If the cable companies want to play this game, then let's hit them where it hurts, in the pocketbook. We can return our Tivos (which will cause a significant revenue loss) and go to DVRs and VCRS. The greed and lack of ethics of corporate America never ceases to amaze and repulse me. Will they ever make enough profit that will be enough? Do they have any sense of what's right or wrong.
If the cable companies want to play this game, then let's hit them where it hurts, in the pocketbook. We can return our Tivos (which will cause a significant revenue loss) and go to DVRs and VCRS. The greed and lack of ethics of corporate America never ceases to amaze and repulse me. Will they ever make enough profit to satiate their greed? Further, do they have a concience. Do they have any sense of what's right or wrong.
If you leave the room then I'll just patent a device that ensures that commercials are played at a volume level twice that of the shows it's embedded in. Oh wait, I guess they're doing that already but I'd bet the patent office would still grant it.
I think its important for consumers to band together globally and boycott companies that patent or invent such technologies. Consumers need to send a strong signal that these types of things will not be tolerated.
Is this guy serious? Phillips chooses to develop a product that will force me to watch commercials or pay up. I'm sure this will blow up in there faces. The advertiser could spend millions of dollar to try to get me to buy but I dont expect JVC, Sony, or even Pioneer to assist in that. My view of Phillips is forever changed and no silly disclaimer will change that.END
I guess Philips forgot how pissed off consumers were when Sony launched their new and improved content management rootkit. Keep it up Philips. Yo'll just drive consumers to your competitors.
If the DVR cannot be fast forwarded, may I should invent a device to pause the human brain during commercials so that we will never know that they aired ;-)
Must be uncontsitutional, for two reasons, selling a locked audio visual multi channel device, breaks the fair use principal under common law, further such a system would represent a cruel and unusual punishment as well!
Oh well, it does show what the control freak moguls in the audio visual industry, have in store for us mere mortals in the future, where ownership and fair use rights no longer exists.
The only small problem with this form of censorship, is the on/off button on the wall, your friendly neighborhood library, with real books, and the future computer controlled home media center, with it's attendant library!
It would appear control freaks,by selling these dumb devices, are now rapidly de-evolving with time, back to age origin in the slime, and thus do not fit the "intelligent design criteria!" so popular with unintelligentsia of creationists, from the bible belt these days!
Sadly it seems, stupidity rules in this new century!
For example, does it seem fair that I have to buy the same cd twice to get it to play on both my MP3 player and my car stereo. The RIAA has effectively undone the internet revolution and rolled the clocks back to the early 1990's. Looks like tv execs want a bigger slice of the pie, just like the music execs; it was inevitable.
"The invention gives viewers a choice to watch an entire movie with or without ads." Yeah, right, like I did not have that choice already. Like I can't watch ads when I want to.
Seems to me they "give" us a choice we a) had already b) don't want in the first place
They ought to be punished for this kind of dishonest misleading information! Shoot the inventor!
I believe they're patenting the technology, not necessarily a self-contained box. The goal being to license the technology to cable and satellite companies, who in turn will include the technology in their mandatory set-top boxes.
Wonder what they will do about the 10-15% of households that don't subscribe to any kind of television service and instead opt for just over-the-air programming. Are content owners going to start requiring local broadcasters to scramble the signal so that only folks with set-top boxes can see it?
Believe me there will be someone that will. But, I'd also bet there would be only one ever created. Once the people found out about it sales would drop so radically that the great sucking sound would be their stock imploding. We look at records for the fastest climb - how about a new one for the only thing to ever exceed terminal velocity.
I hate ads. They are everywhere. When listening to the radio, watching tv, surfing the net, even when I watch a dvd or even go out and see a movie. Now some vidiot with nothing better to do makes a device that will force me to watch the ad or pay a fee? It's my tv, I choose what I want to watch or not and forcing me to watch a comercial won't make me buy their crappy product. If the commercial doesn't hold my attention, why would I even consider buying their product?
I see myself watching alot more iptv or reading more books.
It's just a patent people. Basically it's saying that Philips thought of it, figured out how to do it, and Voila! If anyone else tries to make a system that does it, they'll have to pay Philips royalties! I'm not a patent expert or anything, but just because someone holds a patent doesn't mean they need to go into mass production.
Plus the article said that the patent is for a technology that gets worked into set-top boxes. It's like a V-chip. The manufacturer of your DVR or cable/satellite box would need to get the technology and implement it. THEN, the advertisers would have to get on-board to enable it. PLUS, the networks themselves might not let the advertisers do it!
I think that if this technology is actually put out in the field (which I doubt), very few advertisers would choose to use it. Why? Well the points of boycotting products and angry consumers have already come up. Unless the entire industry says 'let's stick it to 'em!' and runs this feature on ALL commercials, and ALL televisions are somehow infused with this technology, there's no way an advertiser would try to use this technology for any length of time.
That is, if any of the set-top or DVR manufacturers actually agree to install this technology in their devices anyway. It's just a patent people, no need to get all up in arms about it unless someone decides to start using it.
There are alot of stupid things patented every day. If people get this worked up over a patent, I can't imagine any company risking the PR backlash of producing an actual product with it.
who read and understood the article. It appears most people have just read the headline (misleading) and started flaming Philips. Honestly I am tired of these sensational headlines from CNET. Seriously, why couldn't they have used a more descriptive title for this piece of news?
Do you really think that they when through all the trouble and expense of inventing this technology, applying for the patent, just to.. what NOT use it? Not sell it to the highest bidder? Does that make any sense?
I believe there's some confusion? Philips is NOT talking about placing this technology inside consumer products for us to buy at Circuit city (they're not THAT stupid). This device goes to the networks; i.e.. ABC, FOX, etc. You SEE the difference? Philips doesn't have to get our approval or disapproval at all. The article clearly states that it will be the "Broadcaster's choice to use this technology". Not us. We'll have NO say in this matter.
I think we can all agree that Hollywood will use this device, without a second though.
Now I understand why my Philips TV and the Philips TV's of many, many other consumers have turned out to be total garbage and Philips refuses to do anything about the situation. They'be been concentrating on a global health initiative - By creating this device they will prevent people from watching so much television and by creating junk TV's that burn up after a month or two of use they are ensuring that we will all get up and go do something and be more active - therefore more healthy!
Seriously though, Philips has turned into a poor run company, producing poor / useless products for the consumer and thereby alienating their consumers. If you think I am kidding, do a search on Philips Televisions and see just how many hits you get with people that have TV's that have burned up after months. My old TV was a Philips that lasted for over fifteen years... my new philips should have lasted at least that long... Just goes to show you where most of these companies are heading nowadays.
Here is a link (sorry, I've not posted here before, but I know you can do this) <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/2004/12/11/television-repair" target="_newWindow">http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/2004/12/11/television-repair</a>
Haven't any of you noticed that some DVDs have commercials at the front that refuse to allow you to use the remote to bypass them?
The feature was originally intended to make sure you saw the FBI and Interpol warnings and couldn't claim "I just skip those" as an excuse for piracy but the less honest (hello Disney) vendors have put it to less savory uses.
Disney has started marketing their DVD's with something called "QUICK START" (might have the name wrong - but close) which allows you to just jump right to the movie... Therefore I don't know that it is fair to include Dinsey in will all the other Studios...
I have seen some of the arguments earlier and I do think there might be a legal argument in this. However, I'm not a lawyer and in today's age, I'm sure there are lawyers out there already putting together info on this case to prepare to file. All they need is an icon to push it. Any volunteers?
Personally, I absolutely hate the idea and would like to see the inventor of the technology paraded naked through the center of town drenched in honey surrounded by a group of bears.
Here is the call to action for all hackers. Here is your opportunity to provide a service to the populace that most people may actually like. Teach us all how to rip out the technology from our future boxes so it can't affect us. Find the chip and give us detailed instructions on how to remove it.
Finally, I would love to see the populace for once lobby congress and industry against this move. When will the citizens of the USA finally quit whining about everything and actually try to do something. This could be a good cause for us to tell industry to quit trying to nickel and dime us for everything. And the big companies advertising their crap can go jump in a lake because they already make billions off of us.
Hey, let Phillips or anyone else try to sell a TV or DRV that does this. It'll sell about as well as a car that automatically turns into the drive-thru of every McDonalds along your route.
Sorry, but I can't see any reason why I would pay a cable/sattlite company a monthly fee and hardware that removes ths choice of watching or not watching commercials. There isn't anything on tv that's so good I'd sit through commercials for it.
As others have posted, hello analog connections. get out the VCR or mythtv and timeshift it yourself. Otherwise I'll wait until it comes out on dvd and put it into my netflix que.
**NEW** Upgrade your box today. With this new device, someone who installs a workaround to the software on our commercial boxes will be detonated. Just so we won't kill them immediately though, you have ten seconds to run like hell.
**NEW** Upgrade your box today. With this new device, someone who installs a workaround to the software on our commercial boxes will be detonated. Just so we won't kill them immediately though, you have ten seconds to run like hell.
Philips COUNTERMEASURE Tamper with your box our ass.
Manage updates with the Download App
-bathroom breaks
-snack runs
-surfing the net
-checking on stuff around the house
-etc
boycott companies that patent or invent such technologies.
Consumers need to send a strong signal that these types of things
will not be tolerated.
Boycotting the advertisments will make Phillips' tool not only expensive for them, but unusable:
Turn off the TV when commercials start.
Let's see what "tool" they will have to stop us doing that.
to pause the human brain during commercials so that we will never
know that they aired ;-)
Oh well, it does show what the control freak moguls in the audio visual industry, have in store for us mere mortals in the future, where ownership and fair use rights no longer exists.
The only small problem with this form of censorship, is the on/off button on the wall, your friendly neighborhood library, with real books, and the future computer controlled home media center, with it's attendant library!
It would appear control freaks,by selling these dumb devices, are now rapidly de-evolving with time, back to age origin in the slime, and thus do not fit the "intelligent design criteria!" so popular with unintelligentsia of creationists, from the bible belt these days!
Sadly it seems, stupidity rules in this new century!
Seems to me they "give" us a choice we
a) had already
b) don't want in the first place
They ought to be punished for this kind of dishonest misleading information! Shoot the inventor!
mark d.
Wonder what they will do about the 10-15% of households that don't subscribe to any kind of television service and instead opt for just over-the-air programming. Are content owners going to start requiring local broadcasters to scramble the signal so that only folks with set-top boxes can see it?
I see myself watching alot more iptv or reading more books.
Plus the article said that the patent is for a technology that gets worked into set-top boxes. It's like a V-chip. The manufacturer of your DVR or cable/satellite box would need to get the technology and implement it. THEN, the advertisers would have to get on-board to enable it. PLUS, the networks themselves might not let the advertisers do it!
I think that if this technology is actually put out in the field (which I doubt), very few advertisers would choose to use it. Why? Well the points of boycotting products and angry consumers have already come up. Unless the entire industry says 'let's stick it to 'em!' and runs this feature on ALL commercials, and ALL televisions are somehow infused with this technology, there's no way an advertiser would try to use this technology for any length of time.
That is, if any of the set-top or DVR manufacturers actually agree to install this technology in their devices anyway. It's just a patent people, no need to get all up in arms about it unless someone decides to start using it.
I believe there's some confusion? Philips is NOT talking about placing this technology inside consumer products for us to buy at Circuit city (they're not THAT stupid). This device goes to the networks; i.e.. ABC, FOX, etc. You SEE the difference? Philips doesn't have to get our approval or disapproval at all. The article clearly states that it will be the "Broadcaster's choice to use this technology". Not us. We'll have NO say in this matter.
I think we can all agree that Hollywood will use this device, without a second though.
Seriously though, Philips has turned into a poor run company, producing poor / useless products for the consumer and thereby alienating their consumers. If you think I am kidding, do a search on Philips Televisions and see just how many hits you get with people that have TV's that have burned up after months. My old TV was a Philips that lasted for over fifteen years... my new philips should have lasted at least that long... Just goes to show you where most of these companies are heading nowadays.
Here is a link (sorry, I've not posted here before, but I know you can do this) <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/2004/12/11/television-repair" target="_newWindow">http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/2004/12/11/television-repair</a>
The feature was originally intended to make sure you saw the FBI and Interpol warnings and couldn't claim "I just skip those" as an excuse for piracy but the less honest (hello Disney) vendors have put it to less savory uses.
Personally, I absolutely hate the idea and would like to see the inventor of the technology paraded naked through the center of town drenched in honey surrounded by a group of bears.
Here is the call to action for all hackers. Here is your opportunity to provide a service to the populace that most people may actually like. Teach us all how to rip out the technology from our future boxes so it can't affect us. Find the chip and give us detailed instructions on how to remove it.
Finally, I would love to see the populace for once lobby congress and industry against this move. When will the citizens of the USA finally quit whining about everything and actually try to do something. This could be a good cause for us to tell industry to quit trying to nickel and dime us for everything. And the big companies advertising their crap can go jump in a lake because they already make billions off of us.
As others have posted, hello analog connections. get out the VCR or mythtv and timeshift it yourself. Otherwise I'll wait until it comes out on dvd and put it into my netflix que.
Upgrade your box today.
With this new device, someone who installs a workaround to the software on our commercial boxes will be detonated. Just so we won't kill them immediately though, you have ten seconds to run like hell.
Upgrade your box today.
With this new device, someone who installs a workaround to the software on our commercial boxes will be detonated. Just so we won't kill them immediately though, you have ten seconds to run like hell.
Philips
COUNTERMEASURE
Tamper with your box our ass.