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Sony Outage Disables DASH Devices, No ETA On a Fix

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the closed-code-closes-options dept.

New submitter Jack Greenbaum writes: In 2012 Sony closed the developer site for the DASH, their version of the Chumby platform. Sony never officially killed off the product, and they kept the back end servers on line, until recently at least. About two weeks ago DASH owners started seeing their devices fail with a cryptic error message "Unable to download the Control Panel (No download information available). Please restart your dash to try again." Sony acknowledges that the issue is at their end, but no ETA for a fix has been provided. The passionate DASH community is not pleased that Sony is being so quiet about a fix. One user even overslept for work because they depended on the alarm clock feature. Now every DASH is dead until Sony decides to not abandon its walled garden.

5 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Sony's version of what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    would it have hurt the submitter to have informed readers that this is basically a cross between a tablet, alarm clock and digital photo frame? We aren't all familiair with every old, niche, discontinued product from every major electronics company you know!

    1. Re:Sony's version of what? by Jhon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sort of. But this was out when a current $40 tablet would run $300+.

      I have a dash and I paid $50 new towards their end of life a few years ago. Its a nice device. Yes, you can do more with a tablet but except for this lame requirement that it find the server to fully boot *IF* it's on a network, it's a great -- the right size, balance, snooze button locations etc. it's a CLOCK, not a tablet. It's shaped like a clock.

      Heres the annoying thing: If I shut off my wifi at home and boot the device it will start to JUST the alarm clock (nothing else will work). If it can connect to my wifi but can't 'phone home', it's as described in the article. There would be less anger from the dash users if the damn thing would just default to the "clock mode" as if no network was available.

      If you do a factory reset and dont bother setting up a network you can use it as a 'dumb alarm clock'.

  2. Re:Explanations needed by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure the 10 people that have these devices know already... Why do the other thousands care?

  3. Re:Explanations needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it's yet another warning to "consumers" that if you buy anything "cloud connected", its useful lifetime is limited entirely by the service provider's whims.

  4. Re:Outage on Slashdot commenters by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Funny

    It seems to have noticeably dropped this week, despite the positive comments on the "state of Slashdot" thread.

    Given that half of the comments are bitching and moaning about Slashdot itself, now that the problems are getting fixed there a good portion of commenters being disenfranchised.