This should be a standard requirement for abandoning an internet reliant product (with all IP and internal documentation released and becoming public domain in the event of a bankruptcy, and keys handled by some consumer protection agency capable of facilitating community projects working to unlock them for owners).
But questionable value of the product aside, the fact that they’re making the effort to not be assholes and try to do what it takes to give their costumers’ products the life they can is better than most, so they deserve credit for that.
Electronic products and software should get a “at least supported until” label on the packaging and legally obligated to keep the servers running until that time.
The company behind this robot is going bankrupt, which is why support ends and they stop working. This law would do nothing in this case because the company seizes to exist.
*ceases, a cute voice-to-text error
No just a non-native English speaker error in this case
Still cute
uwu
You’re cute
It should be considered an obligation to be met in the bankruptcy process. If they sell the IP for the product the purchaser should have to meet it. Failing that the users should be given the IP rights (opensource would meet this def to me) then.
In just world at least
You can put money and source code in escrow for this exact eventuality.
seizes to exist.
Only if there’s an absolute bare minimum they’re allowed to choose of 5-10 years after the last device/software is sold.
And even then, I still think they should be required to unlock devices (and software DRM bullshit/APIs to re-implement server components) to allow people who want to maintain them themselves.
EU citizens can sign EU Citizens’ Initiative for this for games.
EU pushed new product liability bill. After it takes effect companies will be responsible for breaking of devices and software.
Seems like a good move but it will also raise the risk of releasing new tech. Startup money will have to include some kind of coverage for that, making it harder to get startup money. Rather than simply impose a liability I would feel better about requiring orphaned IP to be opensourced so interested parties can do exactly what’s happening in this case.
Nah, if a company goes bankrupt, their entire software base should just be posted online.
Or sold like their many assets.
I agree if they simply go away, what they produced should become opensource. Sometimes this involves removing dependencies on proprietary software, which anybody who used the opensourced portion would in turn have to pay to license. So they have to rewrite those parts or make special arrangements. Anyway it’s not the slam-dunk you might think. Like after what happens in an action cop movie everybody walks away, but in reality they would spend months or years in court over damages to buildings, passersby getting hurt, etc. Nothing is ever as simple as outsiders think.
but it will also raise the risk of releasing new tech.
It has FOSS exemption.
Rather than simply impose a liability I would feel better about requiring orphaned IP to be opensourced so interested parties can do exactly what’s happening in this case.
In a way it does that.
But that’s communism!!1!1!!
Doing the right thing. How rare.
once they threatened to abandon it sure. eventually even corporations can be dragged into doing the right thing.
It’s not a corporation anymore if it ceases to exist. Sounds like the engineers are working pro bono on this initiative.
Most companies don’t listen, these guys did. Many times when people did the right thing, they had to go through a process first.
It would have been if they did it completely on their own, maybe even designed the system for this possible outcome from the beginning.
But it’s the end result that matters. They can release the source or they can not. They chose to release it, and that’s great!
And how great of these particular folks for doing the right thing1
OpenSourcing is a good move
What is “trying to” open source though? Make the GitHub repo public, include the database schema, and you’re done.
Startups like this aren’t known for their robust infrastructure design.
It’s most likely running on some weird unicorn setups no-one has bothered to document.
Fear of embarrassing code is often a factor too. Amazing how coding standards instantly improve across the board the moment you realize people outside of dev might be scrutinizing what you’ve been shipping to customers.
This is true even for my personal projects lol
I literally added pre commit checks to my personal repos today to lint and format
I’m not a programmer but dabble. I’m always so nervous when actual programmers look at my code.
True programmers know that novice code is a rite of passage. Every programmer worth their salt looks at their own older code and cringes at it. Most people who do this for a living are more likely to give helpful pointers rather than tear you down, if anything.
If someone is being a jerk to you about your code, stop listening to them immediately and walk away or block them.
yep, do this all the time with my own code… even for yesterdays code prior to second coffee time!
This guy codes.
These guys are out of business anyway. They don’t have to care; they can just dump whatever they have somewhere and scuttle off into the night, never to be seen again, nothing more than an echoing “woop woop woop woop” fading off into the distance.
They’ve been handed a rare and highly valuable treasure. They get all the good will from the community for doing the one thing that everyone always wants these companies to do but never happens, and this is now someone else’s problem.
If you’re going to have a problem, someone else’s problem is the best kind to have.
Definitely missing documentation to make it a proper repo
With passwords in the code and such.
Probably a lot of stolen code
Likely they have proprietary or otherwise private information they want to clean out first, or they want to make it more presentable or documented.
I agree I’m not a fan of the “trying to” phrasing either.
They might rely on parts that have non open sourced drivers or firmware. Perhaps different parts of the code were authored by different people and they need everyone approval.
What ever could go wrong with that?
Oh, right. Winamp very recently showed us exactly what could go wrong with that.
Didn’t know about that. That’s kind of bullshit that they took it down.
Yeah it’s so simple, no way they could be the good guys, can’t have that.
I just don’t get it with these proprietary cloud connected devices. Do people just not realize that keeping server infrastructure running for free after a product is sold is not in a company’s best profit-seeking interests (maybe they don’t even think about how things on the Internet actually work, I dunno)? I thought of this almost fifteen years ago when I started seeing smart thermostats. There should always be an option to go local, even if it requires the consumer to acquire a skillset in IT. Maybe we can start working things like that into right to repair legislation if it isn’t already.
I once had a tech support ticket for a computer not turning on. When I checked it out, they had connected a power bar to itself. This 40yr old man genuinely didn’t understand why that wouldn’t work.
Electric companies hate this one simple trick for unlimited free electricity!
Did they grow up in an Amish house? How is that possible
I really don’t know. All I can say was he was one of the lucky 10,000 that day.
Most people don’t think about how things work. I’d guess that most customers thought all the smart features were internal and the Internet connection was just an arbitrary requirement
Exactly. Another example of people who are on forums like this are worlds apart from people who know quite literally less than nothing about computers.
For home stuff, look for the tech “Matter over Thread”. They’re protocols* designed to allow your stuff to work with any ecosystem, including local.
It’s been slow to roll out, largely, imo, because companies would prefer to lock people into their own ecosystems and apps. Apple, Google, and Samsung do have some motivations to be interoperable though, and Matter/Thread is that effort. Consider looking at Home Assistant if you want to know more about this ecosystem and local, open control.
I could go into more detail, but this is already a tangent.
maybe they don’t even think about how things on the Internet actually work, I dunno
bingo! that’s the reason behind most of their illogical decisions
just ask around, and you’ll find that they want things to just work without understanding how they work
Using some creepy robot with a proprietary algorithm to provide “emotional support” to children sounds like a good thing to go out of business.
IIRC they were designed for kids with autism.
So these robots will be autobots?
I bet the kids feel lied to, so probably decepticons
At least they learned from this and didn’t kill off Duke!
roll out 😎
One would expect kids with autism to be more picky about their emotional support, not less
it’s about being able to read emotions:
a large portion of autistic people have trouble reading emotions in others.
that’s why they’re often drawn to things like books, comics, animated content, theater, and, like in this example, robots that clearly express their emotions.
speaking for myself (diagnosed ASD), it’s the ambiguity that bothers me more than anything. i like it when things are nice and clear, neatly organized, and generally don’t require a lot of attention to interpret.
interpreting the environment is taxing enough, adding a lot of emotional interpreting on top can quickly get overwhelming, which leads to poor mood, performance, and ultimately just straight-up headaches…again, this isn’t a hunch, it was part of the ASD diagnostic test.
so i can imagine how much easier it is for kids with similar problems to relate emotionally to something that shows it’s emotions in clear, easily recognizable ways, rather than having to guess constantly. that constant guessing gets real tiring, real quick…
I have very recently been diagnosed ASD, and in my childhood I think a toy pretending to have emotions, but in fact not having them, would make me much more anxious than no such toy at all, just me jumping around imagining things.
Cats and dogs would be easier. Or soft toys.
like that other comment said: it’s not for everyone.
some kids are gonna love it, some are gonna hate it.
target demographics for products aren’t monoliths ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m sure it worked for some and not for others.
Amazon Dash buttons have entered the chat.
Yeah, but everybody knew those were a stupid fucking idea from the start. I didn’t and still don’t feel much sympathy for the people who deliberately bought one of those solely for its intended purpose and then got the rug pulled out from under them.
Amazon was effectively giving them away for free for a large portion of their lifespan. You’d have deals where you’d pay for them and then get a coupon for actually using them equal to the purchase price. I feel like I even remember a few times where the coupon you got worked out to slightly more than you paid for the button. Basically, saying that someone ‘bought’ one was usually only partially true.
They did have a few legitimately good uses. Had to have something that needed restocking sporadically but you also didn’t think about often and could wait 2-3 days to receive when you realized you were out. A lot of prerequisites there, I used the ones for trash bags and detergent often.
It’s mostly just a shame the amount of ewaste produced at this point. I still have a box full somewhere in hopes of finding a use case.
I’m conflicted on the projects like that one right now. It’s super clever to monitor the network traffic for specific dash buttons trying to reach out, but it also feels super janky and I don’t feel like I can justify putting the effort to set that up when it just feels so fragile. Especially with the caveat that if the amazon block you have to setup for it fails then the device just becomes a paperweight.
Genius idea, but I’m going to hold out for the unlikely possibility of someone figuring out a firmware level hack.
…I’m going to hold out for the unlikely possibility of someone figuring out a firmware level hack.
In a device this old with (what is now) crappy battery life? They’re already garbage.
By “everybody” you mean everybody except Amazon. And I had fun hacking those. They were often on sale for like 2 bucks and they came with a battery that was good for like a thousand presses. You had to start the online setup process but not select any products, listen for the button’s msg to Amazon which contained a unique ID. You could then have your own server listen for a “pressed” signal from that button and do whatever you want. I keep meaning to find out if there’s still a way to initialize brand new ones.
That’s pretty cool! What would you use them for?
I had a couple stuck on walls where I always wished I had put light switches. They toggled lights on and off using ESP-01 microcontrollers. Another one was in my daughter’s bedroom where I had rehung the door to swing the opposite way so she could leave the door partway open without the hall light shining in her face in bed. As the batteries died I replaced them all with buttons run by newer ESP32s… if any of that makes sense.
What’s the deal with these buttons?
Is there missing punctuation in that headline or am I an idiot?
No, there is no punctuation missing, the headline writing style is just hurting comprehensibility. I’ll expand it a bit.
“A startup, which is set to brick an $800 kids’ robot, is trying to open-source it first”
Cheers, I can read and comprehend the original headline now. I’m Australian so English isn’t my first language, at least that’s my excuse.
Here you go then
“Oi, this startup’s about to turn an $800 kids’ robot into a bloody paperweight, but they’re havin’ a crack at open-sourcing it before it carks it.”
I was able to read that with the accent. Goodonya
I’m Australian so English isn’t my first language
So…what is your first language then?
Yes, it should at least be kids’. Kids robot doesn’t make sense.
I clicked on this thread only to figure out what that title is supposed to mean.
these things should be outlawed and bricked immediately for the sake of humanity
$800… for an emotional support toy?
Is this why there’s so much poverty in the world? Because once people have enough excess wealth, this is what they choose to spend it on instead of helping those who need it more?
No, it’s because of billionaires that hoard more money than 1000 people could reasonably spend in a lifetime.
I’m with you…except I choose to believe there’s a reason they’re going bust (because no, folks aren’t choosing to spend on this)
That said, I’d like to remind everyone that Elon Musk has the money and power to end homeless and poverty in the US and chooses not to.
Well he’s not American so why would you expect that?
He can do it for SA though
Yes, most millionaires are cringe but you should go after billionaires first.
Obviously it are the avocado toast
No, but you will be happy to know the product failed
What a waste of resources just to make somebody richer!
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