An anonymous reader shares a report: So-called “smart” security cameras have had some pretty dumb security problems recently, but a recent report regarding a Xiaomi Mijia camera linked to a Google Home is especially disturbing. One Xiaomi Mijia camera owner is getting still images from other random peoples’ homes when trying to stream content from his camera to a Google Nest…
Tag: dumb
Den Automation Raised Millions To ‘Reinvent’ the Light Switch. Now It’s Lights Out For Startup
Den Automation, the once-promising UK smart home startup that raised nearly $5.8 million via equity crowdfunding and boasted former Amstrad chief Bob Watkins as CEO, has agreed to go into liquidation, The Register reported Tuesday. From the report: Documents seen by this publication show Wilkin Chapman Business Solutions Limited has been appointed as liquidators, with Ian Michael Rose and Karen Tracey…
WeWork In Talks To Hire T-Mobile CEO John Legere
According to The Wall Street Journal, WeWork is in discussions with T-Mobile CEO John Legere to take over leadership of the troubled office-sharing startup (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). From the report: WeWork’s parent, formally known as We Co., is searching for a CEO who can stabilize the company following the erratic tenure of its co-founder Adam Neumann. After WeWork’s failed…
Buying Fitbit Won’t Save Google’s Failing Wear OS
David Ruddock of AndroidPolice technology blog tries to make sense of last week’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit by Google. He argues that Fitbit’s offerings — hardware, software, engineering talent, or even patent wall — can’t save Google’s wearable operating system Wear OS. From his column: Hardware is what Google is after, with a blog post cleatly stating its acquisition of…
We Are in the Middle of a Wave of Interesting New Productivity Software Startups
VC fund A16z’s Benedict Evans writes: We are in the middle of a wave of interesting new productivity software startups — there are dozens of companies that remix some combination of lists, tables, charts, tasks, notes, light-weight databases, forms, and some kind of collaboration, chat or information-sharing. All of these things are unbundling and rebundling spreadsheets, email and file shares. Instead…
Two College Students Nearly Grabbed Donald Trump’s Tax Returns Online
“This was a Wayne’s World scene gone awry…” says an attorney for 23-year-old Andrew Harris. “They were Wayne and Garth in a blue Pacer with a dumb idea and a mixed run of luck,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer: Harris previously had filed an application for federal student aid, and noticed that the government form would redirect to the IRS and…
Ask Slashdot: Why Do Popular Websites Have Bad UI Navigation?
A while back some “bored developers and designers” started uploading their ideas for the worst volume control interface in the world. But now Slashdot reader dryriver asks a more serious question: You follow a news story on CNN or BBC or FoxNews or Reuters. The frontpage of the news site changes so frequently that you wish there was a “News Timeline”…
Security Cameras + AI = Dawn of Non-Stop Robot Surveillance
AmiMoJo shared this post from one of the ACLU’s senior technology policy analysts about what happens when security cameras get AI upgrades: [I]magine that all that video were being watched — that millions of security guards were monitoring them all 24/7. Imagine this army is made up of guards who don’t need to be paid, who never get bored, who never…
Book Subtitles Are Getting Ridiculously Long. Blame it on SEO.
How many words can you fit in a subtitle? For a slew of modern books, the answer seems to be as many as possible. From a report: Just look at Julie Holland’s “Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You’re Taking, the Sleep You’re Missing, the Sex You’re Not Having, and What’s Really Making You Crazy,” Erin McHugh’s “Political Suicide: Missteps,…