Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

news.bloomberglaw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 839 posts

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#751

Post by recursive »

foobarian wrote: post #488
rpcope1 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife got one to try and automate away the vacuuming. We went through the same thing, and it still needs to be babysit anyways. For the sheer amount of time and frustration of basically all robot vacuums, it has been easier to just get a nice Kenmore upright bagged vacuum and do it yourself anyways (and the results are basically always way nicer).

I'm pretty optimistic about biped robots for this. Either you buy or lease one and a cleaning service teleoperates it, or subscribe to a cleaning service that drops it off and teleoperates for a few hours a week. Suppose it could even walk itself to the next customer if close enough.

If a wheeled low-profile vacuum that stays in a room is too hard to deliver, surely we can fix it by making it walk around and grasp a vacuum cleaner and walk between houses.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#752

Post by gred »

jasonkester wrote: post #502
anymouse123456 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I was a very early customer of Roomba and loved them when they came out. I had pets at the time, and the machine would consistently fail in about 14 months. I finally figured out that I needed to buy them from Costco, so that I could get them replaced. Rather than taking their lead and improving the product, they just sat there with the exact same product for like 10+ years. It was outrageous. I guess Rodney Br…

Rather than taking their lead and improving the product, they just sat there with the exact same product for like 10+ years. It was outrageous. I think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world. As soon as your product is successful, it will be cloned by dozens of Chinese companies and dumped on the market everywhere. Any update you make from there on out will…

> I have a few really good hardware ideas, but I don't believe I could ever market them fast enough and far enough to make it worth spending the R&D to make them happen.

Isn't this why patents exist?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#753

Post by thesuitonym »

palmotea wrote: post #608
olalonde wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.).

> 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. You're making zero sense: 1. I predict there will be no change in the US government's access as a result of this. 2. I don't think Americans are so indifferent to their own country that they'd prefer a situation where an adversary country gets handed an intelligence asset.…

I'm not sure how useful of an intelligence asset a map of my house is, or pictures of me in my boxers on a saturday morning. I'm also not sure why you think they weren't already just buying this information from iRobot.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#754

Post by jack_tripper »

jamespo wrote: post #743
jack_tripper wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who is the Chinese Intel? Zhaoxin makes X86 and countless make ARM and RiscV chips. SMIC being a foundry. > The Chinese Microsoft? Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance. >The Chinese Boeing? Comac makes passenger and Chengdu fighter jets. >The Chinese NVIDIA? Huawei makes AI GPUs. >People forget that the US is still the #2 manufacturer in the world Considering the US never had its industry blown up in any war and could…

There's a nice list of substandard products.

Clip this comment and let's check back in 10 years.

Germans also said the same thing about Chinese EVs in 2014. They ain't laughing now, especially in Dresden.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#755

Post by matsemann »

jonfw wrote: post #652
keeda wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While those patents are not enforceable in China (unless equivalents were also filed in China -- unsure if they would be worth much) they would be when imported to the US. This is one of the reasons the ITC exists, and it played a prominent role during the smartphone patent wars. So at least the US market would be protected from knock-offs.

In theory, sure. In practice? Chinese companies ignore your patent, you waste money suing, it takes a long time. If you win? Good luck collecting damages from China, and have fun suing the next brand that starts selling the same machine in different plastic

Why isn't Amazon liable?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#756

Post by stogot »

coldpie wrote: post #692
GenerWork wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Amazon does more harm and is a larger threat to Americans and your children than China is Yeah, I'm going to need some examples as to how Amazon is worse than China.

See downthread comment[1], and please keep in mind the context of this conversation is specifically, " Amazon does more harm and is a larger threat to Americans than China is ". [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277647

Chinese doctrine explicitly has labeled America as the enemy for 10-20 years, with a goal of taking a democracy by force (after crushing dissent in HK and taking it over earlier than promised), and steals the West’s IP, and manipulates American businesses, and is actively committing a genocide for the past decade.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#757

Post by anigbrowl »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #242
mlrtime wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the Chinese end up stealing any actual IP that may get the US company ahead by being there. Also, is it still difficult to bring profits back to the US? Damn'd if you do, dam'd if you don't.

Why do American companies have to rely on artificial protections like IP in order to compete? Don't forget it's only "stealing" if you're culturally inclined to see IP as actual property, whereas in China the idea has long been that ideas are common good, even predating Marxism.

Not to mention that the US was notorious for IP theft until it would up at the apex of the international order. I presume as China becomes economically dominant it too will gradually shift toward rent seeking and patent enforcement.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#758

Post by lovich »

olalonde wrote: post #404
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!

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.).

Why did you mix the comparison between

-Caring about citizens only on the Chinese side

-Going beyond their borders on the US side

and then list out examples that the US targeted which includes a US citizen, also while ignoring that China goes beyond its borders to target their citizens?

Both countries routinely act this way because they have the power to do so

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#759

Post by [deleted] »

gred wrote: post #752
jasonkester wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than taking their lead and improving the product, they just sat there with the exact same product for like 10+ years. It was outrageous. I think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world. As soon as your product is successful, it will be cloned by dozens of Chinese companies and dumped on the market everywhere. Any update you make from there on out will…

> I have a few really good hardware ideas, but I don't believe I could ever market them fast enough and far enough to make it worth spending the R&D to make them happen. Isn't this why patents exist?

[deleted]

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#760

Post by gleenn »

gred wrote: post #752
jasonkester wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than taking their lead and improving the product, they just sat there with the exact same product for like 10+ years. It was outrageous. I think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world. As soon as your product is successful, it will be cloned by dozens of Chinese companies and dumped on the market everywhere. Any update you make from there on out will…

> I have a few really good hardware ideas, but I don't believe I could ever market them fast enough and far enough to make it worth spending the R&D to make them happen. Isn't this why patents exist?

Yes, but China or one of the many other countries that don't respect US patents could care less.
Post reply on HN