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Do Samsung TVs actually do that or is it internet bullsh*t?

• jerf 2y ago
  No, that's not how you do it. Cunningham's Law requires a positive assertion: "Samsung TVs have NEVER spontaneously connected to Wifi. That's just internet BS." I know there are patents for it. There are patents for a lot of things that never make it to market. I'm not sure whether this has ever happened or people just assume the well-publicized (relatively speaking) patents mean it has actually happened. I've tended to guess that the legal implications of connecting to random hotspots are complicated enough to prevent it from happening at scale. It's clearly not a technical problem to hook up to hot spots set to be open without passwords, after all.
  • account42 2y ago
    It also might simply not be worth it with open hotspots not being that common anymore. Tbh, I'd expect TV manufacturers to ship a SIM with the TV before even seriously considering using random hotspots.
    • jerf 2y ago
      Yeah, an unhappy side effect of the bandwidth of 5G is that that may become economical, even for light video ads. I'm not sure they'd want to pay for really heavy video ads, but even that's probably coming into range. Previous gen could probably afford images, but I'd bet 4G video where the manufacturer is paying for the cell connection probably couldn't swing the price of video.