Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.
This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.
I also don’t use wireless mouse or keyboard. For me, it’s mostly about having confidence that it will work - and that if it doesn’t work then there are fewer points of failure to think about.
For example, if my keyboard isn’t responding… that could be because the computer has frozen and become unresponsive, or the keyboard is broken. That’s about it. But with a wireless keyboard I have to consider that the keyboard itself might be working but the wifi is not. Perhaps the keyboard’s radios are damaged or turned off; perhaps the battery is flat; perhaps the computer’s radios are turned off, or the drivers have failed; or perhaps some device is interfering with the signal. … I find that these thoughts just fill my head with crap that I don’t want to think about or worry about. In particular, I’m sick of dealing with batteries. The cable doesn’t bother me, so that’s a better solution.
I remember one time I was using a wireless device, and it seemed to work fine except when I was sitting at a particular desk. I spent ages trying to work out what was going on before finally working out that my computer monitor was blocking the signal. Adjusting the position of the monitor, or the device, or the thing it was talking to fixed the problem. Changing the wavelength also fixed the problem. … Wired just doesn’t have any of those variables.