48-page report citing Ars Technica urges FTC, FCC investigate connected TV data harvesting. Gen AI, potentially racially discrimniatory practices head concerns.
I just run an old PC plugged in to my TV. It’s been running Windows, but I’m strongly considering switching it to linux now that it seems HDR on linux is getting stable. I might even use SteamOS directly since it’s got a nice interface for controller use.
Looks like a nice little device. I’ve already got a similar Logitech keyboard that’s a bit bigger and is missing the IR remote, but I’m still able to turn on my TV via an HDMI CEC command.
Ah nice. We were using a mouse/on screen kb for a minute before i got fed up and did some looking around. we also didn’t have a TV remote so we thought we were killing two birds. Turns out you can only copy IR commands from another source, so I hit the bullet and bought a cheap 7 dollar remote too to program it that way were just using one device for the bedroom TV.
I didn’t realize Valve released SteamOS to be installed on other devices, that’s killer! I just threw mint on a 15 year old laptop a few weeks ago and VNC into it from my phone to control it as my streaming box.
They did release it but the latest iteration that’s on steam deck is still steam deck only, or shared via community projects like the one you mentioned
I’m using a N100 mini-PC with Kodi as a Media/TV Box and it works pretty much as a dedicated device would with one of these remotes.
I seldom have to actually access it with a keyboard and mouse, though that machine also works as my home server so I do regularly access it remotelly for stuff that has nothing to do with using it as a media box.
There’s a button there to enable/disable air-mouse functionality (basically the tilting of the remote moves the mouse pointer), though it’s awkward to use compared to a normal mouse.
The keyboard on the back is also awkward to use, not just because the keys are small and not quite in standard positions but also because Shift and Alt are both “press to enable, press to disable”, with no notification lights (so, say, your keyboard might be in “Alt mode” and you’re trying to used it and it’s just doing weird stuff).
The thing does work as a combo of media player remote + mouse + keyboard, but it’s not very practical for the last 2. Also that specific model seems to have problems with the remote buttons not working if the remote is tilted (which shouldn’t be at all a problem given that’s a wireless remote).
The idea is good, the implementation could be better. There are other models like that around. Just avoid the “Google” remotes as that’s Android-locked and for voice recognition (plus it comes pre-enshittified with only a handful of buttons which only start apps such as Netflix).
Even with the quirks of the remote, whilst using that setup I often find myself altogether forgetting that what I’m using there is a PC with Linux.
I just run an old PC plugged in to my TV. It’s been running Windows, but I’m strongly considering switching it to linux now that it seems HDR on linux is getting stable. I might even use SteamOS directly since it’s got a nice interface for controller use.
Google “Rii i6”
You’ll thank me later.
Looks like a nice little device. I’ve already got a similar Logitech keyboard that’s a bit bigger and is missing the IR remote, but I’m still able to turn on my TV via an HDMI CEC command.
Ah nice. We were using a mouse/on screen kb for a minute before i got fed up and did some looking around. we also didn’t have a TV remote so we thought we were killing two birds. Turns out you can only copy IR commands from another source, so I hit the bullet and bought a cheap 7 dollar remote too to program it that way were just using one device for the bedroom TV.
I didn’t realize Valve released SteamOS to be installed on other devices, that’s killer! I just threw mint on a 15 year old laptop a few weeks ago and VNC into it from my phone to control it as my streaming box.
I think they still haven’t officially released it, despite promising years ago. There are community projects like HoloISO
They did release it but the latest iteration that’s on steam deck is still steam deck only, or shared via community projects like the one you mentioned
I’m using a N100 mini-PC with Kodi as a Media/TV Box and it works pretty much as a dedicated device would with one of these remotes.
I seldom have to actually access it with a keyboard and mouse, though that machine also works as my home server so I do regularly access it remotelly for stuff that has nothing to do with using it as a media box.
Oh that remote is not a bad idea, does it do mouse input via the circle d pad? Or is it keyboard only?
There’s a button there to enable/disable air-mouse functionality (basically the tilting of the remote moves the mouse pointer), though it’s awkward to use compared to a normal mouse.
The keyboard on the back is also awkward to use, not just because the keys are small and not quite in standard positions but also because Shift and Alt are both “press to enable, press to disable”, with no notification lights (so, say, your keyboard might be in “Alt mode” and you’re trying to used it and it’s just doing weird stuff).
The thing does work as a combo of media player remote + mouse + keyboard, but it’s not very practical for the last 2. Also that specific model seems to have problems with the remote buttons not working if the remote is tilted (which shouldn’t be at all a problem given that’s a wireless remote).
The idea is good, the implementation could be better. There are other models like that around. Just avoid the “Google” remotes as that’s Android-locked and for voice recognition (plus it comes pre-enshittified with only a handful of buttons which only start apps such as Netflix).
Even with the quirks of the remote, whilst using that setup I often find myself altogether forgetting that what I’m using there is a PC with Linux.
Same here, still on Windows 10 though it’s desperately trying to reinstall it’s crapware removed from the image with NTLite.
Will be switching to some flavour of Linux at some point (we also use this PC for some Steam games), so I’ll check SteamOS out!
Louis Rossman has a video about goes Netflix will not play 4K content on Linux. For some reason they limited the video resolution to 720.
Not sure if it’s still an issue. Also I had my brothers login for peacock and it didn’t run on Linux at all.
Now I’m just using a mibox, and it’s pretty good and doesn’t feel spammy.
Yes, there’s issues with playing DRM content on linux. Only certain browsers support the encryption decoding extension.
Since most of my viewing is on YouTube and media I have saved on Plex, it’s not really an issue.