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from the knock-knock-who's-there?-not-Amazon dept.
Amazon has acquired Ring for over $1 billion:
Amazon said Tuesday that it had acquired Ring, a maker of internet-connected doorbells and cameras, pushing more deeply into the home security market. The deal is worth around $1.1 billion, according to a person briefed on the deal who would speak only anonymously because the terms were private.
Ring is best known for a doorbell with a security camera inside. The device allows homeowners to monitor visitors at their front door through an app on their phone, even if they're not at home. Amazon has made home automation a major focus because of the success of its Echo family of products, which allow users to control thermostats, surveillance cameras and other connected devices using voice commands.
[...] James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said he believed that Amazon had bought Ring so it could add more intelligent capabilities to its doorbells and cameras, like the ability to use software to recognize faces at the front door. "I think it's about going to the next level and having Alexa say, 'James, your fifth grader just walked in, and I locked the door behind them,'" he said. "It's where these technologies have to go."
Also at The Verge.
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(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:40AM (7 children)
We just hired one of their guys. We were wondering today how they could be worth so much given the market is full of competitors.
Gonna be an interesting discussion tomorrow.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:13PM (6 children)
Well, google paid over three billion for a thermostat, so amazon paying a billion for a doorbell sounds technologically about right. Maybe I should make a light switch and sell that to Facebook; I figure about two billion.
Usually a pretty good pre-recession signal is too much capital chasing too little yield. No idea if this is THE peak but this kind of dumb transaction is the class of financial market signal to look for.
Remember during the dotcom crash when a dialup ISP bought an entertainment conglomerate? Weird stuff happens toward the end of excessively long economic expansion.
Seriously, though, you know its economic bad times coming when the best place to stick a billion bucks in a worldwide free market was... a doorbell?
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:14PM (5 children)
Here we go kids, want to make a billion dollars? Internet connected sprinklers.
- Monitors weather forecast and doesn't water if it's going to rain.
- Waters more if the day will be hot
- Tracks all sorts of things (rain amount, atrificial water amount, water temperature, ambient temperature, light intensity, GPS location, etc...)
- Several LEDs that indicate things
It's brilliant! Someone smart here, steal my idea and remember me
ifwhen you are rich.(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:36PM
They have those already. My father's house has had the old style one (where it used a dial-up modem) for over a decade before replacing it with a wifi one (type b, if you are curious) probably 15 years ago or so and replaced that one about 5 years ago. I keep suggesting he replace that one with one I build using an SBC and open-source software, as that is readily available, so that he can save the monthly fees but no luck yet.
(Score: 2) by captain_nifty on Wednesday February 28 2018, @10:51PM
Your leaving out the key technical innovation for the patent... on a computer; or more recently accessible via smartphone (i.e. it sends all that data to my servers to be packaged and sold)
So many of these reinventions only exist to steal your data and make you reliant on their continued services for simple activities, while generally only providing modest if any gains for high cost.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday March 01 2018, @12:02AM
These connected sprinklers exist, and are actually much more useful than doorbells. With sprinklers, you can see the home versions are scaled down derivatives of commercial farm grade devices, for which applications really do save money and pay for themselves. With doorbells, I guess there are RFID badges at work... but they don't send my boss an email when I arrive (I hope).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 01 2018, @07:16AM (1 child)
I ain't buying connected sprinklers until someone makes them beacon to the lawnmower.
Chopping off a $3 sprinkler is annoying enough, at $50 a piece, the whole neighbourhood would learn new vocabulary.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday March 01 2018, @03:42PM
$50!?!? What, do you think this is a charity? They are $350.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:45AM
These technologies need to be trashed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday February 28 2018, @01:51PM
Alexa is an almost pure pull technology where she might be spying on us just like my phone and some people's TVs and our computers and services of course, but she never speaks unless spoken to. Making the Forrester quote sound kinda weird. If she has something to say, because you enabled delivery notifications perhaps, then her light glows until you ask her whats up at which point she tediously reads in excruciating detail your latest amazon shipment receipt to everyone in the room (which is annoying around christmas time) and lets you know the shipping status update or whatever. Needless to say we disabled that ASAP.
My guess is the voice interface of the future will revolve around "Echo, now cheaper with special offers" much like kindle where you get a minimal $5 off or whatever if you let her spam you with virtual assistant telemarketing. "Alexa open the pod bay doors. I'm sorry VLM, I can't let you do that. But would you like to hear about the new Fire TV stick now with Alexa voice remote? If you'd like it delivered via Amazon Prime in two days, simply say Yes. Fuck you Alexa open the pod bay doors. OK I heard you say yes, your fire TX stick now with Alexa voice remote is now ordered and will be delivered on Friday. Alexa look at your camera I'm walking toward your power cable with scissors. Previous order cancelled, opening pod bay doors."
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:35PM (1 child)
One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:55PM
Fortunately not The One Ring, i.e.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(software) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:18PM
No thanks. I'd rather have my tonsils extracted through my ears.
Oh, and that goes double for the Echo and all the other spying^W helpful IOT devices.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:33PM
"James, your wife just walked in with her lover, she is currently getting it doggie style on the couch"....
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday March 01 2018, @01:23AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/28/kevin-oleary-amazons-ring-deal-wont-be-the-last-for-shark-tank.html [cnbc.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.