Its the only device in our household that I have utterly failed at securing or blocking content from our children on.
My son has found about 25 different ways to access YouTube across our Android, Android TV, Apple and Roku devices. I have found ways in almost all of them to "nicely" block youtube for him (while keeping it for me or keeping the device functional).
Roku is the only one that just doesn't give a crap. Screw Roku.
Roku loves auto changing to really innapropriate shit after the kid appropriate episode ends.
For example, start an episode of Mittens and Pants for four year old, at end of episode, instead of playing next episode, it switched to Married With Children.
From your first paragraph I was expecting something from the old degen meta like "naked yoga" or "transparent haul" or whatever they're currently doing... Or maybe some of the brainrot genai content that's been booming on kids tv
Kinda surprised you consider a completely banal sitcom to be problematic for children.
I mean I'd expect the kids to think it's boring and not get any of the subplot... But it's completely family safe?
The kid is four. There is a difference between safe and appropriate. The recommender could at least suggest something in the same genre. It could also have suggested a deep dive into financial markets, not unsafe content for kids, but also not kid appropriate either.
Often I see a popup to accept TOS after the update, which was run without me agreeing to anything.
At which time the company has unilaterally denied my access to something I already paid for without seeking my affirmative consent.
In theory I could stop whatever I'm doing, go email the company a brief to the point letter indicating they've broken their ToS and are unacceptably impairing my ability to use my property under the contract that I did agree to, and giving them an opportunity to amend their problem and give me a rollback path.
Realistically the outcome of this is a brushoff and needing to file a consumer protection complaint or get a lawyer.
If the feature is something like "my car" I can't afford that opportunity cost and am coerced into accepting their contract by the way they presented the amended terms.
I figure ToS for physical devices should be blanket outlawed. They're fraught enough for purely online services. Physical devices keep all of that baggage then add additional questions about whether or not I own physical objects that I purchased.
I think this is a very strong and simple argument to use with regulators, politicians etc.
When I put my credit card into Apples ecosystem they take a 0.15% cut of the transaction and appear to be very happy with the results. When I put my application into the ecosystem they take 30%..
You can then break down why this is, but boy is that an interesting contrast.
Had the same problem, wanted to use gemini but wanted to setup a speeding limit, turns out Google would prefer you to risk bankruptcy for a mistake, no spending limit available from what I understood, ended up going with openrouter and using gemini through them instead
I would prefer to take it broader and codify it in law that:
1. The terms and conditions of a product, service, etc. "primarily" aimed at a consumer have simple, human readable terms. Like a food label or similar to the broadband label.
2. The terms are presented and acknowledged PRIOR to purchasing (not after opening the package, driving off the lot, putting the DVD into the player). The company needs to find a way to deliver the T&C's before purchase. If you need me to agree to 50 pages things before I can use your product, I didn't really purchase it, I am receiving a license to use it....
3. If these terms and conditions will be changed retroactively (for existing customers) that must be optional, opt-in and not required to continue to use the product.
I think this would stop a lot of the shenanigans companies pull on end users, that they DON'T pull in B2B environments.
This still puts the company too much in the driver's seat. An actual "contract" or "agreement" is supposed to be a meeting of the minds between two parties. It's not simply one-sided terms dictated by one party without opportunity for the other party to negotiate. And each party should have negotiating power and choice beyond "take it or leave it".
And, before you dismiss this idea with "Ha ha imagine if every cell phone provider had a custom, bespoke, negotiated contract with each customer! It can't be done!"
If providing real negotiating power and choice to your customer is too much of an overhead burden, then maybe the company should not be allowed to make the "agreement" a condition for buying/using the product.
> And, before you dismiss this idea with "Ha ha imagine if every cell phone provider had a custom, bespoke, negotiated contract with each customer! It can't be done!"
This actually already happens to some extend. Nor a different contract for every individual user but my mobile phone plan is not one you can currently purchase from the provider but just available to existing customers who have been upgraded (more data for the same price as the original contract).
It's not an "or" situation--these are orthogonal issues. The way support behaved is about AWS. Backups are about you. You should have backups and AWS should not arbitrarily terminate accounts without support recourse. We can discuss them separately if we want. I care about the uptime of my AWS accounts even though I have comprehensive backups.
With modern cloud computing is that enough? Can you migrate AuroraDBs, Lambdas, Kinesis configs, IAM policies, S3 bucket configs, Opensearch configs to another cloud platform easily? I suppose if you're comfortable going back to AWS after they randomly delete all your data then the remote backups will be helpful, but not so much if you plan to migrate to another provider.
Z-wave also uses 900mhz in the US, which penetrates walls better and has less competition with 2.4 (Zigbee). So while its closed, it usually more performant than Zigbee (in my experience...)
Yes this is indeed a problem. You can get around this by piping the Z-Wave or Zigbee information into a MQTT server and basically run them as separate networks, with Home Assistant and MQTT tying it all together. But you will need some type of Zigbee to Ethernet adapter (Sonoff makes one, Raspberry Pi, etc.) or Z-wave to ethernet adapter (again Raspberry Pi). It's definitely clunky. But doable.
I am running multiple Zigbee networks near each other (in a house and in a detached garage) with Home Assistant, MQTT server and a Sonoff Zigbee bridge, with Tasmota.
On paper (aka the laws of the United State) FISA applies to things that physically reside in the US.
"The FISA Court’s only jurisdiction is “to hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance anywhere within the United States.” 50 U.S.C. § 1803 (a) (1)."
Its more that its really hard to do security when the attacker has unlimited physical access.
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