That's interesting, I bought an Hisense Vidaa TV and it works fine without an Internet connection. It actually very politely asks if you want to connect to a network but lets you skip its terms and conditions and use it with networking disabled. When changing inputs it still shows the smart tv dashboard with Disney+ recommendations stuck in time somewhere in 2024 but it otherwise works fine. I haven't let it do any updates, but I am not using any of its built-in apps at all.

I also have an Amazon Fire TV that has a "dumb mode" that essentially disables its smart features and lets you use it for regular TV and local inputs only, which is a nice option.

Shame that LG went down that route.

Cool, glad I never connected my TV to the Internet.

Did someone just reinvent Enlightenment?

Sounds like he planned to double his money through some quick investments and then lost it all. Ironically, this would make a great Netflix movie.

These presenters remind me too much of Mr. Meeseeks.

"Hey, look at me, I'm giving out awards! I don't give a shit what they're for, what's important is that I'm the one giving them out!"

The "luster" was such a thin veneer that it cracked and fell away long ago... years ago, in fact. Now anyone can see through it to its rotten core.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.penny-arcade.com%2Fn...

Heaven forbid, you might have to show them your Slashdot account!

Surely an author would want to actually allow a user to read the book they purchased on whatever device they want? It's convenient to be able to download it as a PDF, and might make it an easier sale if the user doesn't have to own a kindle or install the janky Kindle app.

But I suppose there's still the lingering fear of losing potential sales because a reader can just copy and share that PDF with his friends. It might keep some authors awake at night. The DRM does present a (not insurmountable) barrier to copying and sharing.

I'm not sure I buy the conclusion that this will potentially increase DRM use, though... if you're already selling a book without DRM, it would already be trivial for a reader to convert it from an AZW to PDF or Epub, this just saves that extra step.

It's so bad, it's good.
The medium is the message.
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
I always thought big mac patties were made of worm castings.

The best thing is, if you never go into the store, you'll never know! What a great scam. Bravo.

I assume "the pentagon" includes the over 2 million military personnel who need to access their email

I thought everything was a dollar!

Yes, although it's not like it's constantly streaming your camera to the cloud. These things are basically Bluetooth webcams connected to an app on your phone, so they only send snapshots or short video clips when requested. Local processing is minimal, and if you're offline you can only use basic voice controls to take pictures or record videos.

I thought Satellite GPS was a "legacy sensor"--location tracking is primarily done via Wifi AP and Bluetooth tracking now.

Get with the times, Modi.

So you can open and close your garage door from your phone, of course.

Gee, I hope they don't do anything untoward with the company. Without Eventbrite, how else will people find events that fuel their passions and enrich their lives...