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Humans have been forced to temporarily interact with their dogs or cats -- perhaps both -- after PetNet's internet-controlled smart feeder system suffered a blackout.
For $149, the company provides a web-enabled dog/cat feeder that is pre-programmed to dispense food stuffs at certain time and portion sizes.
But PetNet warned customers [...] that all was not well in its virtual animal kingdom as it was "experiencing some minor difficulties with a third party server. This is being investigated."
[...] "You may experience a loss of scheduled feeds and failed remote feedings. Please ensure that your pets have been fed manually until we have resolved this issue."
Source: The Register .
-- submitted from IRC
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Cats, Dogs Go Hungry as Internet-Connected PetNet Plays Dead
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In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
the supervision of a licensed engineer.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday July 31 2016, @04:39AM
It's way more fucking stupid than that.
Who wants to bet that isn't an embedded Linux/BSD device? CRON would solve that problem simply by setting jobs on scripts that disappear in a week, unless reauthorized by a central authority. Water doesn't need to be on schedule, and the most I could see is logging for watering events from GPIO, which means logging to disk locally. This doesn't actually require the Internet. Just log some timestamps on disk and upload them to centralized server in an opportunistic fashion.
These engineering geniuses created a device fully capable of carrying out all instructions, yet chose to turn it into an overpriced remote control with the entire fucking Internet between them. Not some plants, a freaking out cat, or your misplaced foot between you and the remote sensor, but the whole fucking Internet including any other clueless engineers and malevolent PHBs.
9/10 of us on this site could code their fucking doohickey for pizza in 20 minutes and we wouldn't need centralized servers :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday July 31 2016, @07:05AM
Who wants to bet that isn't an embedded Linux/BSD device?
More likely an Arduino or ESP8266 or something similar, the cheaper the better. All it needs to do is activate a solenoid at preprogrammed intervals, so you can get away with a minimum of hardware.
These engineering geniuses created a device fully capable of carrying out all instructions, yet chose to turn it into an overpriced remote control with the entire fucking Internet between them.
You've just described about 95% of the Internet of Things you Don't Need. It can't be an IoTyDN device if there isn't some Internet in there somewhere.
I have a cat feeder that I use when I need to go away for a few days. Mains-powered, battery backup, runs off a built-in timer. No hipster iPhone interface that I don't need, all it does is feed the cat when I'm gone.