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Blink has been acquired by Amazon

blinkforhome.com

61–70 of 92 posts

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#61
post #2

This transaction was too expensive for Ooma so they picked up Butterfleye a few days ago instead.

I hadn't heard about that deal but that explains all the surveys recently about whether Ooma customers were interested in video as part of their security offering.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated package lockers are a relatively new thing in the US. Most apartment buildings don't have them, especially ones that weren't built in the last few years. In terms of Amazon lockers, they're also not that common outside of cities. Some are on private property where you need access to the building to access it. Even when they are available near you, a lot of them will be full around the holidays. I had a pack…

In my apartment building, there are package lockers along with the mailboxes, and the empty package lockers have keys in them. When you get a package, the key is removed and put in your mailbox. You thus try the key in the lockers that don't have one and leave it after removing the package. I'm curious how "automation" can improve significantly on this system.

Yes, my old apartment building had these style lockers too. The downside of those (at least in my building) was that they were for use only by USPS. UPS/FedEx/etc still had to go through the regular package delivery process.

Automation improves it by allowing all carriers access to the box (no carrier key to use, it's all based on codes) and also generating one-time codes that can't be copied or otherwise readily stolen to access the packages.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my apartment building, there are package lockers along with the mailboxes, and the empty package lockers have keys in them. When you get a package, the key is removed and put in your mailbox. You thus try the key in the lockers that don't have one and leave it after removing the package. I'm curious how "automation" can improve significantly on this system.

I always thought that this was ripe for theft. I mean key is there... Instead of having a key, they could have mechanically programmable combination lock.. and leave the key on paper in the mailbox or email or SMS, w/e.

If I'm thinking of the same ones the parent comment was thinking of, then the key is only removable by the carrier. Of course, if you get a package, you can always copy the key while it's in your possession.

That said, no solution will ever be foolproof. If the attacker wants it bad enough and has physical access to the locker, they'll be able to get to your package. Whether it's copying the key, cracking the code, picking the lock, or just tearing it open. With enough determination, your stuff can get stolen. It just becomes a legal matter at that point.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#64
post #5

If you own an electric car and are wondering WTF Amazon is doing getting into the car charging business, well, it isn’t this Blink: http://www.blinkcharging.com , it’s some video camera company.

I thought they were getting into the web rendering engine game[0]. [0] https://www.chromium.org/blink

If Amazon made a browser engine, it'd be a cloud service.

…wait, they already did! The Fire has that.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that this was ripe for theft. I mean key is there... Instead of having a key, they could have mechanically programmable combination lock.. and leave the key on paper in the mailbox or email or SMS, w/e.

If I'm thinking of the same ones the parent comment was thinking of, then the key is only removable by the carrier. Of course, if you get a package, you can always copy the key while it's in your possession. That said, no solution will ever be foolproof. If the attacker wants it bad enough and has physical access to the locker, they'll be able to get to your package. Whether it's copying the key, cracking the code, p…

yea a safe alone is not a secure method of store. It's just matter of time and safer methods only delay opening more. It's still a good tradeoff in my opinion between privacy and secure storage.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm thinking of the same ones the parent comment was thinking of, then the key is only removable by the carrier. Of course, if you get a package, you can always copy the key while it's in your possession. That said, no solution will ever be foolproof. If the attacker wants it bad enough and has physical access to the locker, they'll be able to get to your package. Whether it's copying the key, cracking the code, p…

yea a safe alone is not a secure method of store. It's just matter of time and safer methods only delay opening more. It's still a good tradeoff in my opinion between privacy and secure storage.

The vast majority of packages don't need extreme security.

Personally I don't care about security of my packages at all—they just sit outside my door for me. If one is lost/stolen, Amazon will happily replace it.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#67
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that bothers me most is.. Don't people want cookies any more??? When I go grocery shopping, I get a cookie from the bakery. I need to look at them all and pick out the best one. That's how it works! Although I'm sure Amazon will have a solution for that soon enough as well!

Amazon has already been using machine learning to separate fresh vs. moldy strawberries; I'm sure AI will be able to identify the freshest cookies better than humans in the near future.

If you're talking about ordering online they won't give you the most fresh items. They'll give you the ones which are still sell-able as fresh ie. almost moldy. Once those are gone, they'll give you the next one in line, but not the most fresh as you might pick yourself if you were in a physical store. Because those will still be sell-able tomorrow or the day after, but these which are almost bad aren't.

What this means is that when you buy an item which almost nobody buys fresh, like say apricots or coconuts (the case here, YMMV) and its easily perishable then you may end up with food which you gotta consume very soon once you receive it. If you buy an item in high demand with a high turnover rating you're probably good to go though.

Fresh is overrated anyway. Get a large freezer. I got all my bread in freezer, all bought on sale (50% discount). We generally toast it, but having it out of the freezer overnight also works. Same with frozen fruit (berries esp) and some frozen veggies. It doesn't deteriorate either, and stays quite tasty (better than canned, generally). And its cheap!

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea a safe alone is not a secure method of store. It's just matter of time and safer methods only delay opening more. It's still a good tradeoff in my opinion between privacy and secure storage.

The vast majority of packages don't need extreme security. Personally I don't care about security of my packages at all—they just sit outside my door for me. If one is lost/stolen, Amazon will happily replace it.

Anecdotally, I've had a phone delivered to me but my neighbour took it in fearing getting stolen and then later gave it to me after I've reported Amazon as not delivered by due date and carrier has confirmed having delivered by the door. This was in apartment setting so everyone was acting reasonably. Amazon ended up shipping me another phone and I ended up with two phones. I think I just prefer the idea of things getting delivered with determinism and security--just so that it saves everyone time and effort. I may be a bit paranoid about this.

Re: Blink has been acquired by Amazon

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a stretch to have groceries delivered all the way to your fridge I think I'm mostly kidding... soon you'll be able to have a housemates as a service. You pay random people to come to you home, open the fridge, and drink the delivered milk right out of the container.

The next logical step is to use everyone's home as an impromptu fulfillment center. Let's say Amazon has a full list of every possession you own and the price you're willing to sell it for. Any time someone goes to buy a thing, they find a nearby place that has it for the cheapest price, including shipping. If you happen to win that round, they sending a shipping person^H^H^H^H^H^Hdrone copter into your home to pick…

In that dark future, the underground economy returns to barter to avoid Amazon fees.

I trade a pack of Jaffa Cakes for that 2L bottle of Coke.

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