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 Following in the wake of numerous Anker discounts on Amazon, today we're tracking an all-time low price for the Apple Pencil Pro and a solid deal on the AirTag 4-Pack at the retailer. Neither deal requires a coupon code this time around, as both have been applied automatically by Amazon.
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Taking an in-depth look at how the Apple TV deals with privacy, Ars Technica reveals that a technology called automatic content recognition, or ACR, isn't part of the device's software stack.
A popular feature amongst smart TV and streaming device manufacturers, ACR is a feature that acts like a "detective taking fingerprints," literally tracking every pixel displayed on the screen and matching them to a massive database of TV programs, all in the effort to find out what you're watching.
In some cases, ACR is employed in a way that benefits cord-cutters. For example, some Roku TVs will use ACR to find streaming episodes of a show you're watching via an over-the-air antenna or a cable tuner.
That's certainly helpful, but here's the real reason streaming manufacturers love ACR: more cash in their pockets. Advertisers and other third parties will pay handsomely for the viewing data gathered by ACR software, which is often how Amazon, Roku, and other players in the streaming market manage to sell their TVs and streaming players for such low prices.
If the idea behind ACR sounds creepy, it is, and it's practically everywhere—except in Apple TV streaming boxes, that is.
In its report, Ars Technica notes that Apple doesn't put ACR in its Apple TV and Apple TV 4K devices, a major plus for privacy-minded cord-cutters.
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