Don't believe everything you read - <AUTHOR> http://x-surface.tumblr.com/post/41282771026/x-surface-dont-believe-everything-you-read <comment><USER2> This is why reputation and reliability matter. While the example in this post is the equivalent of "I got major news outlets like TMZ to think that Paris Hilton was getting married" many types of news aren't so inconsequential. In the first few days after the Connecticut shooting, there were so many inaccuracies it made me reconsider other "facts" I heard which were never obviously wrong (e.g. it became obvious that the shooter's name was wrong when he was in New York - most inaccuracies aren't like this). Like many blogs, the "source" of misinformation often originated in a single benign inaccuracy that was then propagated through other news agencies.

What I would love to see is a method for tracking or indexing _reputation_ of a site by some automatic method. As it is, I can kind of infer how reliable a site is based on the language I see, and the types of headlines, and whether others have told me it's reputable. I would _love_ to see that automated somehow. News aggregators try to solve this via upvotes, downvotes, or flags, but there are plenty of reasons to upvote that have nothing to do with _reliability_ per se, and trying to use multiple upvoting buttons seems silly, because at the end of the day rank is a one-dimensional property, so you'll have to combine "funny", "reliable", "interesting" into some single number.

It's a "hard problem" but since the value of information depends so heavily on its accuracy, solving it would appear to be very lucrative and valuable to a society in which the quantity of available information grows by leaps and bounds each year. Google seems to have solved "relevance" and I would love to see someone solve reliability.

<comment><USER3> In a way, there is already a system like this in your brain. Reputation is something you formulate yourself based on meta-information about the outlet you're reading. You do this already: ever read an article and look up at the URL to check and see if it's hosted at a reputable source, like nytimes.com or salon.com?

What would help is more meta data available to the reader. So, instead of measuring an unmeasurable "truthiness" (because really, what is truth, in the philosophical sense...) how about a Chrome plug-in that pulls down meta data from other sites that have written about this outlet.

So, you read NYTimes, and your little plug-i pops up some links to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair> or some such similar thing. You can read up on that and see that there have been issue sin the past, but for the most part, NYTimes remains reputable.

I guess it would need some sort of Hacker News-like inaccuracy tracker. Post bad stories, more up-votes, more likely to be detected as relevant meta info on the TLD it comes from.

<comment><USER4> NYTimes does not have a single unified reputation.

A front page story like "Pentagon Lifts Ban on Women in Combat" is probably highly accurate, breaking news less so. Op-Ed, might as well be a random blog.

<comment><USER3> True. Add to this the fact that things like the Wall Street journal are now Fox News puppets, and MSNBC's desire to be the liberal Fox News, and there's almost nothing left for reliable news.

Still, BBC, Al Jazera, NPR are where I go. That, and hyper local sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A response from Rob Crossley:

<https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149670496768002>

<https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149784678322176>

<https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149862562353152>

<https://twitter.com/Rob_Crossley_/status/294149937736847363>

<comment><USER6> Rob did two great things: 1) He did not trust the source, and questioned the authenticity. 2) He actually called him out on BS when he continued

The first false message from Joe is interesting, but once Rob replies, and Joe continues trying to push the lie, that's a little dick'ish. The second Rob replied, with his first, and extremely professional response, I would have apologized/congratulated him, and explained what I was doing.

Continuing the charade invites deserved anger. I don't like being lied to either, especially when I know the person was lying and keeps pushing the lie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That the news agencies are too quick to run with a story is an old complaint. That doesn't make it any less real, it simply makes it less novel.

"Bad guys" exploit this effect to create false perceptions. It is used a lot in politics since perception is effectively reality if the next step is getting a vote. Sometimes it is used for espionage (corporate and geopolitical) to create a diversion. It has been used to make money in the stock market with option manipulation.

Because being "first" on a news story conveys additional profit (views, ad clicks, publicity) there is great incentive to be first, which will always be in tension with being accurate. There also seems to be a sliding scale on verification so leaking a rumor that the Prime Minister has died is less likely to run without verification than leaking a rumor that the Prime Minister has been photographed in a compromising situation. National impact vs scandalous impact. No doubt every publisher thinks "Hmm, what if this is a prank what is the worst that can happen?" Maybe I give them too much credit.

Reputation is important, takes a long time to build though. Can be lost quickly.

</comment><comment><USER8> How many of you laughed at how credulous news sites are before verifying that this blog post was accurate? Finding a reliable news source is hard, and not just in the games industry. Even here on Hacker News I usually read a headline, wonder if it's true, check the comments for contrarian views, then read the article.

<comment><USER3> Journalist here. FYI, the day someone I don't know emails me with a "hot inside tip" is a day I spend tracking down the emailer and calling my sources within the target company.

Just so you know, even at the big news sites, good hot tips from unknown emailers just never happen. Great hot tips come from getting corporate employees drunk, then chasing down their leads from other directions when you're sober. Anonymous insider emails spilling the beans only happen when a company is about to, or currently going bankrupt, or some such other catastrophic melt-down. Then they come crawling out of the woodwork.

<comment><USER9> Never underestimate the value of a disgruntled employee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the site that said "but we ran a prominent disclaimer at the end of the article!", as if that made up for a lede and a series of breathless grafs reporting the contents of an anonymous mail as fact.

<comment><USER11> Says the head of the new xbox division[1]

[1] According to an anonymous email I received 35 seconds ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not as though brick & mortar journalists are any better nowadays either. See: Manti Teo

Even though one "journalist" couldn't find any evidence of the girl existing: no birth certificate, no death certificate, no records of her existence, they essentially let Manti Teo off the hook when he essentially told the guy to not further into it.

Then look at ESPN. They supposedly sat on the story for under a week because they were trying to land an sit-down TV interview with Manti Teo. ESPN the Sports Entertainment Network, won out over ESPN the Journalistic Sports Network.

<comment><USER13> It is pretty common for any news organization to embargo scoops to maximize their impact. They might schedule additional, related stories or or a special ad/launch campaign. These things take time and the newspaper will often work with the source/subject to make sure they maintain exclusivity. Startups might learn lessons on how to maximize initial launch impact by studying the behavior of news organizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every time I hear someone say that democracy won't suffer as professional news orgs fold and that bloggers will fill the void I think of stories like this.

<comment><USER15> You mean the same professional news orgs that publish 14 stories on Pussy Riot's plight but only a brief bit of wire copy from AP concerning Bradley Manning's first week of testimony? <http://t.co/dCsfOEsf>

<comment><USER16> Exactly, expecting that "professional" news reporters and journalists don't operate under other biases is also naive.

Bloggers have their flaws, but so does mainstream news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You get what you pay for. When a site's only revenue source is ads paying a couple of bucks per thousand impressions, this is the inevitable result.

<comment><USER18> Newspapers have a similar model. The subscription fee just helps establish their customers as bona fide.

<comment><USER19> Not always. Subscriptions for the Wall Street Journal are an foundation revenue source. I think this is also the case for the FT and the Economist.

I don't think it coincidental that these are financial papers. Information is valuable and businesspeople will pay for it. That has implications for their reporting, too. Their stories are under pressure for accuracy, because the readers are paying for information and will go elsewhere if they don't get good stuff.

I think ad-first news models are more prone to some bias to generate an audience. People generally don't like hearing things they disagree with, so anyone requiring a large audience finds themselves pressured to adopt particular attitudes to get and hold that audience.

Why don't business people assert the similar biases? They do. But the ones paying up for information -- e.g. WSJ subscribers -- are almost by definition more interested in information than people who aren't. That particular crowd is also alert to the potential in contrarian opinion, they know people can get _paid_ for knowing something unexpected. So they've incentive to overcome their own cognitive dissonance.

I read recently that the NY Times was moving to more dependence on subscription revenue. I think that would be great, the more a reader pays, the higher the demand for accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily > publish guesswork as news.

Ha. Ha. Assessing the credibility of news sources is far from a solved problem. It doesn't matter if it is breaking news, business news (in any industry), public policy news, finance news, etc.

<comment><USER21> This is also why journalism is an actual field of study, not just a word to make oneself sound important. Assessing the credibility of sources is one of many _very_ hard problems legitimate journalists face, and as a whole we have some obligations and expectations in place to ensure due diligence is followed.

Which isn't perfect, but certainly a good foil for situations like this.

I miss real journalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't want to get too meta here but...

Just as easy as someone can send out a fake news tip to a bunch of sources, a person can just as easily pick out a piece of news story that is being covered everywhere and write a fake blog post about how they created the news tip out of thin air. I'm not saying (or even think) that is what the author did, but it is interesting to think about the reverse of this.

He could have made up that he made up that news. I'm mean he could have just

</comment><comment><USER23> The author is absolutely correct that this is not "journalism," however, I would argue that the state of the industry is not necessarily bad. What you have to consider most is the target market of this misinformation.

If the target were industry executives and product designers then, yes, getting accurate information on new products from competitors and the industry would be important but this is not the case.

The target market is, instead, eager-beaver fans who are bored at work or home and want something to entertain them and they find video game news and rumours entertaining. I've been part of that crowd in the past. To put it bluntly, I'd rather tons of inaccurate information constantly streaming into my RSS reader than one or two accurate updates a month.

This is a simple case of the market shaping the product. I wouldn't be so quick to attack the "journalists" who are simply giving their readers what they want.

Complaining that gaming news is not validated is about equivalent to complaining that the National Enquirer isn't top-rate journalism. We know and that's not the point.

</comment><comment><USER24> fwiw, his list of "major sites" that got fooled is rather misleading and sketchy in its own way:

"yahoo" - syndicated content

"cnet" - (UK) cnet.co.uk's crave blog

"gizmodo" - (UK) gizmodo.co.uk

not saying that you couldn't fool major sites, but this is a misrepresentative. You say "Gizmodo' without qualification, people expect you mean Gizmodo.com -- Not Gizmodo.co.uk. But hey, anything for a headline/clicks/press, right?

Edit: It should also be noted that most of the sites listed are not gaming sites despite his tirade against gaming journalists

<comment><USER25> If you willingly put your name on something, you have editorial responsibility.

<comment><USER26> Yes, the article is on <http://uk.news.yahoo.com/>. How many people are going to realize that it's not actually yahoo news?

<comment><USER27> It _is_ Yahoo News, it says so everywhere on the webpage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a very important topic to discuss here on Hacker News. I'll put it out there, as a person who had a different educational background and profile of activities in my teen years from most hackers, that most hackers have remarkably poor preparation in evaluating sources and figuring out which sources are reliable sources.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources)

That's especially regretable when sources about human health and medicine are submitted here,

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_\(medicine\))

as those sources often attract a lot of discussion, as we all desire to be healthier if we can.

The most embarrassing example I have seen of people using a good search engine (Google) to find lousy sources was when Larry Page posted a Google+ message

<https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL>

about his donation of funds to help young people in San Francisco obtain vaccinations. That resulted in a lot of anti-vaccine cranks decrying his donation, with one of those writing, "Just google it and do the research it's readily available" when asked to back up a statement decrying vaccines. The Internet is full of trash sources, and Google still spiders and indexes many of those as it searches the World Wide Web. Without thoughtful human brains thinking about which sources are reliable, the link structure that Google relies on in part as a signal of quality will include noise as well as signal.

The Hacker News welcome message

<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>

gives an overview of the community experiment here, summarizing the site guidelines. The welcome message distills the basic rules into a simple statement:

"Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads."

But it takes actual reading and thought to know what's a crap link. And since stories once submitted can only be flagged (not downvoted), it is still dismayingly easy for crap links to gain top position on the main page--I saw it happen only yesterday.

To follow up on this topic, I'll mention that other Hacker News participants have informed us all about two frequent sources of submissions that really aren't much good at all, namely the press-release aggregation sites PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. PhysOrg appears to have been banned as a site to submit from by Reddit. ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.

Comments about PhysOrg:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869>

"Yes Physorg definitely has some of the worst articles on the internet."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249>

"Straight from the European Space Agency, cutting out the physorg blogspam:

<http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/> (press release),

<http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/> (video),

[http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/scien...](http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1116.pdf) (paper).

"PhysOrg: just say no."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888>

"The physorg article summary is wrong, I think."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857>

"Phys.org is vacuous and often flat wrong."

Comments about ScienceDaily:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206>

"Blogspam.

"Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing):

[http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare- dn...](http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dna-changes- following-population-explosion-may-hold-common-disease-clues)

"Underlying paper in Science (paywalled):

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1219240)

"Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on similar topics:

[http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare- genetic-...](http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic- variants-1.10655)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603>

"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening pictures, etc.

" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead of ScienceDaily."

Comments about both PhysOrg and ScienceDaily:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185>

"Why hasn't sciencedaily.com or physorg been banned from HN yet?"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529>

"Original source:

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry.html)

"What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s).

"Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361>

"Those sources don't have RSS feeds, and ScienceDaily and PhysOrg have a bad habit of not linking to such things."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766>

"Added value in PhysOrg article: zero.

"Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or (2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value. (Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the original source."

To sum up, yes, as the interesting original blog post kindly submitted here points out, it is EASY to fool online news sites. And it is easy to fool whole groups of bloggers, and thus to fool news aggregation sites. Read a source carefully before submitting. Don't submit at all if the source is dodgy. Save the submissions and the upvotes and the comments for reliable sources that take care to verify factual statements.

<comment><USER29> I try and debunk/explain [shady] biological science news wherever possible here. In fact, it's typically my only contribution, but one I feel is highly important.

Your perpetual (and totally correct) crusade against PhysOrg reminds me there are others doing the same, and for that I thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one thinking it's a very selfish and unfunny move? What if I call him saying I'm a physician from hospital X and announce him that his father just died. Oh, and then, I'll post a blog explaining how you shouldn't trust people calling you and post that on HN. _Obviously_ there is a chain reaction when a big news comes out. You don't want to have a reputation for the _latest in the known_ news website. And, furthermore, it's very common for journalists to receive anonymous posts.. It's explicitly said in their news that it came from an anonymous source and that it wasn't totally trust-able; yet they admitted that what was said had much chance to be real because of some already known facts.

<comment><USER31>
      > And, furthermore, it's very common for journalists to
      > receive anonymous posts.

Publishing implies validation, at least to a certain extent. Otherwise media become nothing more than a fully transparent channel; there's nothing useful about that in this day and age. This prank (which doesn't resemble the physician example you mention in the least) shows two things: First, fact checking and double or triple sourcing appear to be a thing of the past. Second, on the internet, anonymous tips mean nothing. Even if you disagree that the former point is an issue, you'll have to grant the latter.

<comment><USER30> The thing is: How can they check or double check? It's a confidential memo from an anonymous user. If it was possible to check it, that wouldn't be a big news ;-) And yes, I do agree that anonymous tips have no credibility. However, experience shows that some anonymous tips were true and, especially when it's the only information you have, might become relevent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This reminds me, a few years back, I wanted to have a site linked and spoken about on major internet news (tech) sites.

Submitted the story, never saw anything about it. Probably not sensationalistic enough. Then I figured.

Sent the story to a few smaller news sites. ONE took the story. Next day, ALL sites including major news sites had the story.

Of course, these days its expected that news site leech stories and perform zero journalism, but back them, even thus I wouldn't say it surprised me a lot, it felt wrong hehe.

</comment><comment><USER33> I see some sort of duality between this (feeding fake information to news sources to then show them up for not fact checking), and email spam.

It comes at a small cost per news item, just like email spam costs, which added up would make it very annoying to work as a journalist.

In order to avoid getting spammed, they would have to do exactly what we would like them to do, which is to fack check.

Besides, contrary to what happens with spam, it is not cost-effective for a single individual to do this on a regular basis.

However, I wonder if it _might_ be cost efficient for a community to do this, and whether it is done in any other community to keep the quality up.

</comment><comment><USER34> Pfft. Any game site worth their salt would have negotiated the embargo period on releasing the "news" before providing this free advertising in exchange for those addicted fanboy clicks.

Real journalism is the advertising industry now. "Real" journalism (old- fashioned "journalistic integrity") is a good way to get squeezed out and blacklisted from the industry.

Keep in mind this isn't "real" news or journalism, it is treated as entertainment and there is no integrity assumed, there are justifications in place for this stuff.

Also, there have always been press hacks and tabloids. Most popular internet "news" is far more tabloid than newspaper.

<comment><USER35> "You kid come into this business thinking you're going to make a difference. Pretty soon you find out, you're just filling the space around the ads."

Source <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2666870>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > How would people react if they found out the BBC got all their news third- > hand from a copied article that had been changed twice along the way? It is > not reliable. No other industry works like this.

I got bad news for you buddy...

</comment><comment><USER37> From TFA: "The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news."

Yeah, it's not just the gaming media. The 4th estate is pretty much just a rotting corpse, and online media isn't any better (but at least it's free).

There is an awesome insider book about media manipulation: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-church/ryan-holiday- tru...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-church/ryan-holiday-trust-me-im- lying_b_1715524.html).

<comment><USER38> I hope you were being wryly ironic posting a Huffington Post link. The best part of the review was this:

"The way the media is organized today is bad, he argues, because it no longer cares for quality journalism. Sources aren't checked. Facts are dubious guesses at best. Mistakes are never corrected. No, the media cares more for gossip and things that make readers emotionally charged -- as that's what makes us share stuff."

Describes HuffPo to a T.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> What he's missing is that he seems to think this is unique to gaming or tech news. It's not. I've worked with 'Journalists' from prestigious institutions like the New York times and the New Yorker, and it's little better.

Collect some dirt, regurgitate some quotables with a little polish, copy some "facts" from Wikipedia (without attribution, ensuring that Wikipedia eventually cites the crap news article for non-factual facts), and we're off to the races.

<comment><USER40> Relevant xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/978/>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> > _The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily > publish guesswork as news._

I take it that this person doesn't read political journalism.

</comment><comment><USER42> This validates most of what Ryan Holiday says in "Trust Me, I'm Lying." Was wondering what extent his account of the media is actually true.

</comment><comment><USER43> There's a couple of problems with this post:

1) what if an employee really wanted to leak information anonymously?

2) rumors like these are fun, and let's face it, the subject matter isn't very important.

If it were someone embezzling millions in a company it would be a different story.

</comment><comment><USER44> The fact he calls out a guy by name and then remains anonymous is pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's remarkable to me that the demand for gaming news is so high (and that it's lucrative enough to pay people's salaries). I'd expect gamers to spend their time, you know, gaming.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is what draws the line between bloggers and reporters.

Sadly, the news industry is trying to be as fast as the bloggers to be hip and cool, and getting just as sloppy as hell in the process.

</comment><comment><USER46> HAH, this is _awesome_!

I've been feeling this way for some time.. moreover, I feel like HN and Reddit seed a lot of articles nowadays. Either way, thanks for taking the time and posting this.

</comment><comment><USER47> srry but accidently pressed send. but one episode was about the liability of the media. and they did the same thing you did. it was just before the eurosongfestival and the made a song wich was really similair to the song we would send to the songfestival. then they sent it to some newspapers. and if there wasn't a article about in their paper it was on their website. and they have even a hint because in the name of the mp3 stood rambam.

</comment><comment><USER48> Isn't it obvious? It's one of the first things I learned in school. Be critical about what you read!

</comment><comment><USER49> The Verge / Engadget didn't run with it. Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER47> this isn't only in gaming. I'm from the Netherlands and here used to be a tv- program called rambam

</comment><comment><USER50> Great work this should fix the issue for a few weeks. But really this is how things are exposed. SO great work!

</comment><comment><USER51> This is hilarious, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER52> Or this is a brilliant cover up from Microsoft on a genuine leak. That is the fun with paranoia - there is always one more level of distrust.

Also specs of next gen devices are not that hard to guess.

Assuming goals are 1080p x 60FPS:

If you aim for sub 500 USD of production cost that retail at 350-400 there are not many balanced hardware solutions that could fit. My wild guess is that we will have 6GB of ram (it is dirt cheap so it makes no sense to have much less), because the invisible walls are something players and developers has complained a lot. 2GB of video ram and four core cpu. And maybe 7870/660ti class GPU and what is left of the budget for storage.

<comment><USER53> I'm not an expert on this but my gut tells me that Microsoft/Sony/whoever, when specing the device will make a bulk contract purchase for their equipment. So although retail market for cpu/gpu/ram may be so much right now they'll be able to get better hardware at a cheaper rate than any consumer wishing to build at the cheapest price avaiable. I would _hope_ at least that next-gen aren't building at 660ti grade GPU.

<comment><USER54> I'm also assuming that if you are building a device that has a multi-year lifespan you can factor in the ever decreasing cost of components. Maybe the price of the components on day-1 are $500, but day-730 $350.

<comment><USER55> MSFT has stated multiple times that their goal is over the lifespan of the hardware to break even on it. (So 1mil units at -200 and 10mil units with at +20)

How this works with devices such as Kinect though I'm not sure. It's about attachment rates (extra controllers, batteries, etc.) on the hardware side

Then the software side has fairly obvious goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> What I find hilarious about journalists in general is they wrap themselves in "truth" when in reality they basically will do _anything_ to get your attention for just long enough to pawn off some product in a 30-45 second ad. The only reason they seek the "truth" is so advertisers will buy another slot.

</comment><comment><USER57> In summary, author blames gaming sites for lack of journalistic integrity at the same time he fails to notice he is a liar and a snark.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance>

<comment><USER58> He didn't notice it?

> I feel bad for lying, but it proves the point very well.

<comment><USER59> In sentences like that, I tend to ignore everything before the 'but'.

To my admittedly uneducated eye, nothing in the rest of that article indicates any kind of remorse or regret over the author's actions.

The clause before the 'but' is how the author gives themselves permission to say what's after the 'but'. This does not necessarily impart any emotional (or even semantic) meaning onto the first clause.

<comment><USER60> You can argue over how much he really felt bad, but you can't argue that he 'didn't notice he was lying'.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seth Godin on how business plans should look today - <AUTHOR> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/cWCVSly7e14/the-modern-business-plan.html

<comment><USER2> FWIW previously submited, about 9 hours ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1374362>

It didn't get any upmods or comments then, maybe the timing was bad, maybe no one liked it. That one, however, actually points directly to the article on the real website instead of pretending to be on Google.

Again, FWIW, I thought it was interesting, and mirrors what I say about resumes.</comment>


The Internet of Way Too Many Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/allison-arieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html <comment><USER2> I just bought a home, and just started a considerable renovation. I'm putting in new water pipes, new electrical wiring, etc. I thought of putting "smart" devices (i.e. switches, alarms, thermostats, etc.) given the "advantages" these promise.

After considerable research, it's not worth the hussle or money. Let's put aside the fact that these are considerable more expensive, and won't breakeven in years (some devices smart devices simply don't breakeven).

The main reason I decided not to have any of these installed was due to how cumbersome they are to operate. Each appliance/brand has their own app/portal, which does not connect to other brands, making it impossible to have an overview of your "smart home". Even more scary, some of these devices are operated by startups, god knows, if they will be alive next year. Good luck getting that app to work with iOS 10! It's a true headache, it's even a headache for contractors, who have no clue how these work. It's going to take some time (and education) to have an OS that makes a smart home smart...

and don't get me started on the smart baby monitors, etc... if my siblings an I were brought up just fine in the 80's without being in a "smart onesie", I'm sure we can do just as fine today.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=infant-child-and- teen...](http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=infant-child-and-teen- mortality)

Looks to me like infant mortality (under age one) has halved between 1977 and 2013. I understand the argument of "it worked fine for me", but, well, on a portfolio basis, you and I were dying a bit faster back then.

Outpatient care is a big field these days. Something that, with extremely little effort, can reduce the odds of death or disability, is quite tempting. A smart nappy/diaper with a disposable nutrition-analysing smart-chip is not that far off.

<comment><USER2> Maybe you are right... but a onesie that "knows that when a baby wakes up, the parents will, too -- so it turns on lights and music and even makes the coffee." ... is of no use to fight infant mortality.

<comment><USER4> Mimo monitors breathing, temperature and sleeping position. All of these are factors in cot death according to easily searchable research.

<comment><USER5> There is no evidence I've found that _any_ monitoring device improves SIDS outcomes, and there is evidence that it doesn't. Forget about the smart onesie: it's difficult to justify even classic baby monitors as a medical intervention.

The decline in SIDS over the last 2 decades tracks the education of parents not to put infants to sleep on their stomachs.

<comment><USER6> Small note, but there are other major factors in the decline of SIDS besides just not putting infants to sleep on their stomach, although they generally all stem from the idea of educating new parents about basic safety procedures that are not always intuitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Commentary about the silliness of the avalanche of IOT devices being created right now aside (99% of consumer internet startups are based on dumb ideas and fail, but that doesn't mean there is no market or trend!), it's inevitable that this stuff is going to get traction in the market and it's a vast market. I doubt it's going to happen based on a bunch of edge-case $99 devices though.

The big trend here is the cost of wifi enabled microprocessors dropping down to nearly nothing. Last year we were excited about raspberry pi dropping prices down to $30 for sensor-enabled hardware on the network.

This year you can buy a wifi-enabled microcontroller for _$3_ (search esp8266). And that's not even in volume. At that price, pretty much anything consumer electronics companies build can be addressable on the network.

Add to that voice control, which is crude but usable and built into every phone already and improving quickly. The idea of walking into your house and looking for a light switch is going to feel like walking up to your TV to change the channel did 30 years ago when the remote went into wider use.

I find the economic arguments about not saving money using IOT devices a little amusing, on HN especially. My guess is that almost everyone reading this forum spends a shitload of money buying techno gadgets for reasons beyond "it saves me money."

<comment><USER8> Well here is an interesting argument for voice control: it's more hygienic. All touch points are potential sources for disease. On the other hand, maybe we are increasing allergies by making the environment too sterile.

What hygienic technology will replace touch screens?

<comment><USER9> Is that actually a problem?

That sounds like a made up solution. For the vast majority of people, simply touching something that someone else in your home has touched isn't going to cause you any sort of problems.

<comment><USER10> Possibly not in the home, but in the office or public places? Definitely.

<comment><USER11> Yet we use public transportation in many parts of the world and few bad things have happened. We use door handles everywhere. Etc.

<comment><USER12> Door handles are a big problem in hospitals. I'd take the bet that they are a bigger problem in public places than is generally acknowledged.

<comment><USER13> Interestingly this is actually a solved problem that we have forgotten the solution to. Copper naturally kills most pathogens. Brass door handles therefore act to prevent touch based spread of pathogens -- but plastic is cheaper.

<comment><USER14> I think it's not the price but the looks. Copper tends to oxidize and form an ugly green-ish hue of copper oxide, while proper plastics or other non- biocidic metal will not degrade in looks.

<comment><USER15> Brass works fine too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I went to an Internet of Things meeting in SF about two years ago, and it was about like this. A Samsung executive was touting an Internet-enabled refrigerator, which was basically just a refrigerator with a tablet built into the door, with no special sensors, costing more than a refrigerator plus a tablet. I asked him why they'd built the product, and got an honest answer. He said the market was three types of people:

\- People who just had to have the latest thing - early adopters. \- People who like to show off their houses to other people (the granite kitchen counter crowd) \- People who just like to buy expensive stuff and will buy the most expensive thing.

I talked to a HVAC engineer there. The room we were in was an old industrial building in SF. It had skylights with chains and toothed pulleys for opening them, openable windows, curtains for both, ceiling fans, both spotlights and light cans, a video projector and powered screen, and a standard HVAC system controlled by a standard thermostat. Controlling and coordinating all that would be a good "internet of things" application. He pointed out that companies which installed that sort of thing wanted it to work, and not generate service calls. Engineering, installing and connecting all the motors and sensors to run that room properly would be a big job. Motorizing the old skylights alone would need custom engineering.

That's the problem. Internet of Things stuff that's actually useful requires more than buying some plastic gadgets. Just an HVAC system for the home able to open and close windows would do more for heating cost and air quality than Nest's gadget, which, in the end, just turns heat and A/C on and off.

<comment><USER17> what do you mean by "granite kitchen counter crowd"? is it the case that granite counters are not particularly functional and primarily there for show (i'm genuinely asking).

<comment><USER18> Granite looks great, at least initially, but is expensive and can have issues with discoloration, cracking, etc. Corian-type materials are probably more practical. Granite isn't a terrible material but it is often the choice for kitchen remodels done mostly for show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm reminded of the online coke machine: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt)

I'm also (many times a day) reminded of some Douglas Adams bits.

 _1\. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2\. Anything that 's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3\. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."_

And this (though you should read the full thing):

 _Another problem with the net is that it's still 'technology', and 'technology', as the computer scientist Bran Ferren memorably defined it, is 'stuff that doesn't work yet.' We no longer think of chairs as technology, we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn't worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often 'crash' when we tried to use them. Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs_...

So, since Douglas was writing (a) a lot more of us are operating in the 15-35 category where technology is cool and (b) a lot more of the stuff around us is technology in the sense that it doesn't quite work yet. It's become pretty much standard in startup-technology land to make the case that some technology "tick all the boxes," saving time, money and generally being ultilitarian and awesome. people who want to buy tecnology because its cool, play along. They need some way of justifying an internet-of-things coke machine, which they want because it's new and exciting.

Internet-of-things is still at the stage where we're throwing things against the wall. Most of it is not useful, or barely useful and the people who buy it, do so because they want to... for fun.

That doesn't mean none of it is useful or that some generally useless thing isn't useful for you, it just means you have a two legged chair.

<comment><USER20> _> Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs..._

Nonsense. A modern CPU has so many parts, no single human can understand its circuitry. And the complexity is ever increasing. The chair comparison is extremely poor; we live in an environment that is ever increasing in complexity and even today, most people don't understand the array of modern technology they're surrounded with and I don't see that trend stopping. You grow up with chairs; you know how a chair works and could build one. You grow up with x86 CPU? Ha, try to build one.

<comment><USER21> You'd be surprised how hard it is to create your own safe and reliable chair from scratch. I certainly don't think "most people could build one".

<comment><USER20> I've built a bench and stuff like that before. Very comfy and reliable for many years now. And I don't have any formal training in woodworking. It's really not that hard. However, even after years of formal training in electrical engineering, you will struggle very hard to build a modern CPU. An attempt to compare the difficulty of the two appears to be ridiculous (I have also built a CPU, though only a very simple one on a FPGA. I don't even want to imagine the amount of work and skill necessary to design a modern, say, Intel CPU).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For anyone not familiar with the Hype Cycle [http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hyp...](http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype- cycle.jsp) we're still in the "Peak of Inflated Expectations". I would have hoped we'd have hit the "Trough of Disillusionment" by now but it seems to be powering along quite nicely.

One of the big problems with IoT is the cost of the connectivity bit of the hardware. You want these things to be low powered but that costs money. You want these things out in the field, but providing constant power is a nightmare.

I've been looking at Automatic Number Plate Recognition networks using Raspberry PI2s, transmitting only the number plate to do transit route analysis. By the time you've added a battery, a GSM module,and a solar charging panel, it's suddenly become a £150 piece of hardware.

IoT is so so interesting, but I think the hype around it is driving money into the domain and people are just ramming the devices anywhere they can.

<comment><USER23> Interesting - what software are you using to do the recognition (if I may ask)?

<comment><USER22> This at the moment [https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr](https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr)

If you give me a vehicle database, I can tell you how many red cars are used on a route :) The more interesting calculations are based around CO2 emissions. I have the make and model and average speed between two points. I know roughly your emissions outputs.

Accuracy is an issue but as long as ALL your ANPR devices read a number plate exactly the same it doesn't make too much of an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone actively working in the smart home space, I refrain from calling our business IoT for exactly this reason. I've even challenged the team to stay away from smart home. We do very little "smart" home stuff and instead rely on cleverly designing a set of devices that don't require an application or future technology (AI, voice control) to work properly. They also don't take up space in your home and combine the functionality of two or more devices into one.

I'd like to think I've been a bullhorn for the "IoT is stupid" movement, but I think the author did a great job of calling it out as well.

<comment><USER25> Hi :-)

This is very interesting. What exactly are you doing then? Designing (software, hardware, both?) _dumb_ devices for home?

<comment><USER26> Parent poster's bio link points to [https://www.hellotwist.com/](https://www.hellotwist.com/) which does multi- room speaker systems.

What I was going to say before thinking to check the link, is that there must be a wealth of applications available to the instrumentation engineer, using modern microcontrollers without making the full step to Internet of Things.

The smoke alarm with the "I'm cooking for the next ten minutes" button. The simple alarm clock that knows weekends from weekdays, or even your work shifts. The thermostat with a few dozen more available states than the traditional ones and a sane interface. Electric showers that deliver a pleasant showering experience. Smart dumb devices.

<comment><USER27> Twist seems like a pretty clever idea, especially by integrating it all into the lightbulb.

Can anyone think of potential downsides to this approach? Other than the audio probably not being of very good quality compared to a serious speaker system.

<comment><USER24> We've used a really high quality audio driver and have some future products that'll help round out the system (aka subwoofers).

For reference here is the data sheet of speaker we use: [http://www.baysidenet.tv/catalog/pdf/Peerless/30n18al04-04.p...](http://www.baysidenet.tv/catalog/pdf/Peerless/30n18al04-04.pdf)

We also have a half a dozen other products designed to fit into this form factor, all of which provide a superior lighting experience to what is available on the market today.

<comment><USER27> I'm sure it's good, but I don't think you'll win the audiophiles over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I work at a market research/consulting firm that specializes in the embedded devices market. This means we cover any semi-specialized device with a CPU that is not a desktop, laptop, or tablet.

The consumer-facing home IoT stuff (Nest, smart-fridge, smart-car etc.) gets a lot of press because it's exciting and it appeals to the least common denominator - anyone from an electrical engineer to a nanny can see how these devices might affect their lives.

Most of the (pretty astronomical) growth of the embedded device market is driven by the applications of industrial connectivity. Think aerospace & defense, automotive, medical, municipal, retail automation. The industries that don't make for sexy headlines.

Ultimately, I believe the entire IoT movement is going to contribute substantially to the economy in the form of cost-savings. Companies will be able to access and analyze a lot more data which will hopefully enable leaner operations due to process refinement and resource conservation. It's a good time to be in the security and analytics business.

While cost savings are great for the bottom line, we also need to find a way to create new markets and generate new, useful products. Hopefully the government has invested enough in R&D to enable the next internet to begin to take root sometime soon, whatever that may be.

From my perspective, it would make sense that virtual reality would be a huge paradigm shift in the way that we create and consume information, which seems to be an underlying theme driving many advances in technology and overall quality of life.

IoT seems to be the maturation of internet connectivity - what's next in the world of technology?

<comment><USER29> On a similar note, I was really impressed by Microsoft's team that manages this for their whole campus. There was an article a while back that described the challenges they faced, like heaters and AC in the same building competing to keep temperature within a certain range, and the huge benefits they realized when they hooked it all up to a central sensor/management system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Internet of things is starting to look like 'Sky Mall'. Time will show if the concept gains traction with the majority of people. At this point I don't see the single mom working in food service for minimum wage buying her children electric onesies.

We should be working on improving existing technologies. Not dreaming up a million more that all inherit the same flaws as the ones we already deal with.

<comment><USER16> Yes. And "Sky Mall" went bankrupt in January 2015.[1]

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-flight-catalog-skymall- files-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-flight-catalog-skymall-files-for- bankruptcy-1422025308)

<comment><USER30> Ouch. Even as a kid I always wondered 'Who the hell shops out of these catalogs, and who came up with these products?'

Sky Mall provided at least 30 minutes of trolling fun on a flight. :)

<comment><USER18> Note that most of the products/catalogs still exist. Sky Mall was basically just a catalog of catalogs that basically picked some of the more out-there examples from a variety of companies in the Brookstone/Hammacher Schlemmer/etc. vein. I've actually occasionally found useful products from these companies but they're mostly just oddball stuff that's somewhat amusing but not very practical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Home automation always was and continues to be a puttering around hobby or suckers game.

A friend bought a house that had a late 70s state of the art home system. Central radio/vinyl/8track player, intercoms, and a broken CCTV setup. Also cool stuff like central vacuum.

The big difference between that house and the modern gadgetry is that the 70s stuff was hard wired and still works. None of the IoT crap that is on the market now will be completely unusable in a decade.

<comment><USER32> My house also came with a 1970s central vacuum system (among other things).

It still works amazingly well for a system that is 40 years old. I've only used it one time, just to test it out, because it's obnoxious to drag a long hose around the house and connect up to each port. In my opinion the concept was bad from the start because of that one thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I want to bring an alternate viewpoint into the discussion. For some a product like Leeo may sound superfluous and may not seem to justify the added value it provides for the rise in cost(99$+). (Note there is some added value however trivial it may be). For others they may say no to a product like [https://nest.com/](https://nest.com/) or this [https://on.google.com/hub/](https://on.google.com/hub/) based on their financial flexibility and their lifestyle (which you may see as 'obviously' needed).

I do think in this case, the best judge is the free market. If any product maker provides added value at a price point where there will be enough buyers and they see profit, their business will run successfully, else it will fail like any other business. How can my opinion decide what is a good product, it is the market that should decide it!

There are lot of independent products that solve mostly one problem - cars for eg:

Every product design does not have to solve multiple problems, it is just that the users need to feel that it justifies its cost based on the value it provides.

<comment><USER34> While I kind of agree with the author's position in general, I found the singling-out of the Leeo (which I had previously never heard of and thus have no horse in the race of its success) a bad example.

The way it is described in the article actually sounds pretty ideal to me in that it is not trying to insert all sorts of "intelligence" into the simple, well-understood solution that already exists in the form of a simple smoke alarm. Rather, it is merely augmenting that solution in a way that is helpful but less mission critical, without integrating extra "intelligence" in a way that is likely to cause software-related problems.

See bradfitz's video for an example of how "intelligence" can hamper something like smoke alarms if the entire system is integrated and "smart".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Internet-enabled house jewelry? Feh. It will be fun for a week, then boring.

Here's what I want: stuff that will make me a better neighbor and citizen of the world.

Specifically: Realtime smart energy and water consumption meters. Wouldn't it be great to get some sort of alert if there was a pipe burst or even a water trickle? Wouldn't it be fabulous to track electricity consumption? That could generate the creation of sets of light bulbs each of which consumes a different prime number of watts. Then your smart meter can say, "hey chump, you left a light on in the attic. Turn it off."

Combined with a smart grid and demand-pricing of public utilities (yeah, fat chance, I know), this kind of thing could make a dent in my carbon footprint.

<comment><USER36> About ten years ago I sat through a funding pitch for a monitor that detects sudden changes in residential water flow rates. Cost was about $250/home, and part of the pitch was that insurance companies would help cover the cost to save catastrophic damage. Apparently washing machine hoses burst on a regular basis, and such an event in an unoccupied home is very expensive. I haven't heard anything about that problem/solution since.

<comment><USER37> When our washer hose burst, and the adjuster said it's the most common insurance claim, I asked why the insurance company doesn't just send out new washer hoses every five years. Seems like it be more cost-effective than a $250 device that I'm sure doesn't work as well as the maker claims.

And yeah, I previously never gave washer hoses much thought, either. Go change yours this weekend. They're cheap, and a hell of a lot less trouble than the alternative.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, with respect to water, the simplest solution is probably to have valves that you shutoff. I have them on both washing machine and [EDIT] dishwasher but don't routinely close them. It probably should be part of my routine at least when I go on trips.

The problem is that as soon as you introduce control systems, you also introduce new failure modes. What happens when the smart thermostat crashes in winter which probably happens more frequently than a really dumb mechanical one? Of course, it's not like your heating system can't shut down for other reasons as well.

It's hard to figure out how to plan for rare failures. Ultimately you probably want someone who checks in on your house because smart systems can only handle so many eventualities. But that's may be costly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> FWIW I find the Whistle to be a good product. I can easily find out when our dog walker dropped our dog off, and therefore how long she has been alone. At the risk of stating the obvious: just because the author doesn't have the problems that these devices purport to solve doesn't make them superfluous.

<comment><USER39> Agree, we use it to coordinate dog care between housemates, but if they stopped all work on networking with dog owners and just made the damn thing sync more often, I'd be thrilled. I hate walking the dog at 1AM because it took 3 hours to upload the data so it looked like he never went.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> There is plenty of merchandise that people buy that they don't need and can do without. Many of the products in the article are just technology variations and extensions of the type of products that sold for years in Sharper Image, Brookstone or Skymall. (Or on infomercials) [1] Just something attractively priced, that if marketed correctly, will find a small or maybe even a large market because it's in front of people and an impulse buy (as opposed to buried on a shelf at a Walmart. Focus people and single out the product in other words.

[1] There was a commercial last year that I watched for a striped screw removal tool. The price was attractive and I thought "hmm you never know when you might need this". I then searched Amazon and found and purchased the most highly rated product of that category (wasn't going to order from an infomercial). I knew this product existed prior to that of course (my Dad used them when I was a kid) but until I saw the infomercial I had no motivation to seek this particular tool out. After seeing the infomercial I wanted one so I bought it. It actually did come in handy when having to pull a stripped screw from a washing machine.

<comment><USER41> I'd love to point to this post for all the snarky comments people make about how advertising doesn't work on the HN crowd ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's been posted before but on this topic check out

[http://weputachipinit.tumblr.com/](http://weputachipinit.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Some of these products strike me as being created because one of the owners of the startup thought it was cool, not because they went out and actually tried to identify peoples' household problems and figure out ways to solve them.

<comment><USER44> That may be true for some, but I suspect most of these internet-based devices are little more than an excuse to get on the surveillance-as-a-business-model bandwagon. All you need is a clever excuse to gather a new type of data that isn't currently being collected, and you have something to sell to "big data".

Fortunately, even the non-technical people I know have started to wake up to these scams, and are now avoiding any "smart" product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> There are always two kinds of developments. One is where you have a huge problem and people try different things to solve it. The other thing is where you have new capabilities and don't know yet what to do with it yet. One is not worse than the other. Given some time there will be reasonable usecases. Think back to the first iPhone and Android. Nobody really knew what to do with a smartphone yet. Now everybody has at least one and uses it way too often. Internet of Things are just one of the next areas. Let's just calm down and let the market work out what's reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER12> Home automation is the least likely IoT category to succeed, at first, anyway. The low hanging fruit is in things like public infrastructure monitoring by instrumenting the municipal maintenance and transit fleet. Many enterprises are going to find they can do with a lot fewer desks if they instrument their work environment and spread workers out into co-working spaces.

The people instrumenting these environments are also more-capable of calculating the benefits. Without analysis, it's just shiny toys.

</comment><comment><USER46> > I asked a young man working at the Target store how visitors felt about > their every action being tracked and he said that they'd come to accept it. > And that was that.

I think this is completely true. I've done research in this area, and people under the age of about 22 have no concept of privacy whatsoever (it should be noted that these people were 12 when Facebook started and basically hit their teenage years just as Facebook opened up to the general public).

Here is one of the anecdotes I collected: when one of them arrived at college, she posted a picture of her school ID and her key and said, "I've arrived!". I pointed out that with just the info in the photo someone could make a copy of the key and get into her dorm room. She said, "eh, that won't happen".

<comment><USER47> Another common one: people posting that they're going on vacation or posting pictures from vacation while still on it. Sure, your friends might not break into your place, but what if their laptop gets stolen and the thief sees you're not going to be home for a week?

<comment><USER48> I have never locked the door to my house in the 3 years of living where I do. I also commonly leave my keys in the ignition. I live in a small town and made that choice for such reasons, but if you are willing to give up on employment choices it is viable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> My favorite question for any smart home product is "what happens if company X goes out of business?" Had to learn to ask that the hard, expensive way but now all my connected things have the ability to run off the local grid.

</comment><comment><USER50> I walked through Target's Open House in SF a few weeks ago; I'd recommend visiting if you're in the area. It's pretty slick product display space. Each "room" has a projector which gives an overview of four or five products in a room, and how they tie together in your life. One of the rooms had a Kinect mounted above next to the projector; not sure what it was being used for.

The main lobby has a couple long tables with all of the products on display which were demo'd in the rooms along with some interactive Surface-like table which detects if you get near it and moves floating sprites around. They had displays on the wall listing the most popular products, and a few sales people to answer questions. IIRC there were approx 40-50 products displayed. Kudos to Target for setting the space up.

Everything being sold felt they'd fit perfectly inside of a Brookstone, or Sharper Image when they still had retail stores. Most of them were "vitamin" products rather than "aspirin", which gives way to some of Allison Arieff's criticism in the article: "What the products on display have in common is that they don't solve problems people actually have."

That's very fair to say. There were a few items which did solve real problems, like Nest which can help reduce heating costs, but most things sold didn't fit into that category. Many were "neat" things which you could entice someone with disposable income to splurge on.

</comment><comment><USER51> Refuel looks like it would be much better pivoted towards the beverage industry. The BBQ going out is not a problem, beer running out is a party- killer. It looks for all the world like a WiFi-connected scale that tells you when the weight of the tank is getting a bit light.

We're poking fun at these, but this just caricatures the entire bay area startup scene. There are so many companies solving rich-people-problems that really shouldn't exist or at least are highly unlikely to scale.

<comment><USER52> Funny enough, the Refuel immediately jumped out at me as a product that would be super useful for me. Not because I care a lot about being able to BBQ without running out of fuel, but because I have a propane-heated cabin in the middle of nowhere. Being able to look at the weather forecast and the amount of propane in the tank would make planning a lot easier.

There's also a few different people that share the place, so we don't always know what the other people have done/how much they've used.

Of course, there's no wifi at the cabin, but there is a nearby 3G tower... If I could remotely monitor both the propane tank and the water tank, that'd be awesome!

<comment><USER53> Why not have a second tank? Then if the first one is empty use the second and refill the first. That's pretty much guaranteed not to fail, unless you have someone that doesn't fill the tank. But that's s different problem. That's what I do at home and it is only for the occasional grilling, not anything like "we can't eat / have heat unless this works"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The _Industrial_ Internet of Things (IIoT) is also in the works, with standards efforts kicking into high/er gear.

The two big contenders seem to be the American-led effort/s that has come together for IEEE P2413[1], and the German-led effort known as Industrie 4.0[2].

See also: _Industrie 4.0 vs. the Industrial Internet_ [3].

[1] [https://standards.ieee.org/develop/project/2413.html](https://standards.ieee.org/develop/project/2413.html)

[&] [http://www.industrialinternetconsortium.org/](http://www.industrialinternetconsortium.org/)

[&] [http://industrial-iot.com/2015/09/ieee-pursues-standard- refe...](http://industrial-iot.com/2015/09/ieee-pursues-standard-reference- architecture-for-the-internet-of-things/)

[2] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattform_Industrie_4.0](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattform_Industrie_4.0)

[&] [http://www.zvei.org/en/subjects/Industry-40/Pages/The- Refere...](http://www.zvei.org/en/subjects/Industry-40/Pages/The-Reference- Architectural-Model-RAMI-40-and-the-Industrie-40-Component.aspx)

[3] [https://www.mapi.net/research/publications/industrie-4-0-vs-...](https://www.mapi.net/research/publications/industrie-4-0-vs- industrial-internet)

<comment><USER16> Most factories have had in-house networks for decades. Ordinary CAT-5 cable works quite well in electrically noisy industrial environments, because it's a differential signal on twisted pair. In industry, the big problem is getting all the gear to interoperate.

There's also what's called "machine to machine communcation", much of which takes place over low-cost wireless pager networks. Many industrial air conditioners, elevators, and vending machines are regularly sending their short, boring, but important messages to a server. There's even M2M over Iridium two-way satellite paging, for oil wells and such. That works anywhere you can see the sky.

<comment><USER54> You're right, of course. However, the IIoT / Industrie 4.0 is about taking it all to new levels of interoperability and integration.

See: [http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/7-things-to-know-about- the...](http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/7-things-to-know-about-the-internet- of-things-and-industry-40)

<comment><USER16> That says: _"actively drive the reshaping of industry, as it combines aspects of the physical, virtual, IT and cybersystem worlds to help create a new working environment of integrated productivity between worker and machine. It represents a highly dynamic point of achievement, where every company, whether large OEM, major tier supplier or small job shop, can benefit from the technologies and the communication platforms emerging in the market today, some at the speed of light."_

Is there a non-bullshit version?

<comment><USER54> You can read more about the reference architecture model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0), published by ZVEI:

[http://www.zvei.org/Downloads/Automation/5305%20Publikation%...](http://www.zvei.org/Downloads/Automation/5305%20Publikation%20GMA%20Status%20Report%20ZVEI%20Reference%20Architecture%20Model.pdf)

Interestingly, they've settled on OPC UA as _the_ standard for the communications layer.

The reference architecture (IIRA) for the American-led effort can be downloaded from the Industrial Internet Consortium:

[http://www.iiconsortium.org/IIRA.htm](http://www.iiconsortium.org/IIRA.htm)

Last year, the OPC Foundation seemed to be "lobbying" for OPC UA to play a similarly key role in IIRA as it now has in RAMI 4.0, but that did not come to pass.

I expect that IEEE P2413 will use IIRA as a starting point. Perhaps OPC UA will be "blessed" as one of several options for the communications layer, but we'll have to wait and see.

See: [https://standards.ieee.org/news/2015/iic_liaison.html](https://standards.ieee.org/news/2015/iic_liaison.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm glad the "Internet of Things" is being held to task by a mainstream media outlet. The Internet of Things is just a marketing term being pushed onto consumers by Cisco, Qualcomm, Google, etc., because selling more radio chips and putting more sensors in the home directly benefits these companies.

But it's offensive marketing because these companies haven't even bothered to frame the issue in terms of solving people's real-world problems. You want to sell an overpriced thermostat or smoke detector? Fine, but don't tell me it's a revolution.

A lot of smaller players are getting swept up in the hype, and wasting time and money thinking consumers will jump at the opportunity to pay 10X the price for something that interacts with their phone. Prove me wrong, but I'm not buying it.

</comment><comment><USER56> >Like you, I once had many products that each fulfilled a separate function: a landline, a cellphone, a camera, a video recorder, a stereo, a calendar. Now, I have one product that does all of those things — a smartphone. _This level of product integration was a revolution in product design._

Is the smartphone really a revolution in product design or just the inevitability of technological convergence? There is essentially no fundamental difference between products listed. Sure, the user function may differ, but the actual implementations are all based on the same phenomena: stored information manipulable through electromagnetic fields.

How early on was a device like the modern smartphone conceived? I'd wager not long after the discovery of silicon transistors.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands Two points that jumped out at me:

>> _Privacy and Security. Every one of these items is connected to the Internet_

And we've seen how this has been handled by companies recently. Their idea of security is somewhere between non-existent and EPIC FAILURE status. No thank you. I have enough problems trying to lock down my Windows PC.

>>> _I asked a young man working at the Target store how visitors felt about their every action being tracked and he said that they'd come to accept it. And that was that._

Maybe the young man's generation has accepted it, but those of us who have seen first hand what can happen when data gets in the wrong hands, it's not even remotely ok.

To smooth over this point just confirms PT Barum was right all along.

</comment><comment><USER57> Like a lot of tech products I think these devices have a niche appeal, despite the fact that of these doohickeys are answers in search of a problem people will buy these products (Target hosted this expo after all).

Unlike a selfie stick or edible gold pills however there is a deeper ethical issue inherent in selling products that transact so much data about your life (and metrics about your family and home) for the purpose of creating marketable data sets about every mundane aspect of living. Not to mention how vulnerable a person or family becomes once these devices are integrated into their house, children, car, BBQ, etc since so little attention is given to making these devices secure.

</comment><comment><USER58> As someone who is building IoT devices (www.flair.zone), I would say that many of these complaints resonate with me. There have been two motivating factors behind what we are doing: Building the Internet of Useful Things and not building the Internet of Expensive Things. So far that has worked well for us and we haven't even launched officially.

Nest (as a company) is an interesting case to examine with respect to this article. The thermostat in it of itself was a much needed upgrade for some and dropcam has a ton of potential for more complete automation triggering, but the protect was pretty marginal value add if you ask me. Fires just aren't that big of a problem statistically and while a smoke alarm that can call the fire department is great in theory, in practice people are leery of false alarms when it could be incredibly expensive. And the 'works with nest' integrations are fascinating: its largly a bunch of companies that want to be associated with Nest and its percieved superiority from a brand/acquisition/something(?) perspective and then integrate these super low value add enhancements. Like the Whirlpool integration: '[if we know when you are getting home, we can refresh your clothes so they stay wrinkle free]'. Such a ridiculous proposition for an integration.

Leeo was particularly crazy. It was a case of 'top tier founders' that all the VCs in the valley love with 30M in investment before leaving stealth mode. Everyone assumed they must be onto the next big thing but it was in fact a giant let down. I am sure the pitch was great: we are going to put a microphone in each room and have voice command in every room but somehow they lost sight and it just became a smoke alarm relay. The other angle maybe was that they could convince insures to subsidize them like (GE/Wink)? I would love to see the total number of dollars invested into residential smoke detectors by consumers annually, the number of house fires in the US/World (and aggregate damage/loss of life) all compared to the stealth mode investment of this company...The internet of things will happen and some devices will add substantial value by better managing energy adding real convinience but the author correctly found some really questionable value add and called it out.

<comment><USER59> Leeo is for people who don't see a need to replace their existing smoke/CO detectors and just want some peace of mind when they're away, but the pets aren't. I bought one used for $70 because I think it definitely has a place in a "smart"/monitored home. Just like dropcam. Heck, dropcam should be able to listen for your smoke detector. Might justify some of its cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is why we started EarthData.io. It hasn't flown due to me failing to raise money, but I still believe that the premise of every 'thing' accessible to every 'app' in 'near-real-time' where this all heads.

As long as the connected devices are all connected via their own, standalone cloud, whether it's proprietary, open source or purchased, we're not going to see the true value of IoT and the ROI of connectedness will be squelched. Yet this is how the device manufacturers still view connected devices: A marketing lever to lock their customers into their hardware.

</comment><comment><USER61> About 15 years ago I was working with a developer that was adding scripting support to their hardware / software combination - an X10 module controller. He was expounding on the greatness of his smart home system, for example, the lights would go out when he got into bed. I asked him what he would do if he wanted to read in bed. He seemed genuinely confused and replied that the bed was ONLY FOR SLEEPING.

All the automation, setup, scheduling and monitoring we are building now needs to be able to deal with people not being consistent. cf self driving cars.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm excited about IoT, and have ordered some ESP8266 development boards to play with.

With that said, don't get me wrong, but some of this stuff has to be failsafe, and making it smarter, makes it more complex. More like software, if you will.

I don't know if there are enough engineers out there, with the knowledge, discipline and experience designing failsafe products, to support the entire IoT industry.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm pretty underwhelmed by the IoT myself, but I don't see what the author's goal is here.

Is it not obvious that if things are too expensive or not that useful, folks won't buy it?

Does the IoT really raise that many _new_ issues concerning integration, usability, sustainability, and privacy? I haven't studied it, but my intuition is: not really.

</comment><comment><USER64> When I saw the Kolibree, the "smart" toothbrush, I realized we had passed the inflection point on the declining marginal utility curve for this stuff. Too much of IoT are solutions in search of problems. It's not too long before we see app-controlled "smart" implantable uterine devices.

</comment><comment><USER65> It's gonna be like "Beauty and the Beast" up in here. You have far too many opinions Cogsworth!

</comment><comment><USER66> Lot of useless gadgets here .. but the Internet of Things is(will be..) much more than consumer-facing objects.

The iceberg analogy never gets old ;)

Industry, Agriculture, Logistics, Cities, etc .. all have a lot to get even more smarter.

Most IoT stuff won't be about pet tracking or fancy BLE devices talking to your smartphone.

<comment><USER67> You're redefining "IoT" to include industrial controls, which have been around for 75+ years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> And in 2007, this was the cover of the economist: [http://ubikwitus.blogspot.pt/2007/05/economist-covers- coming...](http://ubikwitus.blogspot.pt/2007/05/economist-covers-coming- wireless.html)

</comment><comment><USER69> There sure are a lot of stupid smart devices, yeah. There's a few useful ones out there, too. Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") has not been revoked by the magical act of putting sensors in things.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's the Internet of Way Too Many Insecure Things That Never Get Updated that worries me most...

When your house has one door and two windows it isn't very hard to lock your house. Having gadgets you forgot about is another story.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm reminded of the 'Home of tomorrow'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4)

</comment><comment><USER72> Everytime I hear "Industry 4.0" in Germany, I cringe!

</comment><comment><USER73> Sounds like [https://www.shodan.io](https://www.shodan.io)

</comment><comment><USER74> 100x the self-emptying dishwasher : ).

<comment><USER22> I know somebody that bought two dishwashers and took the clean stuff from one, used it and filled up the other.</comment></comment>