With its new watches’ “Audio Intelligence,” “Live Rewind,” and “Siri Recap” features, the company is straddling the line between accessibility and utility on one side and what starts to feel like invasive technology on the other.
“Siri Recap,” uses ambient listening to “take high-level notes” of your conversations, which can be reviewed in the Siri iOS app. These notes will automatically generate a title, summary, and key points based on what was recorded and summarized by AI.
If I understand correctly, some (or most?) TV remotes now have mics built in. The stated aim is allegedly so that the user can quickly search something up without tediously typing, but the surveillance opportunity seems pretty glaring. A smaller extension of Smart TV’s, I guess.
Yup, and that’s why many of us don’t hook our TVs up to the internet
“Many of us” is likely still the minority of all Smart TV buyers though. This shit is already normalized without anyone having realized it until now.
That’s why it’s important to educate people, it doesn’t have to remain normalized, once they know they usually understand how fucked up it is.
Each one teach one
I haven’t had a TV in years, so I’m kinda hazy on what the main concern of Smart TV’s would be. Are they recording you via camera and speaker, is that it? If so, is there a way to block that?
If it’s moreso that they’re gathering your watching habits, it’s hard for me to see that as alarming. Er, I think.
Microphones are their typical method of choice. Typically embedded in the remote (which can be replaced or removed), but they’ve also found hidden microphones inside the TVs from certain companies (I think Samsung got caught doing that one?)
It’s also not uncommon for a TV to secretly take screenshots of whatever is on your TV (computer, PS5, home movies, you name it) every 30 seconds or so, and then transmit the screenshots back to HQ (mostly to be sold to data brokers).
I haven’t heard of one with actual cameras in it (yet).
So yeah, if you get a TV, do NOT connect that shit to the Internet, do NOT accept the user agreement, and don’t trust these MFs.
All media enters my TV through my (secure) Linux computer, or my Sega
Thanks for the extensive comment. I guess theoretically if I was going to get a Smart TV, I’d first look in to whatever surveillance it contained, and what my options were to disable such.
Methinks it would be a shame to lose out on internet connectivity.
That’s the cool part, you don’t have to lose out on internet connectivity, you just want to control the transmissions that are going out.
I have my computer plugged into the TV, that’s how I do the small amount of streaming I do, watch my files, play most of my video games, etc. I just use the inputs like an old school TV, which means no waiting for apps to load, or any of that shit.
That’s my setup, and just about everything I need
It has all the benefits of a TV that is connected to the internet, and then some (my computer loads things much quicker than the TV itself could, for example), and it has none of the drawbacks because I fully control the OS and the browser, and everything else… and my mouse works better than my TV remotes ever did, lol.
If you use a Windows computer you’re still getting spied on tho. You could take preventative measures to stop that, but it’s easier to just switch to Linux. It’s not too difficult to learn, and you’ll appreciate the logical construction of the system.
I actually did get a new Win11 mini-PC last year to beat the Win10 deadline, and intended to get Linux set up as a dual-boot, but still haven’t gotten around to it yet.
The last time I tried to install Linux (loong time ago now) there were driver issues. I guess I’m scared that I’ll screw something up, and my backup PC is old and uncertain at this point.
What I would recommend is either getting a new hard drive and swapping it with your current drive, or creating a back up disk image of your current computer on an external drive. That way your old computer is safe if you mess anything up. (You probably won’t need it tho, it’s not as hard/scary as it initially seems).
Linux has very recently become much easier to use. The current version of WINE (a program which allows you to install and run Windows programs on a Linux PC) is incredible, so you really shouldn’t lose anything capability-wise in the switch either.
If you just add a Windows partition on your current disk, Windows 11 will randomly delete the entire Linux partition (I’ve read about this happening to multiple people). So you’d want a clean installation of Linux to avoid Microslop’s spyware and malware.
I still have the old hard drive with my Windows 11 system on it, but I never needed to use it, and I’ve been switched for long enough that I would not use it now… I should wipe that drive and put it in an enclosure to be an external
Thanks for all the suggestions and info. One thing to consider is that I’m physically disabled, and fooling around with swapping drives and whatnot is not something I really want to mess around with at this stage. (and yes, I used to be a tech, haha)
You’re not a fan of the stick idea, I take it? It seems like it would be a good, low-energy way for me to give Mint a test drive…
I had the same experience long time ago: attempted to install, failed in figuring out how to mount a hard dive and gave up. Last year i tried linux mint, loved it. Easy transition, minimal learning curve.
Ive also found that if i had issues with windows the error messages were crap ans the web was filled with garbage advice. On linux, i find whenever i want to do something the support is better, advice is clearer and when you need it there is much more clarity on what is working or not working.
Grab yourself a usb stick, get your linux distribution of choice on it. Most distributions allow you to boot your machine from the stick to try out linux with zero impact on your existing machine. You can check ifndisplay, sound etc works and if you like the feel of it. If you do, install is a few clicks away using the same stick.
Ah, nice idea! I do have a 128gb stick laying around that I haven’t used yet.
So, you’re happy with “Mint”?
Make sure you don’t get LG or any of their products in that case. Gamers Nexus did a video about their extensive spying on paying customers.
I doubt those things are phoning home at all. Constantly or regularly recording and sending the audio to a chromecast or whatever would drain the batteries pretty quick.
Constantly, yeah. But the idea that the potential is there and can theoretically be used against you at any time without you being able to stop it is the concern. What if there’s a backdoor, for example?
I’m not particularly paranoid, but to have an increasing number of devices & gadgets with this potential is naturally going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.