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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#401

Post by dboreham »

array_key_first wrote: post #389
cs702 wrote: post #254

According to the Financial Times, Roomba has sold more than 40 million robotic devices, most of them robotic vacuum cleaners.[a] Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet. If they're taken offline, they stop working. Many have microphones too. The new Chinese owner will get control of a network of tens of millions Internet-connected, autonomously mobil…

I don't understand how you can sell 40 million units and go bankrupt.

Perhaps because the 40 million units rely on an expensive back-end service that isn't covered by monthly fees to users?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#402

Post by pintxo »

georgeecollins wrote: post #304
cs702 wrote: post #254

According to the Financial Times, Roomba has sold more than 40 million robotic devices, most of them robotic vacuum cleaners.[a] Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet. If they're taken offline, they stop working. Many have microphones too. The new Chinese owner will get control of a network of tens of millions Internet-connected, autonomously mobil…

I worry a lot about privacy in general but its hard for me to figure out the danger posed by my roborock. I suppose it has the floor plans of my house and knows we vacuum on Saturdays. It doesn't seem to know if the object passing by is me or my cat. Yes its on my wifi but so are half a dozen other foreign made gadgets. What is the concern?

In a scenario, where the US and China go to an actual shooting war, moving a couple million high-energy-density devices near the most flammable object in a houshold and purposefully setting the device on fire would be an interesting new variety of shock and awe. Not too new actually, thinking about the mossad pager attack.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#403

Post by AlecSchueler »

LunaSea wrote: post #396
AlecSchueler wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They introduced more and more IP laws due to requirements from the WTO[ https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm... ]. At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies, and now we're at the stage where there's essentially legal parity. Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions. But now they're getting to the point th…

> At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies Funny how that works. > Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I don't remember seeing that in the WTO rules. > Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offens…

> Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China?

I'm not sure what this hat to do with IP laws, could you explain?

> Funny how that works.

It seems to make sense to me, but what are you suggesting?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#404

Post by olalonde »

kqr wrote: post #289
cs702 wrote: post #254

According to the Financial Times, Roomba has sold more than 40 million robotic devices, most of them robotic vacuum cleaners.[a] Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet. If they're taken offline, they stop working. Many have microphones too. The new Chinese owner will get control of a network of tens of millions Internet-connected, autonomously mobil…

Our household (and I suspect many with us) bought a Roomba specifically to not give the Chinese government a roving camera in our home. Ouch!

Why not? Unless you are a Chinese citizen, it arguably makes more sense to grant access to the Chinese government rather than the US government. The PRC generally shows little interest in non-citizens while the US government frequently goes after people beyond its borders (e.g. Meng Wanzhou, Changpeng Zhao, Sam Bankman-Fried, Julian Assange, Kim Dotcom, etc.).

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#405

Post by spyspy »

dboreham wrote: post #401
array_key_first wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how you can sell 40 million units and go bankrupt.

Perhaps because the 40 million units rely on an expensive back-end service that isn't covered by monthly fees to users?

Don't give them ideas.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#406

Post by HSO »

cs702 wrote: post #254

According to the Financial Times, Roomba has sold more than 40 million robotic devices, most of them robotic vacuum cleaners.[a] Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet. If they're taken offline, they stop working. Many have microphones too. The new Chinese owner will get control of a network of tens of millions Internet-connected, autonomously mobil…

[flagged]

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#407

Post by cluckindan »

expedition32 wrote: post #236
jhanschoo wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why would 3D printer companies in China bother innovating rather than sit back and cash the government check?

Because China is actually a capitalist free market economy not a communist one. Chinese companies compete with eachother ferociously. And Chinese society itself is dog eat dog. Everyone wants to make money.

Well, save for the part where the government directs the parts of the economy they care about.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#408

Post by lm28469 »

jgalt212 wrote: post #299
atwrk wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the actual problem is the "feature" set of the vacuum cleaners, not the nationality of the new owners, right?

Depends on which nations you care about. How would you feel if Roomba devices were controlled by North Korea, for example?

The US is the biggest world wide surveillance state by far. If you don't worry about that why would you worry about NK a country that has 0 soft power and will have 0 impact on your life whatsoever. At that point I'd give my data more willingly to Russia or China, at last it would equilibrate things a bit

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#409

Post by yesiamyourdad »

jmyeet wrote: post #399
kqr wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our household (and I suspect many with us) bought a Roomba specifically to not give the Chinese government a roving camera in our home. Ouch!

At this point I trust the Chinese government way more than almost every US tech giant. I don't own a "smart" speaker. I've never liked the idea of having an always-on cloud-connected microphone in my house. Like, it's just asking for trouble. I don't necessarily assign malicious intent here. It's just a recipe for disaster. But if you made me choose between an Amazon or Meta "smart" speaker and a Huawei speaker, I'm…

This reminds me of the line from "Jackie Brown": "You can't trust Melanie. But you can trust Melanie to be Melanie".

I owned an early Roomba an it would just bump into things and "bounce" off. There was some sort of rudimentary fencing devices you could use to keep it in an area. I guess they decided cameras and things work better but I feel like the original worked well enough. You still had to vacuum but especially with pets it kept the disorder under control.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#410

Post by AlexandrB »

orochimaaru wrote: post #185
aurareturn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is complacency or is China just accelerating? It's not surprising that China wins in these things. Just go to Shenzhen. Hardware designers, parts, machines that make the parts, factories, etc. are all within driving distance. You can't compete unless you also have offices there, hire Chinese workers, compete in China. American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Ford themselves said…

The bigger risk specifically with roomba may be that people who have connected their roomba’s to wifi and have their floor plans mapped and possibly in the cloud. Wonder if the deal is going to include transfer of cloud data as well.

There's very low value to the Chinese state to having detailed floor plans of a random person's house. Or even a prominent person's house. A lot of this stuff is semi-public domain regardless as many real estate listings will include a floor plan.

The camera/microphone is more worrying.

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