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Roku patent invents a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV

System would detect paused content on external devices and show ads on top.

Enlarge/ The proposed Roku device would include multiple modules dedicated to detecting and analyzing onscreen content and inserting ads over top of an existing video stream. This theoretical Roku TV's internal hardware would be capable of taking the original source video feed, rendering an ad, and then combining the two into a single displayed image. If implemented as described, this system both gives Roku another place to put ads, and gives the company another source of user data that can be used to encourage advertisers to spend on its platforms.

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