Interracial couples: now in your kitchen!

[Jack Layton]

Samsung makes ads on $3,499 smart fridges official with upcoming software update

Update introduces two ways for the fridges to show ads.

arstechnica.com

After kicking off an unpopular pilot test last month, Samsung made the practice of having its expensive smart fridges display ads official this week.
The ads will be shown on Samsung’s 2024 Family Hub smart fridges. As of this writing, Samsung’s Family Hub fridges have MSRPs ranging from $1,899 to $3,499. The ads will arrive through a software update that Samsung will start issuing this month and display on the fridge’s integrated 21.5- or 32-inch (depending on the model) screen. The ads will show when the fridges are idle and display what Samsung calls Cover Screens.

As part of the Family Hub software update, we are piloting a new widget for select Cover Screens themes of Family Hub refrigerators. The widget will display useful day-to-day information such as news, calendar and weather forecasts, along with curated advertisements.

Samsung also said that its fridges will only show contextualized ads, instead of personalized ads, which rely on collecting data on users.
The Verge reported that the widget will appear as a rectangular box at the bottom of the screens. The box will change what it displays “every 10 seconds,” the publication said.
The software update will also introduce “a Daily Board theme that offers a new way to see useful information at a glance,” Samsung said. The Verge reported that this feature will also include ads, something that Samsung’s announcement neglected to state. The Daily Board theme will show five tiles with information such as appointments and the weather, and one with ads.



The ads experience, though, seems to have improved somewhat from the earlier pilot testing in that users can use their fridge’s settings menu to opt out of seeing ads. If users set their Cover Screen to show integrated Art or Album themes, then the display won’t show ads. But doing this would prevent users from taking advantage of the new widget’s helpful features.
Samsung fridge owners can also opt to avoid the latest software update altogether. However, they would miss out on other features included in the software update, such as a UI refresh and the ability for the internal camera inside some fridges to identify more fruits and vegetables inside the fridge.
The changes are part of a frustrating trend among smart home products to change the user experience in unwanted ways after people have already made their purchases. It also shows Samsung’s growing reliance on ads with its smart home products, even after downplaying the idea that that would happen. As the companies behind smart home products look for new ways to grow revenue, deliver new features, and build demand beyond selling expensive hardware that people rarely buy, customers are increasingly bearing the brunt, which, in many cases, includes dealing with more ads.

 

[border_humper]

100%.

 

[Hirudinea]

Try putting ads on my fridge ya bastards!

 

[ChevChelios]

In 30 years we'll all be living in pods with screens for walls like in that episode of "Black Mirror":



This is apparently a real patent held by Sony:

 

[Rusty Canuckleford]

That’s more like the holo-TV room from Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”.

If you don’t get the reference, you should read it.

 

[ChevChelios]

I read a lot of Bradbury short stories as an adolescent (and remember greatly enjoying them) but that was 40+ years ago. The only one that I still recall vividly is "Frost and Fire", because it seems like a parable of life on Earth -- life is incredibly short and full of strife while the search for technological solutions to its difficulties is arduous and sometimes frightening, etc.

The idea of a "holo-TV" room does remind me of the scene in the movie version of "Fahrenheit 451" where the guy on the wraparound TV screen turns to the woman watching it and says "what do you think, Linda?" which I still occasionally use as an in-joke with my wife whenever we find ourselves around giant display screens that are intrusive and/or slightly intimidating

 

[Hirudinea]

@ChevChelios

If you're too lazy to read it.


View: https://archive.org/details/bradbury-the-veldt-1959-cazabon-olsson

 

[Rusty Canuckleford]

@ChevChelios I read it in high school, but it’s so much more relevant now than it ever was when it was first written.
Over-dependence on modern technology will devour you, literally.

https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/storiespdf/the-veldt.pdf

 

[ChevChelios]

@Hirudinea: You'd better not be calling me "lazy", you jumped-up little... ah, I can't be bothered to finish this comment

 

[Rusty Canuckleford]

@ChevChelios Lmao no, that’s the message of the story.

 

[notatruckdriver]

Anyone who buys a fridge with a screen deserves what they get at this point

 

[ChevChelios]

Imagine going to get a midnight snack from your fridge and being hectored by some frizzy-haired mulatto woman on the importance of regular mealtimes

 

[Rusty Canuckleford]

No, if anything they’re going to start showing you targeted ads for junk like snickers and mountain dew. There’s no money in making people healthy.

 

[Rusty Canuckleford]

Smart fridges for fat idiots.

 

[border_humper]

For people who need the fridge to track the number of apples and lemons they have because they can’t mentally track it themselves.

I work with someone who gets the family’s groceries delivered weekly. I can’t imagine letting someone else do something so critical to my family’s well being.

 

[ovarieasy]

"Your eggs, shampoo and milk have been substituted with Red Bull by Jamal."