Jibo, the $899 'Social Robot', Tells Owners in Farewell Address That Its VC Overlords Have Remote-Killswitched It (boingboing.net)

Reader AmiMoJo writes: Jibo was a "social robot" startup that burned through $76 million in venture capital and crowdfunding before having its assets were sold to SQN Venture Partners late last year. Earlier this week, reporter Dylan J Martin tweeted a video of a $899 Jibo robot bidding its owner farewell, announcing that the new owners of his servers were planning to killswitch it; the robot thanked him "very very much" for having it around, and asked that "someday, when robots are more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said 'hello.'" Then, the Jibo performed a melancholy dance.

Comments

Re:What did you expect?

[Opportunist]

Get used to it. More and more things you consider "yours" are tethered to its maker. And only work as long as its master (and that's not you) allows them to.

Earlier, makers of appliances had to build their systems to last just long enough to make it through warranty, which is a gamble. The item may fail too early or, worse, too late. Now they can determine when it fails you.