this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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[–] latenightnoir 117 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The washing machine with integrated AI broke my brain. This must be the most useless thing I've ever encountered in my entire life.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago

And it's a Samsung appliance so rest assured it's complete garbage

[–] Theoriginalthon 46 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Not just ai it could also make phone calls

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We believe that the washing machine is the hearth of the modern laundry room

[–] SinningStromgald 40 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You really do have to be a brainless twit to work in marketing.

[–] biofaust 3 points 1 day ago

As a marketing data analyst, I can confirm.

[–] lurklurk 6 points 1 day ago

Gives it a fallback to send surveillance data to samsung, even if you don't connect it to a network

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

My ten year old basic units are still looking new. Nothing to really go wrong with them and I bet I can get parts for cheap. I know when they're done because I just wait a little while after I start them, then I know they're finished.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Cheap easy repairs on washing machines are long a thing of the past. Between proprietary digital potted control boards to 3 phase motors, the parts ain't cheap. (I've bought a few to repair them before I learned better) To the sheer unavailability of the repair parts. Make fixing you washer and dryer a time consuming, expensive, and often impossible task.

By the time you figure out the time spent searching for the part you need, the availability of said part, the cost of the part, the expected life of the rest of the machine, cost of all the time spent, you can pretty much be sure it's cheaper and faster to just buy a new one. I can't think of one major appliance I owned in the last 30 years that was worth the time and effort to repair. And I've tried repairing washers, dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, and refrigerators.

The only washers I've ever owned and were worth fixing was those old wringer/washers your Great Grandmother had when she was young. Straight up mechanical machines run by one simple switch, a vee belt, shafts and gears. That's the reason those machines could keep going for 30 or 40 years.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I still use the exact same washing machine that was in the house when I bought the house. I have no idea how old it is, but I bought the house in 2017 and I can't imagine the owner would have left it behind if it was new.

The only problem with it is that the door sensor is broken, so It will actually turn on even if the door is open which it shouldn't do according to the operating manual. Won't make that mistake again though so it's not a big problem.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Meanwhile, the new one in my flat has a soft-button to start/stop, which sometimes bugs out and/or locks my laundry away in some edge cases the devs didn't think of.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My parents have an induction stove like that. If it gets any moisture on the panels at all it thinks the buttons are being pressed and just starts doing random stuff. Because who thought that water would ever get on a stove top?

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[–] [email protected] 95 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

At least VLC had a neat table there

[–] [email protected] 196 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago

They better have had traffic cones on their heads. The mental image that creates is quite funny with the contrast to the serious businesmen trying to sell AI one booth over.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Robert's interview with the AI home assistant robot guy this year was unintentionally amazing, the dude was dressed like Jordan Peterson (ie. an insane person) but had all the interviewing skills of a parboiled potato. And he had no clue that Robert was clowning on him so hard.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Any chance you could link to this or help me find more stuff from Robert? I am always interested in his takes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

I mostly know of him from Behind the Bastards, a podcast about prominent historical figures (usually 1800s through present). The twist, apart from their regular Christmas "Non-Bastard" episodes is of course that these influential people actually behaved questionably at best during their time. I really think Robert's research and storytelling are great, he and the guests he brings on really can make an hour fly by sometimes. Most of the biographies are split up into a couple parts, with people like Kissinger and Vince McMahon having such dubious pasts to earn them 6 parts each.

Anyway, the interview with the AI home assistant dude was from another podcast which he frequents, called It Could Happen Here, a more news-oriented podcast. Both of the podcasts can be found on YouTube, published by Cool Zone Media. I believe they did 3 episodes of CES coverage for this year, the final part contained the interview. After all the dunking Robert talks about another interview he had at CES which was a lot more uplifting.

[–] [email protected] 106 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/9/24339817/vlc-player-automatic-ai-subtitling-translation

The popular open-source VLC video player was demonstrated on the floor of CES 2025 with automatic AI subtitling and translation, generated locally and offline in real time. Parent organization VideoLAN shared a video on Tuesday in which president Jean-Baptiste Kempf shows off the new feature, which uses open-source AI models to generate subtitles for videos in several languages.

Ok now that's cool. Since it's often all doom and gloom here, celebrating good tech is a nice change :)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Since VLC is open source, can we expect this AI subtitle generator as a separate product that could be used in, say, jellyfin?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use subgen to generate my subtitles locally. I have it linked to Bazarr but apparently there’s webhooks for Jellyfin.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

This is fantastic, thank you for sharing. I’ve struggled with some media not having suitable subtitles available for download.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Apparently there's a pluggin for that already: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/discussions/6105

Oh actually not specifically for that, but sounds like it would be possible, maybe make a feature request for it once the vlc ones source is available.

[–] RageAgainstTheRich 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is something I'm very much behind. I think firefox is doing something similar if i am not mistaken. One of my favorite shows is a Japanese tv show called GameCenter CX. Fans create subtitles but its a lot of work. Lately they have been using ai to generate subtitles and while some are a bit messed up, you at least get the idea what is going on and they can work off of that if necessary.

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[–] mPony 56 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Honestly AI bidet weighing your shit and analyzing the consistency to indicate possible health problems would not be a horrible use for it. A shit ton of bodily functions rely on gut flora. Much more than previously thought.

[–] ivanafterall 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Data leaks are about to get even more personal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You wouldn't download a ~~car~~ stranger's fecal records.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And resulting health data sold for mere pennies. So health targeted ads can be flooded to your personal device.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Except the "AI" part would be using a linear static formula to adjust the brightness of the RGB LEDs based on ambient light which only works when connected to the wifi and you must install a dodgy likely spyware app that requires a $49/yr subscription to keep it working.

The buttons would probably be a touchscreen though. Which is annoying because now you are running an ugly 2m USB C cable to the nearest outlet you needed to buy a 40w usb-pd charger for they didn't mention you would need to buy on the box - you know, because we all just have the myriad USB charging technologies already in our homes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

shit ton

I see what you did there.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Actually, I can get behind that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

I see what you did there 🍑🚽

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The smart crib seems particularly dystopian to me. We don't even need to wait for children to develop enough fine-motor functions to make use of smartphones or tablets, we can start collecting data on them before they even utter their first word!

How long before the smart cribs have ParentAI attached to them? Let the computer raise your child!

[–] limonfiesta 29 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

We're already at least one generation into womb to tomb data collection.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A tomb? In this economy? 😂

[–] meco03211 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Best I can do is unceremoniously flop your limp corpse on the pile and sprinkle a little lye on it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

All men are cremated equal

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Be sure to read the Eula-g

[–] AbidanYre 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Even ten years ago it was getting tough to find baby monitors that didn't have video and/or Wi-Fi.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] d00ery 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think it's consumer-electronics show, as opposed to an industrial-electronics show... Though I get your point.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I really love stuff like this.

These are the kind of things rich people would fawn over and hold others over on about having the latest tech. But then it's like, you see this shit, you realize how better off you are without them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Doubles down too, because within a week the novelty wears off and the rich people don't use it, it's just sitting in the corner, collecting their data, possibly raking in a subscription fee that they forgot about.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago (2 children)

SoundHound AI’s In-Car Commerce Ecosystem powered by its Automotive AI

Catchy name.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

I also liked

LGs AI Home Inside 2.0 Refrigerator with ThinkQ

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Where's the scam booths?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago

So much waste.

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