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Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like (www.theverge.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Samsung warned us last month that ads were coming to the giant Android tablets embedded in its Family Hub smart fridges. I've been eyeing mine ever since — and the first ones are about to arrive. Starting November 3rd, the $2,000-plus connected fridges will get a new widget that serves up ads, Shane Higby, head of Home Appliance Business at Samsung Electronics America, confirmed to The Verge.

The ads will be part of a new widget on some of the smart fridges' "Cover screen themes" (like a tablet or smartphone's home screen). The widget, which Samsung shared with me ahead of today's announcement, has four rotating screens. One showing news, one calendar events, one the weather forecast, and one with "curated advertisements."

This widget appears at the bottom of the fridge's screen and rotates every 10 seconds among the four screens. You can swipe to rotate through them faster. Samsung says the widget will only appear on the Weather and Color theme screens, not on the Art or Album ones. A new Daily Board screen also won't have the widget, but it will show an ad in one of the six tiles.

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[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What they're doing should be outright illegal in most countries; it's equivalent to changing a contract unilaterally after both parties signed it.

Update to [COMPANY NAME]'s Policies

Yes, this should be illegal, but it's already common practice. I'm just hoping that enough of this will eventually get people to stop buying these products, and hopefully we can start seeing some real legislation against it in some countries.

Additionally, I'd strongly advise against buying any sort of "smart" device, unless you're pretty sure the benefits of connecting your toaster to the internet outweighs all the risks.

This should be obvious at this point. "Smart" just means "internet-connected", and we already know what happens to every device that connects to a remote server during regular operation: telemetry (and not the nice debugging kind but the "what do you use" kind), and advertisements.

Including corporations and crackers

The "crackers" part of this confuses me. Samsung is a Korean company. The chairman's name is Lee Jae-yong (이재용). Samsung NA's CEO is Yoonie Joung. Maybe I'm misreading this?

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yes, this should be illegal, but it’s already common practice. I’m just hoping that enough of this will eventually get people to stop buying these products, and hopefully we can start seeing some real legislation against it in some countries.

Problem is, people won't stop buying them. Often "smart" products are sold comparatively cheaper, because the business expects additional profits through ads; and if Samsung is going this way (ads on your fridge), it'll do it.

The “crackers” part of this confuses me. Samsung is a Korean company. The chairman’s name is Lee Jae-yong (이재용). Samsung NA’s CEO is Yoonie Joung. Maybe I’m misreading this?

By "crackers" I mean "black hat hackers". The sort of people who'd love to drop some ransomware into your fridge and then say "if you don't want me to brick your fridge, pay me a few bucks".

(After some websearch, apparently Americans use it as a derogatory term. I wasn't aware of that.)

[–] Nils@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow, I might be old, I guess language changes. Crackers used to be for hackers that focus in bypassing security, like in "code crackers". It seems it is still used for gaming scenes that reverse engineer DRM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_warez_groups - and the colour of the hat, just how they used their skills.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 22 hours ago

Yeah, the terminology is currently a mess. Not just due to language changes, but also synchronic variation - different people using the same words for different meanings, at the same time. But for me, it's a mix of motivations, methods, and morality:

hacker strictu sensu - like a kid who dismantles toys to see how they work. Sometimes they break things, but they want knowledge the most. Usually grey hat, sometimes white hat, only rarely black hat
cracker - like a kid who bashes toys with a hammer. Not interested on the knowledge itself, except when it allows them to bully other kids. Almost always black hat.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

By "crackers" I mean "black hat hackers".

Ok I just misread it then, sorry!

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

No problem - miscommunication happens.