then later tape a notice on the front door that entering the door indicates acceptance of additional terms. It's the buyer's door once I take his money, and he can do whatever he wants with it. It's no different than taping that notice on every door in the neighborhood. I can claim it, but my claim is without merit.
Are you serious?!?!?! I already pay for T.V. why should i have to pay even more to watch it the way I want. Better yet why should i even have commercials in the first place when I pay for my T.V. service to begin with? Screw Philips for pissing me off again.
you never really know.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I for one would like to remind Phillips that the customer is always right. I also think they should learn about the Slashdot effect.
If you would like to join me, use the information below:
Terry Fassburg
N O_PRODUCT_SELECTED
Vice President
Brand Communications
Email: terry.fassburg@philips.com
http://www.feedback.philips.com/dedicated/news/
http://www.feedback.philips.com/consumer/?param1=
-- Ghodmode
Or else I'd really be pissed.
Besides, technology that forces ad viewing can also be used to force the viewer to listen to long diatribes read from Atlas Shrugged.
Great! You mean companies are going to loose tons of money over this?
... Oh. You didn't by chance mean the word "lose," did you?
Where can I get some of that loose money? Let me know ahead of time, and I'll bring a wheelbarrow or two so I can cart away the cash!
Wow, this is really different from the way companies usually behave. Usually, we all accuse them of profiteering and charging too much money. It is so nice and refreshing to see a company finally take the opposite approach and give away tons of money for free...
Or
Look at what's happened in the UK to telephone advertising. We have the TPS now implementing the EU privacy directive, which is like the US `do not call' registry but with teeth. No exemptions for politics, charities, pre-existing relationships, and real sanctions against transgressors. Combined with XD I get about one junk call a year, and the same's true for the >60% of the population who have signed up. So the call centres are left chasing those that haven't, and as their call volumes rise, people become motivated to also sign up. It's a death spiral for outbound telemarketing.
Now TV has a similar problem. There just aren't the channels that will deliver 20m. Dr Who got 8.5m on Saturday night, and ~10m is about the maximum anything will get. The young middle classes, to whom you want to advertise, are off watching BBC3 and BBC4 (no adverts) or surfing the web or down the pub. The more you try to lock such people as _are_ watching TV into seeing your adverts, the more you will encourage them to do something else. And people with money, or with technological chops, or with alternatives (ie the very people you want to see your adverts) will flee first. You're left with a desperate weight of adverts pressing down on one poor sod in a long-term ward in Scunthorpe.
I'm always amused by empty shops with pounding music, who assume that as they have X customers at 90dB they'll get 2X customers at 100dB. Er, no: the people who have the money can't stand the noise, so turning it up loses you business. Same principal: you need to think outside the box, not just turn up the volume.
ian
we're PAYING for the electricity, and probably are PAYING for the cable or satellite dish the show is coming in on?
If my TV forced me to watch an ad I'd throw it out the window.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
pay a fee ... ...to go back to skipping adverts.
Gee, this was the idea behind cable tv, commercial-free television for a fee. We see how well that went.
A technical illustration straight from their patent: this!
Free as in mason.
You: ... you can turn it off?!
Philips: Yes. We have that privilege.
I would like to offer Philip's a big F*CK YOU!!! There's a reason why I channel surf and it's usually to avoid ads. Doesn't it seem somewhat wrong to try and force someone to do something against their will?
As for watching tv. Channel surfing is already next to impossible (well except to the BBC) as they all sync their ads to run together.
Sadly it doesn't have the effect the tv producers hoped for. My tv watching has dropped to near zero over the last few years.
Not out of any idea that TV is worthless. I am normally a person who laps up mindless entertainment. I just don't have the attention span to last the 5 minute commercial break.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
if you were smart enough, you would have patented this idea to prevent anyone else from doing some so utterly disrespectful of other people. The best part about patent submission, is that you just have to come up with idea and you don't have to actually make it. Seems like a good fit with
Any ideas for such patent submissions?
Hey democracy lovers, add Quorum as a c
So they are gone mad.
I think that they do not want me to see their tv programs... And however I think that I will not buy anymore anything realted with Consumer Electronics from philips...
Bye
Philips is being sued for the sum of $10,000,000,000 by a group of 1,000,000 disgruntled customers. After being forced to watch multiple ads in a row while channel surfing, they got angry and punched a hole through their television sets. Many of them had hospital bills of up to $5,000 due to static electricity from inside the television set.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Oh goodie! A perfect signal to detect for other uses! Like a commercial skipper instead. There is a GOD. The road to heaven is paved by bad intentions.
-=[ place
We know that content providers want this feature. However, no-one but Philips can implement this because of the patent. This means that, if the content providers want the non-skippable ads so badly, they have to play ball with Philips. And you bet they will ask for a hefty fee.
Because of this patent, non-skippable ads are actually less attractive than before!
Actually the way to approach this is not to limit your ability to skip add, which they only allow for a fee, but to reduce your cable bill if you do not skip the adds, seems much more consumer friendly to me.
There was a very good drama documentary by Equinox here in the UK called "King of Chaos",
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0143342/ in that, when the adverts were about to come on they said "you are on payment plan B, there will be 5mins of adverts".
Very thought provoking documentaring BTW and well worth watching.
Not yet... not yet.
The scary part is not "having" to watch adverts, but losing control over equipment in your apartment.
I own a Daewoo DVD+RW recorder, with internals by Philips ..... not quite a straight rebranding job, but as near as damn it is to swearing. One of its many cool features is that you can insert your own chapter markers at random points, either while recording or subsequently. If you are watching and recording at the same time, one keystroke on the remote gives you an extra chapter mark. Just put one at the and of each piss-break and when you come to play back the recording, press NEXT at the beginning of the adverts to skip straight to the end; or {a little more effort but maybe worth it if you are recording a whole series on one disc} put two markers fore and aft, and set the whole chapter of adverts to "skip". It is mentioned in the manual that this provides a way to skip commercial breaks in home recordings.
Now if there is some kind of signal embedded in the broadcast that indicates that adverts are being shown, that could just as easily be used for skipping advertisements as for enforcing them. What's the betting that the Philips lab boys will cook up a little firmware hack that gives you fully-automatic advert skipping, so you can record your programmes unpolluted?
Meanwhile, I urge TV licence payers all around the world to write to their MPs, and try to get "enforced advert viewing" banned.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong.
Nooo what viewers will think is that Philips are a bunch of money grabbing whores and they'll avoid there technology like the plauge.
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
You guys are lucky.You are able to flash ans play all discs etc.
For me,Iam stuck my Panasonic DVD player - which plays Dvd's well,but goes bonkers with CD-R - It simply cant play them !!!! Damn.
Wish there could be a hack for that ! Oh yea,its a real limitation....
Would appreciate any workaround.
Why does yahoo do this
This is Philips. Fuck the masses!
Hey, this works.
Would appreciate any workaround.
Buy a different DVD player. Many go for only ~$40 or so now.
Yup, DVD shrink is a really nice app, and the reauthoring tools are excellent, allowing you to adjust the compression ratio on individual segments of the disk- so you can go easy on your movie, but compress the extras that you want to keep really hard. Nine stars from me.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Could this be a sort of odd anti-patent by Philips? As in, patenting the idea first, such that someone else who might actually use the idea, cannot?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
I bet Philips patented this to protect us customers from any other company trying to use it.
Until there's a law against going to the toilet during the commercials.
Your subject title suggests that you find forced add viewing "offensive".
Your screen name is 'Yahweh Doesn't Exist'. I'm sure many people find that offensive.
If you're happy to be offensive, I would suggest that you accept being offended, otherwise you're just a hypocrite. Learn to take what you give.
It's funny, but offensive people are the ones that seem to kick up a fuss about being offended most of all.
Let's see how quickly they can retract that unholy idea.
Surely a Bloodwork TV chair......
(Absolution Gap)
I find it absolutely facinating that this kind of technology would actually pass, exhist, yes, not pass into production.
In the long run, or short, we will end up paying for this technology, so will will the advertisers and then us again.
When we buy new equipment, part of that will pay for the new technology, then the advertisers will pay to advertise on the technology, then we will pay not to see the adverts...
Can any one see who the clear winner is... Philips!
Or any other person that buys the technology from them, thanks to great patent rights. In a way I am really sorry that I didn't think of that, give people what they don't want, force them to watch it, them charge them to take it off something that they didn't want in the first place...
The patent is for adding the flags, with plans to leverage existing devices supporting MHP.
m hp_products/
I've not seen a discussion yet of which existing devices support this, though the article seems to imply most set top boxes.
From www.mhp.org it appears the US equivalent is GEM (globally executable MHP)
and the list of devices allowed to use their logo is here:
http://www.mhp.org/products_and_conformance/find_
If I were some company looking to buy advertising, I'm pretty sure my first question would be:
... the most accurate possible method of targeting ads.
... only charge advertisers for watched ads ... a'la google adsense.
"would this even work?"
I'm not speaking of the technology here, I'm speaking of the end result.
That is
"will more people actually buy my thing because they were forced to watch a commercial they would have otherwise skipped?"
Methinks no. The reason commercial skipping is so damn popular with the kids these days is because commercials are BEING IGNORED ANYWAY. Fast forwarding through them just allows those on whom the advertising is wasted to IGNORE THE COMMERCIALS FASTER.
At least from my own personal experience, I can say that while I'm FFing the commercials, if I see a commercial that I'm actually interested in, I'll back it up and have a look.
So maybe a little free advice for Phillips: flag the commercials if you want to, but you're not going to sell advertisers on this unless you do something like prevent outright skipping, but allow FFing. Under that scenario, you're letting the end user filter his or her own commercial content
Hell, if Phillips really wants to make some cash with this, capture data about which commercials are actually watched
I didn't hear that Niger and Upper Volta have DMCA...
Losers.
Philips as far as I have been told, have produced a TV that actually skips commercials automatically some time ago...
Could this be a Patent to protect the consumer? or perhaps themselves?
It is likely that Philips would register such a patent in order to make it possible to maintain free choise and keep selling the previously mentioned technology...
Let's see what the deal is before jumping the gun!
Switching channels ist not really usefull anyway. In my experience, most channels have about the same time the first commercial is shown and since they start the main movies at the same time, the effect is, that channel hopping results only in seeing different adverts in most cases. Of course this varies for different countries and is only valid for my personal experience. Another reason that I found is, that if you switch channels, chances are that you are finding another movie that is right in the middle anyway, so the question is, do I rather watch a movie in the middle of knowhere just to avoid a commercial? If I want to watch the original movie, then this is not really a solution. What I do is that I started to have a book on the table, and when the commercials start I continue reading. And in those cases, where I really want to see a good movie, I go for the DVD anyway because it is just to plain annoying. Since I'm not so keen on watching TV, most of the time, it's not a big problem for me. I rather go to bed and read a good book, which is much more rewarding anyway.
I always thought that patents should protect original ideas to cover for the expenses that are required for research. When I read patent proposals like this, they are a prime example for what patents should NOT cover. I mean, how hard do you have to think to come up with a flag like this? Basically this is already done in games, to skip cutscenes, only the other way around. I really don't see why a patent should be granted on such trivial ideas. That completely defeats the purpose of patents.
I have no problem accepting patents for stuff where a company actually has to invest money and months or years of work, but ideas like that ar so trivial that you don't even have to think more then two seconds to come up with this solution, if somebody describes this "problem" to you and how you could resolve it.
The only good thing this may have is, that you would have a reliable advertising flag. This was already in that older stream (forgot the name) to automatically program VCRs but no channel used it. Since this flag most certainly would be used, you could cerate a counterdevice, that does the opposite, unless it is not protected by some stupid laws.
I think it's safe to assume the inventor doesn't have small kids.
"Dad, I want to watch Nemo!"
"Dad, I want Nemo NOW!"
"In a minute son, just got to wait for the ads to finish"
"Now! Now! Now! NOW! NOW!"
"It'll be here soon, just be patient"
"IwanNemo, IwanNemo, I.. I Bwaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Daaaadddddd, it STILL hasn't started"
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Hmmm - another manufacturer on my personal do-not-buy list. No more Sony, for the obvious reasons. No Belkin, because they made routers that deliberately didn't route. No Dlink or Netgear, because they abused the goodwill of NTP server providers. Various others, for GPL violations / screwing customers / abuse of the common good. And now, no more Philips.
Rule #1: Don't feed the bears!
Oh well, I'll bet there'll be more than one manufacturer emerging from Taiwan or China who will be happy to supply my future hardware needs...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
That thought just occured to me.
So you switched on your TV just now and it happens to show a commercial. Because of the lock, you have to wait about 10 minutes. Problem is, that this channel wasn't even the one you wanted but you still have to wait. Now if you are like me, I know some of the numbers on my TV but not all. Most of the time I switch up/down the channels until I reach the one I want. So finally you are "allowed" to switch to the next channel, which happens also to show an ad right now and you have to wait another 10 minutes. If this happens again you can easily have to wait 30-40 minutes, in worst case, just to switch to another channel and by the time you reach it, what you wanted to watch is over. Not that I really would wait so long, because if this happens two times in a row I would switch off anyway. Nice.
Well said commodoresloat!
:P (>_<);;;
:(
Of course the antidote for commercial interests would be to simply put out non-annoying, conscise, informative, even entertaining ads like they did in the early days of TV (where it was mostly product placement within the sponsored shows).
Or make em all like minimovies like The legendary 1984 Apple Computer ad.
Now that's how to do an ad!
The only other ad in the same league would be the (in)famous Where's the Beef? ad for Wendy's with the late great Clara Peller in it.
By comparison, the new ad series for ask.com Googlelike search engine interface is just plain tiresome....
Had the producers juxtaposed the ad content/message with 2001 somehow properly, tastefully, and with the blessing of Stanley Kubrick's estate, they would have had an ad classic on their hands.
Oh well, missed opportunity.
All TV watchers aren't mindless sheeple....
Unfortunately, the advertisers are convinced that most of them are....
...unless the mfgs get rid of the RCA analog A/V jacks on the newfangled adskip-proof A/V gear....
:P
One more reason to hang onto your working legacy VCR/VHS/BETA systems and media....
VHS will have to be banned/outlawed wholesale in order to make such a 'transition' to adskip-proof appliances complete....
Food for thought, folks....
[Remember, in a capitalist society, 'market forces' are meant to regulate the efficiency of the market.
What we are seeing now is the free market, trying to recorrect its inefficiency (loss of profits).]
There may be 'market forces', but, in areas where the "product" is protected by grants of copyright or patent, we certainly do not have the "free market" you refer to. This is not the "free market, trying to recorrect its inefficiency." These are markets where the goods have government granted monopolies protecting them.
Just food for thought.
all the best,
drew
----
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/187924
Bahamian Nonsense
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
thats some hardware im gonna go buy right now!!
Just an interesting note, seeing as you talk about rewarding the content creators and mention you're in Australia.
You must have noticed how all the commercial stations here have taken to crushed/split screen credits in the last year or so. Have you also noticed that the one bit they don't interfere with is the production company and studio/network tails that appear after the credits?
So, they're quite happy to trample all over the people who were actually physically involved with the show - hell, they're quite happy to trample all over the actual show with banner advertising, station promos, and logos - but God forbid anyone interferes with the moneymen's "fame"/branding. Regardless of your point of view, that pretty much answers your "How does one award (reward, treat) the content creators?" question.
Like shit.
FWIW, I encountered my first self-service checkout while on holidays a few weeks ago. So I queued up at a staffed checkout. The second thing the checkout chick said (after the obligatory "hello, how are you today, will you be taking this with you?") was "why didn't you use the self-checkout lane?". My answer? "So you can keep getting paid"...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Will be the day I stop watching television.
This is such a stupid technology.
What will they do next exactly? Force you to buy the product?
If my remote stops working when I'm watching ads, I'll simply change the channel with a brick.
I hate adverts, especially adverts for Phillip's products.
they are kn0bh3@ds
"Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong."
How about viewers who initially (and subsequently) think that this is TOTAL CRAP?!?!?
At least I can go make popcorn and use the bathroom while the ads are playing. I would be totally for some hacker coming up with some way to defeat this. It just stinks that we pay our hard earned money and are forced to sit through commercials.
I think that there should be electrodes attached to the genitals of the executives and whenever we try to fast forward through the commercials they get zapped a little bit. THEN maybe they'll understand. >:o
Fine with me. Nowadays, the movies between the ads suck anyway...
But we have a technical term for selling property without turning over control, and that term is 'Fraud'.
You are wrong:
# intentional deception resulting in injury to another person
# imposter: a person who makes deceitful pretenses
# something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage
What they are doing is not bad. Less people will watch this stupid box.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Turn the shit off and read a book, plenty of good ones out there. The boob tube will steal your soul (what's left anyway)
Walking down the Path of Evil to the Ultimate Precipice of Slippery Slopeyness:
I've had this idea for a long time. Instead of making you watch a commercial or making commercials louder to make them harder to ignore, you get the choice to watch the advertisements or not. But before you can proceed to the rest of the content, you have to have some interaction with the set to make sure the advertisement made an "impression."
Examples:
- Click the advertiser's logo (logo moves so no auto-clicky)
- 4x4 game of "concentration" to match logo, product, company name, etc.
- Multiple-choice questions about the advert
- Click on character "talking heads" from the advert to make them reiterate parts of the message
- Characters act out a bit, then you get to choose "should Clara (a) Use Brand Z to bake her cake or (b) use SuperMix Cake Mix- with Real Cake Bits(sm)!" then react appropriately to your choice.
The possibilities are endless. Make it entertaining enough (and short enough), and the "user" (aka the "used") won't mind much at all.
Or people could just be sensible and not buy the stupid thing. Lack of customers typically has a profound effect on marketing.
I usually hit mute during commercials: my son (five-years old) has even started doing this when he watches cartoons....
Maybe I should patent 'hitting mute to circumvent forced viewing technologies'?
#include "cunning_plan.h"
I thought you were talking about that Shark Tale movie.
I don't remember what I did wrong, but I was about 3/4 of the way through a Madagascar ad of similar length when I rebooted my Xbox, forcing me to watch the whole thing again.
And the movie sucked anyway.
There is an advertisement (from BREIN) shouting out "Piraterij is een misdrijf!" (Piracy is a crime!) on quite a few DVD's sold in the Benelux. The ad shows a thief stealing a bike, a purse and a cellphone while showing a girl who started downloading a movie from the Internet. The analogy is completely ackwards and utter bullshit.
To my belief, when copying a movie you break COPYRIGHT laws, but they did not loose any physical DVD's from it by someone stealing it and putting it in his/her pockets; taking it home. This way of not-skippable-propaganda makes me mad, since now, anyone who uses P2P seems to be a criminal in that short advertisement, because, downloading is a crime, because, you are a thief! It doesn't only make you a thief but it also shows you will get a bad image from "stealing" movies.
I've got 4 DVD's with DVD-ROT; the underside is in perfect condition but both movies hang when going to the second layer; 3 DVD's that hang at the MAIN MENU, when pressing "Play movie" it hangs; you need to use the chapter selection to start the movie.
I've downloaded 3 movies and burned them on DVD; since; I've already bought the movies *and* the movies are *ALL* having the same problem. (Fear and loathing in Las Vegas is one of them). Each one of those disks I already replaced at the shop, they all got the same problem (distribution error)? They do cost 12-23 euro / piece.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
After 20 seconds with google, I present this proof of prior art: (yes, it's work safe)
So this week we hate Sony AND Phillips? We're running out of TV Manufacturers...
California Penal code 518-527 mentions something about this. I believe that it's considered illegal in a few other juristictions, as well.
Thanks, Cheers, etc.
Pi Ran Out
Another thought: What if they prevent me from changing channels during an emergency? You know, it's getting nasty outside so I try to check the weather on a local channel but have to watch 5 minutes of commercials instead. I miss the tornado warning and get killed. Or worse (for them), I get injured and am still around to sue.
Did it ever occur to the manufacturers they may go to far? I am sure someone else has already said it, but... I will never own a device that forces me to be advertised upon.
I remember, in the 70's, cable was touted far and wide; no commercials, switch to another channel when one does come on to avoid them. Now, the marketing geeks think they are gonna shove a commercial down my throat?
That takes standing in front of me and attempting the act. 8-)
I am not sure if anyone has really thought this through. What is to prevent a channel from turning the flag on for ALL of its transmission. Once you start viewing the channel you can never change to another channel! Even limiting it to a particular show would be almost as bad.
I would literally remove the television from my house completely than to allow that kind of rights-infringing in my house. This infuriates me to no end, I would never allow that in my house. I would switch hardware, cable service (cable vs satellite, etc) or anything else required to avoid that kind of facism in my household.
It's bad enough I can't chapter-forward past previews of some OTHER movies when watching a DVD that I purchased, but now they're telling me that I might not be able to switch channels during a commercial? What's next, a chair that keeps you chained down during the commercial? Its ridiculous. Hopefully this goes absolutely nowhere, and I'd like to see their stock drop drastically in response to this kind of idea, if only to help curb future facist ideas at a minimum.
And they said zombies weren't real!
So long as television can provide critical and timely information, this "feature" is a threat to public safety. Keep this in mind when they go to congress and try to have it mandated.
Who gets the fees? Philips? Or the network who is showing the ads? Or the people trying to sell a product? The people who paid money to show their ads shuold at least get some if not all the money, they wouldn't be getting a return on their products as much if people block the ads.
Thanks to you, I have to get a new keyboard!
You may not have noticed, but ad's are largely synchronized across channels. What does switching buy you?
I'm patenting "Viewers losing interest due to Phillips destroying the entertainment value of a product". I'll call it the "Golden Egg Laying Goose" patent.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
So what's next forced popup viewing complete with quiz?
Wont surf on windows any more, but now my keyboard is Deutsch. Thats ok. Small price to paz for mz linux. All mz yäs are zees and mz qzotes are accented aäs. Whatever. People abandon perfectly working VCRs and DVD and CD recorders for the small so called benefits of ...tivo... boxes. The only reason that I can see for this is a minimal convenience benefit. This looms large. We have a soft and lazy populace who highly resent getting out of their chairs for anything unless it is to order the wife to get them a beer ß0?`)=hook me up baby== and now they are going to be taken advantage of because of that fact. These foolish, soft, and lazy boobslaves of the slavetoob are now going to get their just deserts for leaving a perfectly good and working technology for a piece of crap that generates no hardcopy and can be edited, erased, added to with propaganda, etc. Now that even MORE malware possibilities are emerging, why dont these victims refuse to be victims anymore. Simple toss those pieces of technocrap into the refuse bin. Better yet, why not have large demonstrations like the illegal Mexicans do. They are about to buffalo a cowardly congress into allowing an unprecented and treasonous sellout of all of you by clearing the way for an invasion of America by over 100 million non=english speaking foreigners. Why dont all tivo owners demonstrate! Have them gather in the public squares under the so called nondenominational statue and build huge bonfires of the hated tivo boxes. Have the demonstrators all wear blue or brown shirts. That would scare the RIAA out of their MPAAssßes. Then follow this up with a nationwide refusal to buy them. That is called a boycott. Your grandmothers and grandfathers knew what that was. Tellyour folks that the tivo is the new krugerrand. They will understand! Dig out your VCRs and DVD-CD recorders and old media and use them. Better yet, buy new media at the stores before the monopoly boys make them -illegal! That media can be used over and over. Especially the DVDRWs and the CDRWs. I have tapes that are over 15 years old and still good. Taped all the old star trek shows.
But then I bought all the box set DVDs too so I could see them better than my snowy recordings from a television station 60 miles away. That brings up another point. A snowy station miles away can still come up with a clear as crystal and pristine broadcast flag signal. THAT they would make SURE never faded with distance.
Wow, what an incredible idea you've stumbled across. The next time I'm ready to sell, I'm going to paint ads in and on my house, then paint over them with a slow-fade paint. Hidden in the sales contract will be wording that disallows the new owners to paint over the ads. Bru-haha!!! I'll be rich!!!, rich!!! I tell you.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I'm going to wait a couple of months after release and then file a lawsuit claiming damage to my hearing from an unsafe product. Since I can't turn it off, this should be an easy win.
Indeed. I'm impressed. A technology that forces me to remain seated and eyes glued to the screen.
http://virtuelvis.com/
"The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
... stick it to the man. They not only make a crapload of money but they're just getting greedier by the day. Till they realise that without us (the customers) they would be worth nothing...
Ya, it's called "your fucking monthly cable bill"...
Well I must say that with what all those a****es are doing nowadays with media stuff I'm glad and proud to 'steal' music and video by using P2P apps. Seriously, it's my way to
Now not only are we gonna get charged for a monthly cable which is already up to the roof but we'll need a premium subscription to skip commercials. How stupid. I guess I'll get a Samsung TV, hopefully they won't be as retarded!
Try CD-RWs... you might be surprised...
"The bottom line is that commercials give you the ability to watch content for free"
I pay for the content in cable TV, and still, its stuffed with ads...
I don't feel like it...
... but a completely different thing than what's in place for DVDs now, as far as shady ethics. It's one thing to make you watch commercials on a network that you don't really pay for, or one that you are paying less than a dollar a month for, but it's a completely bogus deal to make people watch trailers for movies they don't care about on DVDs they purchased or rented. Ever notice that on some (if not most) DVD players, the remote won't work in these instances?
You can't skip ahead on most new DVDs.
Replying to reverse my mod typo! I meant funny, not overrated!
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Other than a handful of decent shows, TV is generally a waste of time. Cable is too expensive. Make it a nuisance to watch TV and people will turn away. When TV time drops to a low percentage of discretionary time, the household cable subscription will be called into question. Ditch the TV set, ditch the cable and the stupid set-topbox. Send it all off to the landfill and get a life.
I don't let my kids watch much TV. But they would do it all day if I let them. With "help" like this from Philips, the problem will be at least partially solved.
So. . . Phillips has taken out a patent on a method of pissing the customer off. Most of the time advertisments appear where there is "entertainment." Who wants to watch TV to get pissed off? Or a movie? I get aggravated when the DVD won't let me skip the "introduction section" which has those four year old out of date "previews of comming attractions."
I sure hope we get to see who licenses this "technology."
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
"If we don't watch these it's like stealing TV!"
I remember, back in the very early 1990s. It seems like another age entirely now. Apparently the Ministry Of Information took hold of this and "corrected" the history, as I haven't been able to find any information on it, and it appears to me like *nobody* remembers these devices.
Another interesting thing is that, at around the same time these TVs were being advertised, the Phillips CD-Interactive device was being advertised as the new fangled way to access information. I was really considering purchasing one, but instead I decided to buy an Encyclopeadia Britannica. Shortly after I discovered the Internet. Information? Yeah, I've heard of it.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
If only I had mod points, I'd be throwing one in your direction. +1 insightful.
But, while we're on the subject I anyone else as sick to freaking death as I am of the popup/banner adds that run on nearly all television shows now? I mean some of them take up nearly 40% of the screen with extremely annoying animations that are specifically designed to take your attention from what you are watching. Isn't it bad enough already with close to 10 minutes of commercial time during what's supposed to be a 30 minute program? We regulate every stinking thing else in the US, why not this shit?
I was watching a subtitled documentary last night and these insipid popups kept coming up over the narrative making it very hard to follow. And this was on PBS of all places. If anyone ever develops a popup blocker for television, I'll be first in line to buy it. Thanks for nothing FCC.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
They won't do this, but I could respect Philips is they patented this, and then refused to license it to anyone, thereby preventing this terrible idea from coming to fruition.
My life has improved in ways I could not have predicted since I've thrown out my T.V.
...do I have to say this? If we keep beating up on pirates, we may as well get used to Global Warming being here to stay.
For the love of God, why can't we be nice to pirates? Our childrens' future is at stake!
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
The shows I enjoy, cater to the most unusual cosmetic bots and the most obnoxious personalities you could imagine. Hey, guess the fuck what?
The industry is failing because your advertisers see greater potential in artificially created personalities (heavily left, with a modest right influence). A majority don't like it and are leaving,... you could almost call what has and is happen now a crime.
It doesn't matter because offence outweights the content.
God damn jack-asses...
You have a bright idea, but no-body knows how to make it work. A few million dollars worth of research might crack the problem, so you go looking for backers willing to risk their money.
If the research program fails they lose all their money. What is in it for them? If the research program succeeds they get a patent on the invention and get their money back and then some from the royalties.
That is the classic pro-patent argument - patents underpin a business model that funds researchers to work in their labs to crack commercially important problems. But stop and look at what defensive patents do to this. If the big players don't have to pay royalties, because of the power of their defensive patent portfollios, then the capitalists who funded the research lab cannot get a proper return on their investment.
Defensive patent portfollios don't simply mitigate some of the ill effects of a patent system, they actually undermine the rational of having a patent system at all.
Most companies have realized that having good customer service or listening to customers at all is pointless. There are so many people that will buy junk that the small percentage that actually give damn enough to actually do something about buying crap is pointless. They outsource support to India and for those who call and are offended by the lack of good support are just left hanging. Most people will just keep doing business so who gives a damn. There are so many people to sell to that will buy based on price or availability alone that they can sell as quickly as they can manufacture. Do you really think that Sony or Panasonic really give a damn that a few hundred or thousand people are pissed at them? No way they still rake in the millions/billions.
From the other side, can I as an advertiser sue for a slice of that blackmail pie?
Mmmmm...pie.
This is nothing more than an advertising DRM.
Advertisers that have paid to have their ads placed with the movie are going to be able to force you to watch them. Just like music DRMs that won't let you make any copies or if you can make copies the quality of sound is greatly reduced.
The question should be: Should anyone be allowed to force another into using specific hardware, operating systems, or applications when they are selling or giving away their product?
Unless I'm an employee of said company, renting their product, and/or been convicted of copyright infringment or pirating, I don't think be able to force their DRM on me.
People who skip commercials are stealing television in exactly the same way as soldiers wearing effective body armor are stealing veterans benefits.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
in there instead of pressing return.
Millions of eyeballs will thank you.
Man, you really need that seminar!
At Wesayso we care about out customers...
We know what you want!
We know what you need!
We know where you live!
Anyone remember that?
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
What could happen is everytime some politician makes a speech that his party considers "important", his party pays the network to disable the volume, channel, and power controls for all the TV sets.
(Unless, of course, you give a small donation to the party.)
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I dont know how they will get customers to buy this... I Certainly wont buy something that Blackmails me into watching ads. Good idea for marketing, bad idea for sales.
I can tell you that If they put that junk in any of my devices, that device would soon be gone. Plain and simple.
Why? I already hate seeing Hollywood's unavoidable "commercials" (trailers- funny how we still use the name for what they used to be...) on DVDs now. That was what I bought the DVD player for in the first place - to AVOID them! It was originally one of DVD players big selling points, but it's not now.
And if these same companies try and force legislation to the affect that it has to be on everything we buy - well then, goodbye entertainment industry, I'll be switching to a different less commercially sponsored and annoying form of entertainment! I've already moved off of broadcast TV, and am hardly on Cable TV now, you know...
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
If you can pay a fee and skip commercials, shows like The Apprentice will be reduced to "This week's task is..." *skipping* "...you're fired."
In fact, about the only places I can see this flying are hotel rooms and other locations where the people using the devices are not the ones who purchased them.
Philips will license this out to every other company in the industry and then not use it. They will all pay money to Philips, and then go out of business due to angry consumer backlash!
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
Even worse, what about infomercials?! Accidentally click into one of those and never leave that abyss. Reset the TV? Damned inconvenent I would say.
Now would this happen? Probably not, but one of the purposes of slashdot is to blow things out of proportion. That's our job.
BTW, with DVD's I have had some luck fast forwarding through the commercials. More than once my mother has been really cheesed off by the fact that the DVD player appears to be busted/malfunctioning.
----------
Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
i.e. if a patent exists for "fooing" using bars and another exists for "bazzing" using quxes, you can still patent fooing with quxes.
Dizzy?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
... with shit slathered on top.
there will be sense police. Any articles found to stimulate the senses will be removed and the offender put in jail...later prison will be skipped and execution on site will be enforced....doth sayeth the Cleric.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
Breaking your remote control is just a prelude...
You know how on a lot of DVD's, when you put them into a DVD player they won't let you skip the FBI warning?
Seems to me they shouldn't be able to patent something everyone and their mother has been using for a decade.
Truer than you realise:
Source ArticleCorporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Thanks for the laugh. However, the patent for an "Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrigugal (sic) Force" seems to have expired.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
This is truly funny! Thank you for making this whole thread worth reading.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
If something like this is actually put into effect, the next step would be an inability to turn off the television, like in North Korea. Government buildings and doctor's offices already have this going on. It's the next step in the ladder. Now is the time to stop watching television, while you still can. You'd like to think people would revolt if this happens, but everyone's so damn busy these days there's no time to put much attention into real problems. Besides, aren't you an American?
Since modern tyranny shall be governed by secret police, computer programs and human modification, everyone would do best to turn their backs on television before it is "unpatriotic" to do so. Kinda scary how everything from Fahrenheit 451 is coming true.
...Is a patent for [..] "a device that cuts out your eyelids" said one Phillips executive as he vanished in a cloud of his own vomit.
You may be on to something. Considering that Philips is big in surgery equipment, patient monitoring and razors such a device would fit perfectly in their product portfolio.
Does this mean that when I am forced to view an ad, I can now tell philips to go sue the perpertatiors? If only...
Interesting Point, but I never said free market, because it's not a free market.
Part of those market forces are Government imposed rules such as copyright.
As much as you don't like them (and I think a lot of slashdotters sound like post modern hippies), business making profit is the cornerstone of a capitalist system. The reason is, is it provides a measure of reward for effort expended, unlike pure socialist systems.
People need to eat, and feel valued by the amount of value they add to society. Money may be a poor measure of this (ie caring for an invalid adds value with little monetary reward), but it is an easily tradeable and exchangeable commodity.
If society really doesn't like the rules, then the democratic system of govt. should allow them to change the rules... but hey thats a whole 'nother argument!!!
If you don't like the rules, your free speech allows you to lobby, protest, or heavan forbid not consume.
46137
How can you patent a bit to tell a device to do something?! That's not an invention! The method by which the device does its thing, fine, but patenting the message that tells it what to do? WTF?
Interesting observation. I've noticed the splitting but not the branding being full screen.
One thing business types are taught; if you don't have a distribution network, you are dead in the water.
Distribution networks take a lot of effort to put together and maintain, thus cost of entry is high.
Some artists get very well funded, like think friends or sienfeld.
As for the 'checkout chicks'.. one reason we have prosperity, is gains in efficiency. People displaced from one job end up somewhere else in the system. The system becomes more efficient, cheaper to run, costs less to the user.
46137
[Interesting Point, but I never said free market, because it's not a free market.]
If you check your post again carefully, I think you will see that I quoted you fairly accurately. You mention 'market forces' and also the "free market" (different paragraphs.)
Don't jump to too many conclusion about my hippie tendencies. I come from a family of several generations of business men and women. I have run my own business for many years now. I am not against businesses making profits. Not at all.
However, I do get a bit miffed when people call markets where the goods are protected by government granted monopolies "free markets." I get even more miffed when people selling such goods call on the government to "let the markets decide" when others call for the government to reign in their abuses.
[If you don't like the rules, your free speech allows you to lobby, protest, or heavan forbid not consume.]
Gotta love that free speech! Hey, perhaps I can even grow my own...
So, after all this... I like free markets. Goods protected by copyrights or patents do not take part in free markets. Do free market champions believe that the free market can come up with a better solution to the problem of funding innovators than the government granting of monopolies? If so, I have not seen them doing so widely. I am happy in many ways with the concept of copyrights and patents, just not with a lot of the current practice.
all the best,
drew
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http://www.ourmedia.org/node/187924
Bahamian Nonsense
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
That way TiVo can add a new feature that will guarantee to skip commercials! Or MythTV... or anything else. In short, if you're an advertiser that adds this flag... Philips users will be forced to sit through (can people Mute or will it turn up the volume 50%?) your ad, but everyone else can completely skip it with ease!
I love it!
If you can find it, have a listen to the BBC radioplay 'Metropolis'. It paints a scary picture of a society where advertising is run by the 'Department of Product Insertion' - they call people at home, and citizens are required by law to respond to the calls:
Consumer: (Phone rings) What?
DPI: Thermatron, use Thermatron, use it, Thermatron. Hang up and I'll redial you for a month.
Consumer: I just told you..
DPI: Thermatron, use Thermatron, use it, it's great! Use Thermatron, use it.
Consumer: I won't..
DPI: (SHOUTING) USE THERMATRON! THERMATRON! USE IT! THERMATRON!
Consumer: OK, I'll give it a try, but..
DPI: Thank you for your time!
We already accept crap like this and nobody complains about it at all. Doesn't your DVD player disallow you from skipping past the federal warning about copying, redistributing, etc.? I keep pressing FFwd! FFwd! and an annyoying little "Stop That" symbol pops up until the warning screen passes.
idea. That should kill that philips screw driver job.
But, I can see the hardware coming with a EULA and the cable provider transmitting or mailing subscribers a service update notification saying that if you plug in or buy and plug in the hardware, you agree to the new TOS starting on the next page... it'll probably tell you you agree to renounce "channel surfing"...
I wonder what this will do to TIVO stock, now that Slash the other day asked about TIVO being a takeover target. Maybe Philips will license this tech to TIVO or tell TIVO they can watch themselves die after a certain number of subscribers cancel service...
Hmmm... this patent could be really nasty and painful if Philips actually puts it into use. I hope they just SIT on the patent to prevent others from actually using it, but I suspect they have plans to wring money from the advertisers more than from TIVO, since it seems to me the advertisers have more momentum to PUSH ads than TIVO has to remove the ad insertion... Maybe that's a half-baked thought, but....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Well what if I want to pause and rewind the commericals? What if I actually watch TV for the commericals and not the shows? Isn't that invading on my 'fair use'?
My appologies.. I should have re read my own post.
I was wrong saying 'free market', perhaps.. 'capitalist market' would have been better...
46137
You guys are focusing on the negatives. What about the positives of this Philips plan?
/. will reign as the main point of interaction! Those of us currently in the know will be as gods among men!
When they do this, there will be a huge surge in hacker-technology that substitutes for the functionality of the device *without* the ad-view enforcement. Normal people will be compelled to become geeks to evade ads!
Either that, or Philips will go out of business because everyone buys competitors' technology. So here's the plan: for us geeks to become gods among men, we have to start putting Philips' competitors out of business.
Ready...?
Go!
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
No problem.
One thing though. Since the markets in question already have the government deeply involved in them, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the government step in to fix problems that arise, there being no free market at work to fix the issues.
all the best,
drew
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http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123
Tings - a copyleft novel (first draft)
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I'm going to patent a device which plugs in to the Phillips device and automatically strips all the ads, using this same technology. Sure, people could just not buy Phillips products, but we've all seen how intelligent the general public is. If it's a choice between paying Phillips to remove the ads or paying me slightly less to achieve the same effect, I'll clean up big time! Thanks, Phillips!
I could easily imagine traveling individuals, staring at a screen while in a sitting/waiting room, or in a hotel room, offered by the cable network provider (for cheaper, or free-ish) as long as that feature is present and enforced.
I should think of all the most horrible things a company could use DRM and the likes for, and start filing patents.. then suing the shit out of anyone who tries to implement them. Imagine a world where the consumer uses the patent to detour technology from overrunning their sensibilities.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin