It’s still covered by the DRM. That’s the problem. There are still locks in place that we’re not allowed to break (legally). Someone may break them anyway… but that’s technically illegal.
Google apparently may offer ‘compensation’.
This reaffirms my opinion of lifetime subscriptions and things that run through the cloud for no good reason. I’m not buying your hardware unless the pricing is nominal (I’d rather just rent it as part of the subscription, to be honest), and I’ll pay monthly.
I don’t particularly want my home ‘automated’ anyway. But why would I trust Nest instead? What stops exactly the same thing happening when the next shiny thing comes along and Google gets bored?
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Google kills again. Here’s a page in memory to google’s victims.
I think “Don’t be evil” was meant as ironic
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And crank up the silent jambox!
Tech companies are treading on dangerous ground. They once they enjoyed the protection of DRM laws, but when they venture into consumer products that people depend upon then they are opening themselves up to product liability lawsuits and even consumer fraud investigations if they deliberately take away functionality expected of a consumer product. End User Agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on when someone suffers physical harm from home automation being bricked so you have to buy a different brand of product. Homes are not smart phones that have short product life cycles. I expect lawsuits over this.
Google, welcome to the world car makers and airplane manufacturers have to live in. You are liable for your products as long as they exist.
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Makes me worry about being able to play current Gen games in just a few years.
Wat
I say wat.
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Did no one read their motto and think, “Hey, is this evil?”
Two other options:
Why not break the DRM and enforce said break through the democratic process?
The post is misleading in several ways.
After which you engage in vapid pseudo-libertarian apologia. Are you dissapoint, too?
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As a capitalist…
Capital is one of many vital social institutions. It’s not an ism. At most, its -ist is a job description… a remarkably flexible job that can handle some piddling rule changes.
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I figure it’s like Boston Dynamics, this doodad isn’t good for delivery of ads
It’s just like when that dang Thomas Edison stopped making the wax cylinders for my dictograph machine. How am I supposed to record my notes on the aero-plane device I’m inventing? It will change the world, I tell you!
As it happens (no doubt much to Edison’s dismay, he was kind of a dick about ‘IP’); an enterprising 3rd party has you covered. No need to worry as you plot man’s conquest of the aether!
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how many armaments sold can be remotely disabled ?
But many things are connected to the internet these days. Most operating systems update themselves over the internet. Will they be bricked if the update server goes away? Tesla cars do that. Will they stop working if the update service is cancelled?
I think it worth asking these questions now. We may hear some surprising answers.
More than you’d think, probably.
I remember a story from a few years ago that DARPA were working on networked self-propelled minefields. Remotely disarm when you want to move your troops through; hit the recall button at the end of the war and watch them all (in theory) jump back into the minelayer truck.
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i was thinking missiles that come back to launch location, jets that fall out of the sky !things you sell to an ally and if things change…big disable button !
Shit, why not? Might as well. Weirder the better at this late stage in the game says I.
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Very sloppy 
Edited now, thanks!
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As a side note, most of the reason that Hollywood exists in California is that it was as far away as they could get from Edison and his legal reach about how exactly his film inventions were supposed to be used. That the weather turned out to be remarkable was a secondary concern.
Always amusing to think of 20th Century Fox as an indie film company.
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