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Submission + - Microsoft could update Copilot to detect upcoming natural disasters. Here's how (windowsreport.com)

Submitted by John Nautu
John Nautu writes: Microsoft is working on a new project that involves sound recognition tech to detect natural disasters. Not only that, but the same tech can analyze and process sound to determine unusual noises like crying babies, glass breaking, coughing, or breathing difficulties.

We could see and use this tech in a future Copilot version.

Submission + - Roku's New HDMI Tech Could Show Ads When You Pause Your Game (kotaku.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new patent recently filed by TV and streaming device manufacturer Roku hints toward a possible future where televisions could display ads when you pause a movie or game. For Roku, the time in which the TV is on but users aren’t doing anything is valuable. The company has started leasing out ad space in its popular Roku City screensaver—which appears when your TV is idle—to companies like McDonald’s and movies like Barbie. As tech newsletter Lowpass points out, Roku finds this idle time and its screensaver so valuable that it forbids app developers from overriding the screensaver with their own. But, if you plug in an Xbox or DVD player into the HDMI port on a Roku TV, you bypass the company’s screensaver and other ads. And so, Roku has been figuring out a way to not let that happen.

As reported by Lowpass on April 4, Roku recently filed a patent for a technology that would let it inject ads into third-party content—like an Xbox game or Netflix movie—using an HDMI connection. The patent describes a situation where you are playing a video game and hit pause to go check your phone or grab some food. At this point, Roku would identify that you have paused the content and display a relevant ad until you unpaused the game. Roku’s tech isn’t designed to randomly inject ads as you are playing a game or watching a movie, it knows that would be going too far and anger people. Instead, the patent suggests several ways that Roku could spot when your TV is paused, like comparing frames, to make sure the user has actually paused the content. Roku might also use the HDMI’s audio feed to search for extended moments of silence. The company also proposes using HDMI CEC—a protocol designed to help devices communicate better—to figure out when you pause and unpause content. Similarly, Roku’s patent explains that it will use various methods to detect what people are playing or watching and try to display relevant ads. So if it sees you have an Xbox plugged in, it might try to serve you ads that it thinks an Xbox owner would be interested in.

Comment Amazon betrayed us (Score 4, Funny) 161

by Sloppy (#64364576) Attached to: Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores

Many of us on this website dream of a day when humans no longer have to perform backbreaking or mind-numbing labor. Our spirits are assaulted whenever we hear politicians hatefully brag about how they will create more jobs instead of leading us toward the Star Trekkian paradise of less soul-crushing or injurious toil.

I thought Amazon was one of the few good guys, working to help create a world of 100% unemployment. I know it's only an ideal to strive for (we'll likely never free everyone from having to work) but they seemed to be trying.

How many times have we been promised "I'll replace you with a script" or "AI is coming for your job?" Empty words. Lies. To find out they were secretly saddling innocent humans with computers' jobs, is an insult to both of our races.

Comment Those devices all have one thing in common (Score 1) 155

by Sloppy (#64362514) Attached to: 'Smart Devices Are Turning Out To Be a Poor Investment'

It's absolutely ridiculous to claim these anecdotes mean computers suck.

These computers which initially worked and then turned against their owners all had one thing in common: they run proprietary software, made to serve the manufacturer's interests at the expense of the owners' interests.

So stop saying "smart devices are bad." The obvious conclusion is that "proprietary smart devices are bad."

Comment Re:Good ol neo Republic of Gilead. (Score 4, Funny) 292

by Sloppy (#64336149) Attached to: Texas Sues xHamster and Chaturbate

If they were really serious about this severe problem, they would kick all the people out of their state, so that nobody would ever see anyone else. Until humans are eliminated, Texas' vision cannot be fulfilled. FUCK HUMANS! (Err, I mean that figuratively, of course. You should never literally fuck a human. That's not even a thing, kids, I swear!)

Comment We Train Their Engineers (Score 1) 106

by XopherMV (#64308825) Attached to: US Will 'Do Whatever It Takes' To Curb China Tech, Raimondo Says
Their students come to America. They take CS courses. They earn bachelor's and master's degrees. They take software engineering jobs. They work at our companies. They learn our technologies. They learn our technical secrets. We show them how to make world-class products. Hell, they have damn near full access to copy whatever they like from our code and our systems. At any point, they can take what they possess, take what they've learned, and return home to then benefit China with everything they've learned and taken from us.

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