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Roomba's Next Big Step Is Selling Maps of Your Home to the Highest Bidder (gizmodo.com)
The maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum, iRobot -- which we have talked about several times in the past -- has found itself embroiled in a privacy row after its chief executive suggested it may begin selling floor plans of customers' homes, derived from the movement data of their autonomous servants. From a report: While it may seem like the information that a Roomba could gather is minimal, there's a lot to be gleaned from the maps it's constantly updating. It knows the floor plan of your home, the basic shape of everything on your floor, what areas require the most maintenance, and how often you require cleaning cycles, along with many other data points. [...] If a company like Amazon, for example, wanted to improve its Echo smart speaker, the Roomba's mapping info could certainly help out. Spatial mapping could improve audio performance by taking advantage of the room's acoustics. Do you have a large room that's practically empty? Targeted furniture ads might be quite effective. The laser and camera sensors would paint a nice portrait for lighting needs that would factor into smart lights that adjust in real time. Smart AC units could better control airflow. And additional sensors added in the future would gather even more data from this live-in double agent.
I hope THEY don't start selling this info....!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
why is this thing connected to the internet in the first place?
Modern mapp mappers use mapps to mapp mapps, or something. Mapps?
To the internet for anything but firmware update?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sadly, it isn't fake.
Sigh.
This is disgusting.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Appliances shouldn't report on their owners.
Having said that, it could be fun having the Roomba send data that indicates:
- Our bathrooms are the size of Airplane hangers
- The master bedroom is actually a dungeon
- Our pets consist of only magical creatures
- My workroom contains nuclear materials
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
And my response to this idea is: Nope.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why should I spend money on a Roomba so it can tell me to spend more money?
I'm fully capable of buying furniture on my own, thank you very much.
They mention Amazon as a buyer, but let's get real, spam ads would eventually show up.
Lastly, I'd just disable my Roomba's internet capabilities if I somehow got too lazy to vacuum.
and roomba can be looking at Accessory changers
Yeah, the deal sucks.
*rimshot*
Life is not for the lazy.
like the unreleased Columbine wad?
Tinfoil hat time turned out to mean "this is really happening and we should not have laughed", or haven't you been paying attention ?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Seriously.... who cares that they know your floor plan? Besides, you listed all these advantages that can help you as a consumer, by
having your other devices know your floor plan!
My only concern is if you bought the device, then the maps should be your property, and you should be free to submit this data to all your smarthome product vendors without adding to the costs of their products.
It seems a bit unfair that you spent $$$ on this robot that collects your data AND the company wants to tax your data instead of allowing you to submit it and do what you will with the data from your bot for free.
You've been "using and loving" a Roomba for years? May I suggest a Realdoll instead?
#DeleteFacebook
Solution. Clean your panic room manually
**Life is too short to be serious**
I have been shopping around for one of these - now it's just not going to happen. Talk about exploiting your customers :-(
"Do you have a large room that's practically empty? Targeted furniture ads might be quite effective."
Yeah, those will be super-effective, because all those people with giant, empty rooms probably aren't aware that a thing called "furniture" exists.
Fuckheads.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Your local county assessor's office already has the floorplan and street view of your house publicly available on the internet for no charge in all likelihood.
Nah, Roombas are cheaper, offer better suction, and make a sexy whirring sound.
I think we have a deal.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Tinfoil hat time, but the same data could provide the means of a well-crafted home invasion. In the event of a full breach home invasion, one of the advantages that the home owner has is knowing the layout of their home. If those that mean to do harm, have the home layout they can pre-plan out everything in advance.
That's why I rearrange all my rooms daily. Imagine their surprise when they burst into the master bedroom only to find it full of dishes from earlier in the day.
There's no place like
If those that mean to do harm, have the home layout they can pre-plan out everything in advance.
I'm not sure who is doing you harm, but it sounds like they are a well connected intelligence agency. You're likely screwed either way.
Depends on where you live -- in the few cities around where I live, you can most definitely look up the floorplans as well as other info on the assessor website -- both new properties (my own house, from 2006) as well as old ones (my in-laws, 1950)