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Why Would a Mouse Need To Connect To the Internet?
jbrodkin writes "In this hyper-connected, networked world, many more of our devices are getting linked to the cloud, whether we want them to or not. That's sometimes good, and sometimes bad, so when a basic device like a mouse requires a user to go online and set up an account to activate all of its functionality, people are understandably going to ask why? The latest entry in the saga of 'Why the hell does this thing need to connect to the Internet?' comes from Razer, which has caused an uproar by asking users to register gaming mice on the Internet. While it's mainly for syncing settings across devices, gamers are complaining that certain functionality might not be available unless you create an online account for your mouse. Razer has responded to the controversy, but its answers aren't entirely satisfactory."
razercfg!
i believe razer synapse is what it is called... i use it quite a lot, and it is really nice for multiple computers... or even going to a friend's house or a computer lab with your mouse. it automatically syncs all settings. of course.... it isnt necessary to use synapse, you CAN manually set up your mouse every time
With stories like this one I wasn't sure if this was about hardware or if there were rodents demanding to be on line.
So at the current trend of technology am I going to have to start paying a monthly fee to use my mouse, or at least the more advanced features of it. All it would take is a Firmware update, which they can force if the mouse is connected to the internet. I can see it now, a little popup inviting me to take advantage of all the great features available with RAZER Plus.
Razor products are just shitty. I've purchased only one item from them, a copperhead mouse, but that'll be all I ever buy. I returned that thing three times for three different problems. All of them were known issues that they just chalked up to being part of the process of owning a Razor product. Logitech gets my money now. It's a mouse that only does mouse stuff and does it well.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Never before have I had as much of a love/hate relationship with a company, and this includes Apple. Razer makes some great peripherals, that usually all have some crazy, simple, fixable flaw that they ignore for months before finally getting around to in a half-assed way. Why do I love them so much? I'm a left-handed gamer, and the pickings are pretty slim for me. So I'm stuck with them for a good left-handed gaming mouse.
Examples in the past: The Lycosa keyboards, which had a defect where the touch panel for volume and LED control would stop working after a month or less. It took over a month to get them to acknowledge a problem. Another, the drivers for the Death Adder mouse line. For four months, it was impossible to get a combination of working drivers that allowed you to rebind the left and right buttons to one another (because Razer defaulted to the primary click being on the right, for the LH models).
Razer takes forever to respond to anything, and when they do, it's typically poorly communicated and badly handled. This is a company that is just mindblowingly TERRIBLE at customer relations.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Save it inside the mouse?
It would be trivially easy to add USB/Bluetooth removable storage to the little rodent sufficient to hold all the configuration settings, drivers and whatnot that you'd even need.
Have gnu, will travel.
... and returned it!
Basically the mouse is so hypersensitive with insane DPI that you have to run their software to mod it down. The reason the internet is required is because it uses a cloud to load your mouse settings. No you did not misread that?!
It gets worse
The profile and cloud service are several services that depend on each other and take almost a minute on my fast 2.8 ghz Phenom II and meanwhile the cursor is flying all over the machine due to the high dpi settings. Razor made it so light too which excaberates the problem. They have added weights for their $130 and it is their way of saying a Fuck you for being cheap by buying the $80 mouse??? Since when is $80 cheap? So you just have to set their and wayt for your mouse to connect to the cloud to slow down a simple setting. Sigh
This cloud obsession is silly and getting too far. I can't use logitech because they are too small for my hands. Microsoft explorer mosue 2 is big enough but htey no longer have the scroll mouse. Just a touch button that will hurt after rubbing my fingers for several hours. My dying MS mouse I will keep for now as I am disapointed in razor. It is rediculous.
http://saveie6.com/
Why Would a Mouse Need To Connect To the Internet?
It probably wants to use your credit card number to place a giant order at http://www.thecheeseshed.com/
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
I recently purchased a Logitech Harmony 700 programmable remote to use on my HTPC (it's a highly recommended remote by XBMC users). The problem however is that there are only two ways to configure it:
(1) The official way is that you go to http://www.myharmony.com/ and register an account. Once done, you log into the site and it opens up a Silverlight interface (that's right, Silverlight - not HTML/HTML5, not even Flash, but a rarely used Microsoft plugin who's Linux equivalent, Moonlight, doesn't work properly anyway) that allows some coarse configuration but not much in the way of fine grained options.
(2) The less official way is to download the Logitech control application (Windows only, of course), which still requires an account. It also feels very much like a web application in a native window since it's still slow as it loads up various pages from the Internet anyway. But at least you get full control using it.
Point is that in both scenarios, you MUST have an account to program the remote. Now of course having this data available in the "cloud" means that should you reformat or otherwise need to reconfigure your remote after a reinstall of the software, you can still obtain your carefully-configured settings. The other idea is that Logitech have a database of pre-configured devices that can be uploaded to the remote which is continaully updated with newer models, but it's not like the native application couldn't just obtain that info without requiring an account.
Logitech deliberately made it so that they must know how your remote is being used. Not that they'll work out anything interesting with it, except perhaps what devices I use and how I use them. But fuck me, this is not a good direction to go with - requiring registration over one's hardware before it can be used fully.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I, for one, can't think of any reason why having a driver that enjoys unfettered(and low level) access to one or more of my computer's human input devices also being internet connnected at all times could possibly pose a problem...
In fact, I'm fairly sure that the Razer Synapse2 system will make Bonzibuddy 83% more fun to be with, and any future updates that allow me to log my keystrokes to the cloud will be a lifesaver when I forget the password to my AOL account!
What if you have multiple computers, each of which has the same mouse? With the cloud configuration option, all changes are propagated immediately, unlike settings stored locally on the mouse.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Oh, it gets even worse with the Harmony remotes. Have two of them? Well, you can't register two remotes to the same account--not and have them control different equipment, that is. No, Logitech forced me to set up two accounts in order to control my two remotes. This was a year ago; hopefully they realized how idiotic that was.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
...On some of the extra functionality, but this is one reason why I will never, as a blanket-rule, install any peripheral device's shitware on my PC if I can get away with it. I'll either settle for the functionality provided by Windows built-in drivers or if that's not feasible then I'll trawl around support sites and community forums looking for a link to the most cut-drown driver package I can get my hands on. I say this as someone with a Razer DeathAdder and BlackWidow that I use every day and love as devices.
Every printer suite, every Adobe extention, every gamepad, mouse and keyboard driver package, every pile of crapware, even iTunes agents, Bonjour, Java, all of it that we load onto our PC is just one more thing to slow down our user experience, waste bandwidth and throw annoying popups in our faces. Not to mention all the new potential infection vectors and opportunities to have our use-habits aggregated and sent off god-knows-where into the ether.
It's much, much easier to just forgo some macro buttons on the side of a keyboard that is very nice unto itself as a piece of hardware.
Oh, it gets even worse with the Harmony remotes. Have two of them? Well, you can't register two remotes to the same account--not and have them control different equipment, that is. No, Logitech forced me to set up two accounts in order to control my two remotes. This was a year ago; hopefully they realized how idiotic that was.
As of 2 months ago, they were still that dumb.
This sounds like a job for Cat 5.
Vote with your wallet. Take it back to the store because it's non-functional.
because customers rarely care about this sort of thing and generally just click "yes."
if youre a religious economist youll grant the invisible hand time to offer an alternative market of "unlocked" mice, much like cellphones. they will probably still be tracked by your operating system (microsoft or apple, possibly ubuntu these days under crazy shuttleworth) but youll get to use them as you wish on any OS of your choice or against the original constructs of the walled garden it seems this peripheral maker is trying to grow.
theyll be called developer mice, or IDE mice, or some other wretched name implying only the nerdiest would ever want such a thing. youll pay a premium for it, it wont be supported by the game you want to play when its registered during startup and the OS will probably require hefty drivers or partially functioning ones for it to work.
the bottom line is there is very little money in peripherals. there is a fucking boat-load of cash in services because as we evolve through the 21st century our technology has increasingly grown to coddle us as though we were children. give up your freedom and the corporation will relieve the burden on your weary mind of having to think about computers or networks or any of that nonsense youve been heralding about the latest iDevice but loathe to discuss on a deeply technical level greater than a few buzzwords picked up at the bus stop billboard.
and nerds geeks and slashdotters will grumble as dogs will bark. we will adapt as we always have technology to suit our needs. windows keys will be co-opted into our operating systems as a pivotal extension of our will through tools like AwesomeWM, to never again be considered anything more than a simple stroke or clack on the way to greatness. ACPI will kneel to our demands as our resources are governed by our inherent lust for knowledge and achievement. and this "device" that so rudely begged a pittance of our precious bandwidth in the service of its master will its back have been broken, its mighty spirit crushed under the inexorable weight of our technological expertise as we have so pulverized most any attempt by a salesman with a greasegun to convince us otherwise that the PC is not personal. It will kneel, as VRRP, DVD, Blu-Ray, SCSI RAID, wireless cards, and a sea of countless E and I prefixed devices have in the service of their true master, the Nerd.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The Harmony remotes worked that way when Logitech bought them (they were a separate company, Logitech decided they'd like to own it). It has been that way for a long time.
The reason is for device code updates. As new devices come out the stuff can be added, including by users. Much of their support is something a user has submitted, which is also why sometimes it won't work 100% right. Also some models can have a TV guide on them, but it requires regular updates for that to work (it can only store like 2 weeks of data).
I see no big issue. It isn't like there's some evil conspiracy here to break you remote. Once programmed, you can never hook it up again if you like. Mine hasn't seen their site for like 2 years.
It does the job well, and there was no reason to redevelop the whole backend once they bought the company.
It's to stop people burning an unauthorised copy onto a blank mouse.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I have a Logitech G500 and the config is stored in the mouse firmware itself. If you hook it up to a new system, all your settings and buttons are correct, even with no driver. You have to associate it with a system (which wipes the config in the firmware) to program it, but once programmed it is self contained. Their G700 works the same way.
I haven't encountered a Logitech cloud mouse, but I can't imagine it is mandatory to use that. The G500 and G700 are both current products, as is the M570 I use on my laptop and none of them need to be net connected. If you install the drivers and let them auto-update, they will connect to check periodicly, but they don't have to, and the mouse functions without problem with no drivers as just a HID class device.
You really think I want to go to that effort? Just because it's technically possible with a lot of work, doesn't mean it should be necessary in the first place. Your criticism is exactly the same reason why people avoid Linux like the plague - not everyone wants to have to be a fucking geek to get things done. And it shouldn't be necessary for them to do so. It's a fucking consumer product.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I apologise for the roughness/profanity in my previous post. But I just want you to understand - your post basically turns the onus on the customer rather than the company to provide what is missing (i.e. the ability to program the remote without requiring access to Logitech). It's belittling because it defuses any complains anyone can have with, well, anything.
It's the same damn problem I see time and time again in the Linux community - does such-and-such open source program lack functionality already existent in a Windows program? Don't complain, learn programming and improve the code yourself! It's open source! No, I think not. I'd rather go back to Windows where I don't have to expend the extra time for no real benefit apart from being able to say "I run Linux". And then people like yourself get angry because they can't understand why people don't want to expend their valuable spare time in performing such a task compared to, say, having sex or playing games.
Your comment doesn't help because it makes the user appear like he's complaining about something that could be made just a bit better. As if they shouldn't be complaining at all, regardless of whether it's PRACTICAL for the user to have to make the changes themselves. Maybe you've been a geek for too long. I'm trying to avoid losing touch with how regular folks work myself.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
Let me guess their response: "Our executives are retarded. They learned in their freshman business class that getting customers to register their e-mail addresses increased their chances of of buying new products from the same company. They were unaware that forcing customers to do this for basic functionality is the equivalent of eating your entree with your foot, while playing host to the Royal family of England. They are simply incapable of understanding the level of faux pas they have committed, coming up with the two-year old's excuse of 'if it's so bad, why are other people doing it,' and, in light of the bonuses they will no doubt receive shortly before customers permanently turn away from this company, they won't care. Again, we apologize for what passes as an education in this country, and promise, after the glorious revolution, to never speak of it again."
I am John Hurt.
Save it inside the mouse?
It would be trivially easy to add USB/Bluetooth removable storage to the little rodent sufficient to hold all the configuration settings, drivers and whatnot that you'd even need.
The Razer Synapse 1.0 actually did that. All (or almost all) Razer mice has onboard memory that used to be use for storing synapse settings. They moved it to the cloud on synapse 2.0 upgrade
When I first bought a Harmony, I thought as you did. Online? Why not a CD-ROM full of codes? I don't want to be online for this.
But having used and programmed a half dozen of them now, I'd say they produced a very good answer to an ancient technology issue. IR codes are awful ways to control devices, they're non-standard, non-portable, and change continually as new products are introduced. There are no standards for publishing IR codes. There is often no way to get an IR code for a lost remote, especially on a 20 year old receiver.
What Harmony did was to crowd-source the discovery of IR codes. By getting enough people buying the remotes, and having them continually programming and updating them, they can offer those now to every customer. Having the software be online-only ensures that not only does everyone contribute, but everyone benefits. When I went to configure the 20 year old receiver that was missing a remote, Logitech's database had no trouble delivering.
Another time I needed a specific Levitron remote in order to teach 4 IR codes to a LIRC client. Rather than spend a ridiculous $100 list for a five button remote I would never use a second time, I told my Harmony's configuration that it was controlling a Levitron switch, then blinked it at the learning device. Instant success, no cost.
I've come to the conclusion that sometimes, a vendor's server is not the worst answer. But only sometimes. I'd still ditch the Harmony software in an instant for an Open Source programmer that accessed a public database of blinky codes.
John
Would you like to register online:
( ) Now
( ) Kindergarten
( ) When getting drivers license
You may be attempting to make a joke, but in the US you are strongly encouraged to get a Social Security Number at birth. Some hospitals will do it automagically for you.
You wouldn't want your little monster to run around unregistered, would you, citizen?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Here's a secret that a lot of people on /. seem to be unaware of:
Marketing - the process of getting people to say "I'm interesting in buying something from you" - is hard.
It's not a particularly exact science at the best of times - sure, you can run two different ads and see which one gets the best response, but nobody's yet figured out why it might get the best response and been able to turn that into a formula. Get it wrong, and you can actually turn prospective customers against you.
That being said, there are a few people you can target who are far more likely to buy from you.
One of the easiest markets to sell to is people who have already bought something from you once. Problem is, a manufacturer might know which distributors and even which resellers are stocking their product but they probably only have a vague idea which customers are buying it. On the face of it, using a driver that connects to the Internet (and requires compulsory registration) is a great way for a manufacturer to solve this problem and develop very tightly targeted marketing campaigns.
(This, by the way, is also why you're encouraged to "register" your warranty even though in many countries consumer protection law makes this totally unnecessary)
Of course, as I said if you get it wrong you can turn prospective customers against you. Which is precisely what's happening here.
And having used OFA remotes before, I fell in love with the Harmony's "use-case model" of remotes. Want to watch TV? Press the "watch tv" button. It definitely makes the entire entertainment system accessible to the wife and guests. If everybody had to know "set the TV input to HDMI2, set the HDMI switch to port 3, set the receiver to AUX input, have the remote adjust the receiver for audio control and the digits should control the cable box" ..., then nobody would be able to run the system but me, and that's just stupid. The last thing I want to do on vacation is answer help-desk calls from the nephew who is house-sitting, trying to explain how to adjust the sound so he can play XBox games.
Harmony did a lot of things right, and they made the very messy domain of home entertainment remote controls very simple for the end users.
And I don't know if you've aware, but you can adjust the delay times on the Harmony so it will wait longer for the TV to boot up after powering it on. It's somewhere under the advanced settings.
John