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Atari Is Going To Build IoT Devices (pcmag.com)
angry tapir quotes a report from Computerworld: The latest entrant in the Internet of Things is legendary gaming company Atari, which plans to make consumer devices that communicate over the SigFox low-power network. The devices will be for homes, pets, lifestyle, and safety. Atari has signed a deal with the communications service provider, Sigfox. "The initial product line will include categories such as home, pets, lifestyle and safety," the companies said in a statement. "By connecting to SigFox's global network, the products will benefit from its competitive advantages: a very long battery life and a simple solution that does not require local Internet connectivity and pairing. As soon as the battery is inserted in the object, it is immediately connected to the network."
I assosociate Atari with 70s tech and failure. It's over Atari, hang it up.
The Atari of today has little to do with the legendary gaming company of yore. The name has been bought and sold and licensed and is now basically just a marketing shell. There's something called "Atari", yes...
I grew up in the Atari 2600 era. I remember the first Pong machines showing up in restaurants in the early 70's, where two players would sit down at the machine. It was a great company then, and it changed the world. That company has not existed for a long time.
Also:
As soon as the battery is inserted in the object, it is immediately connected to the network.
Not at my house it doesn't.
FTFS:
The devices will be for homes, pets, lifestyle, and safety.
I asked the dogs, but they don't have any money for this sh*t. It's not part of their lifestyle, and they're dogs - they provide the safety for the home already.
Another IoT (Idiots obtaining Turdware) loser.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In 30 years or so, someone can discover the landfill where Atari buried all the failed IOT devices.
Time to break out the port scanner.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Atari ought to be good on customer privacy issues - the last time they brought out a product designed to "phone home", it took the whole company down. Doubt they'll want to go through that again. ;)
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
It is, hasbro bought them out years ago and now it's just a logo for them to hide behind.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Not at my house it doesn't.
Just to be clear. Yeah, if the battery goes in, then it does.
This is an... interesting... and disturbing trend for the future. Right now the home internet other than a few specific "mobile" devices like smartphones or onstar needs to connect to YOUR network, that YOU control.
This represents a shift where they connect to networks directly that you do not control. They don't run through your router, they aren't subject to your monitoring or blocking.
The future samsung smarttv won't need to connect to your network to get ads... it'll just connect to cellular or something directly and get ads.
The only solution... not even sure what it will be. Not to buy one (even today avoiding a smartTV is a PITA but not connecting it to the net is easy)?? Jammers ? Probalbly not going to be legal or easy to deploy in populated areas -- hardware hacks to render their antenna useless? Maybe? OR maybe their is no escape but to move into a log cabin in the woods...
This business plan makes sure they remain irrelevant.
The company that made Alone in the Dark is switching to IoT? Hmm, I guess they believe they have some relevant patents and a good partner for this venture, but IoT seems like an area filled with pitfalls and liability. Maybe not the best strategy for a company staving off vultures?
Twinstiq, game news
It's just the company that owns the Atari trademark.
I couldn't see anything in either link about what the products are, or will do, for homes, pets, lifestyle, and safety.
Am I missing something or is this just a press release from SigFox saying that Atari wants to use their network?
The name still exists. The actual company shut down years ago, after having been bought years before that.
You can always live inside a system of faraday cages... Then nothing you don't wire in is getting in. Stupid to have to be in a situation where that's even possibly a thing...
"IoT" or "Internet of Things" christ I miss the days that only hardcore nerds gave a shit about IT, Computers, technology, gadgets, etc.
Sorry, I'm super sick of hearing about "IoT" just be fucking descriptive, this shit is as bad as "the cloud" (actually it might even be worse)
This is a kind of disturbing development. I don't know what the actual hard costs to a manufacturer to give a device on-demand data access through a cellular type network, but my guess is that it's rapidly declining and that ultimately cellular network operators will be hungry enough for growth and have built out enough network capacity that selling capped data-only plans to IoT type companies will become appealing to them, especially if they can manage to get existing smartphone users to pay for them.
The scary part is that when you bring an IoT device home with magic connectivity, not only do you lose control of its communications but do you know what it might be doing to tap into your existing wireless network or somehow spy on you?
There's also the ability to build in obsolescence or subscription leverage -- when the device's data expires or no longer works, neither will it, regardless if its not worn out or otherwise damaged.
I suppose the good news is that if these devices exist, someone will figure out how to hack them to appropriate their data plans for their own use. This may be their undoing, as the devices may well be sold at a loss with the hope that subscription plans or other payments are designed to fund the connectivity that comes built in. They might try to ship them "deactivated" but there will probably be good reasons to ship them with functional data plans so they work out of the box without too much multi-vendor activation involved.
And Infogrames bought Hasbro Interactive in the run up to the dot com bust. AFAIK, still the same company after for bankruptcy in 2013.
I just read up on it, and the SigFox protocol is 12 bytes per message, max of 140 messages per day.
That's tiny. Kindergarten kids can write faster than that.
It's 12 bytes every 10 minutes. 96 bits. Not much for a tweet, but you can stuff quite a lot of data in 96 bits.
For example, say you're tracking fragile cargo :
2 bits - battery level (2 bits - 4 values, high / med / low / replace)
2 bits - status of 3 tamper switches (00 - all ok, 01/10/11 - a switch has been triggered).
6 bits - a temperature range of 64 degrees, in celsius, from starting from -14 to 50 degrees, 1 degree resolution.
6 bits - humidity (64 values stretched to 0-100, gives us about 1.5% resolution)
2 bits - whether temp or humidity has gone out of bounds since last transmission (and a spare value here).
6 bits - current speed 0-64 m/s (0 - 230 kmph/ 144mph)
6 bits - max speed since last transmission in m/s
48 bits - lat and longitude, good to about 11 metres globally.
18 bits - max g-force sustained in the last ten minutes (6 bits/64 values for x/y/z, scaled to 10g, so good to 0.15g)
Tada, 96 bits, full of info.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
>OR maybe their is no escape but to move into a log cabin in the woods...
Yeah, like my buddy Ted. His advice: make sure your cabin is somewhere that still has good snailmail service. Can't attach the explosives to e-mail.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>2016: Elect Baggins for a better shire!
Screw you ! I'm voting Took !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I just want to know if there will be phillips head screws to take it apart so I can re-align the button pads ....
I am collecting more fitting expansions for the acronym, my current favorites are:
"Internet of Terror"
"Insecure Online Things"
"Insecure Omnipresent Technology"
Commodore's IoT offering is bound to be superior.
I enjoyed my circuits class. I did have to work to wrap my head around the idea of a feedback loop where the output of a circuit can be wired back as an input to the circuit changing the output and also the input changing the output changing the input.... ok make it STOP! ;)
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I want a smart snobby toaster than orders its own fresh bread to toast, because it is too good to toast old bread.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The so called "Internet of Things" is simply not going to happen any time soon.
Have you noticed all of the TV's, refrigerators, door locks, thermostats, garage doors, security systems, and lights that are connected to the internet and accessible from outside the home? It's already here
...but they'll soon learn.
No. They won't. 99% of people out there don't know or don't care. I, personally, would love the convenience of being able to control my lights and thermostats from my cell phone, but I sure as hell am not going to connect it to someone else's service to make that happen. Case in point, my local gas or electric company was offering a "free" internet connected thermostat, the caveat was that you had to give them access to it so they could turn off your AC at peak times.
IOT = solution in search of a problem.
As someone who has investigated this stuff a fair bit, I agree that the connected appliances that are currently being pushed are uninteresting and, frequently, pointless. However, an INTRANET of Things is a whole different proposition, with sensors connected to a central processing device/server that uses the data to make complex decisions and then controls various other devices to effect the required changes. That, to me, starts to look really interesting as the security issues are reduced by being a much more contained system, the owner has total control over what events lead to what actions, etc.
My own particular research interest is in how (whether?) the IoT can aid learning and teaching in universities, so fairly niche, but one that certainly looks like it might have some promise.
Nope, I've never personally encountered any of those in the real world. They're niche products for wealthy people who'll buy a gadget just because, they're not products most people actually care to pay for.
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Implicity Dumb Internet of Things.
This is basically the sate of IoT due to an almost total lack of security.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That's all I care about. All the Asteroids emulators were fine and good, but none of them play exactly like the original vectorscan black-and-white game, running on a 6502 processor and a discrete logic state machine/vector generator. Lots of fun to debug failures on the logic board, and you'd always need to keep a supply of 2N3716 and 2N3792 power transistors on hand to repair the monitors. The heck with the Internet of Things, bring back classic Asteroids!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I've taken strides to make damn sure the things I buy do not access the internet, if they don't have a productive need to.
The only thing in my house that connects to the internet is my playstation, computer, and.. well.. yeah. That sums it up. I have a techie house, but not internet house.
Since I know how things work behind the scenes, it scares the bejeezus out of me to even think about lining things up to basically be spread buck-naked and ready...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
That costs money.
The relevant hardware is cheap. Like under $10 cheap. And the data... lots of devices can easily run on under 100MB per YEAR. A data plan negotiated directly by the manufacturer with the carrier "for the life of the device" when looking at thousands or millions of devices would be pretty nominal.
And if the purpose of that data plan is partly to drive ads to the device and marketable user tracking info; it will literally pay for itself.
It's coming.
Screw you ! I'm voting Took !
The Trump of the Shire? I feel sorry for you.
Surely the Trump of the Shire must be Sackville-Baggins !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *