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Stories filed under: "shut down"

$2,350 Amazon ‘Astro’ Business Robots To Become Pointless Paperweights 11 Months After Release

from the I'm-sorry-I-can-no-longer-do-that,-dave dept

One of the common themes here at Techdirt over the last 20 years is how in the digital and internet-connected era, the very meaning of “ownership” and “property” has changed — often for the worse. It simply takes a merger or an ill-timed firmware update to render something you thought you owned — completely obsolete.

Case in point: last fall Amazon announced that it would be selling its Astro robot for use as a security guard for businesses. The robots, which can patrol up to a 5,000 square foot area, start at a price tag of 2,350,witha2,350, with a 2,350,witha180 per month subscription charge. But eleven months after the announcement, Amazon has announced that they’re shutting the effort down and bricking the robots.

The robots will simply stop working on September 15, and unfortunately can’t be repurposed in any way (Amazon is providing free recycling for your expensive and now completely pointless 2,350robot).Businesssubscriberswillatleastgetarefundfortheirunitsand2,350 robot). Business subscribers will at least get a refund for their units and 2,350robot).Businesssubscriberswillatleastgetarefundfortheirunitsand300 in Amazon credit. All personal data will be wiped from the device by Amazon.

In a statement to The Verge, Amazon indicates that they’re shifting their attention to Astro robots for the home. Employees that worked on the business version will be migrated to that version:

“We are fully committed to our vision of bringing world-class consumer robotics solutions to the home. To accelerate our progress and ongoing research to make Astro the best in-home robot, we’ve made the decision to wind down support for Astro for Business. We’re excited about the in-home experiences we’re inventing for Astro, and look forward to sharing more in the future.”

The home version of Astro is now only available as a $1,600, invite-only preview. Hopefully those users don’t have the same experience another few months from now.

Filed Under: amazon, bricked, consumers, hardware, ownership, robotics, robots, shut down
Companies: amazon

The MoviePass Mess Has Finally Come To An End

from the dysfunction-junction dept

Mon, Sep 16th 2019 03:27pm - Karl Bode

Moviepass is no more. The company’s all you can eat movie ticket business model never worked as advertised, and a letter to subscribers informed them that the service would be shutting down over the weekend. Users are supposed to be getting refunds without having to ask for them.

MoviePass initially seemed like it might be a plausible idea, though in recent months the company has been exposed for being aggressively terrible at this whole business thing. The service initially let movie buffs pay 30amonthinexchangeforunlimitedmovieticketsatparticipatingtheaters,providedtheysignedupforafullyearofservice.Butitwasn’tlongbeforethecompanybeganhemorrhagingcash,somethingmadeimmeasurablyworsewhenitdroppeditspricepointto30 a month in exchange for unlimited movie tickets at participating theaters, provided they signed up for a full year of service. But it wasn’t long before the company began hemorrhaging cash, something made immeasurably worse when it dropped its price point to 30amonthinexchangeforunlimitedmovieticketsatparticipatingtheaters,providedtheysignedupforafullyearofservice.Butitwasn’tlongbeforethecompanybeganhemorrhagingcash,somethingmadeimmeasurablyworsewhenitdroppeditspricepointto10 a month as part of a last ditch attempt to spur growth.

A bombshell Business Insider expose offered a stunning look at the company’s dysfunction, and executives’ interest in focusing on flashy marketing instead of fundamental business basics. Particularly entertaining was the fact that as things began to fall apart, company CEO Mitch Lowe thought it would be a good idea to arbitrarily change the passwords of heavy users so they couldn’t actually use the service as advertised:

“Lowe dreaded the company’s power users, those high-volume MoviePass customers who were taking advantage of the low monthly price, constantly going to the movies, and effectively cleaning the company out. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, the average moviegoer goes to the movies five times a year. The power users would go to the movies every day.

“Before Mitch came on it was, ‘How do we slow down those users?'” one former employee said. “With Mitch it was just, ‘F— those guys.'”

Per Lowe’s orders, MoviePass began limiting subscriber access ahead of the April release of the highly anticipated “Avengers: Infinity War,” according to multiple former employees. They said Lowe ordered that the passwords of a small percentage of power users be changed, preventing them from logging onto the app and ordering tickets.”

With that kind of “leadership,” it’s probably not too surprising that the effort fell apart. Granted the idea itself wasn’t terrible, and individual movie chains have since adopted it with some fairly decent success, something acknowledged in the goodbye letter to company subscribers:

“We still deeply believe in the need for the MoviePass? service in the marketplace, to maintain affordable access to theaters and provide movie lovers with choices of where to go to the movies. In August 2017, MoviePass? began a transformation of the moviegoing industry by introducing its low monthly price subscription service. Since then, others in the industry have followed our lead. Now, as a result of this transformation, movie lovers throughout the United States have the ability to see movies in theaters using subscription services at prices they can actually afford, albeit with limited choices of theaters using those services.”

SEC filings indicated that the company’s net loss ballooned from 7.4millionin2016to7.4 million in 2016 to 7.4millionin2016to150.8 million in 2017, in no small part thanks to the $10 Hail Mary price hike attempted by the outfit. And while the company says it has formed a new strategic review committee to explore ?strategic and financial alternatives? for the company, that likely means a bargain basement fire sale of the company’s remaining assets in short order. There’s also still that ongoing NY AG probe into allegations that the company misled investors as to the sorry state of the company’s financials.

Filed Under: mitch lowe, shut down, subscription movies
Companies: moviepass

'Credible' Email Bomb Threat Shuts Down LA Schools… Sent From 'madbomber@cock.li'

from the that's-credible? dept

As you may have heard, Los Angeles closed all of its public schools today based on a bomb threat that the district deemed to be “credible.” Later in the day, New York City’s school district announced that it had received the same, or a similar, bomb threat, and had deemed it not credible and kept its schools open. Later in the day, it was reported that the bomb threats appeared to be a hoax.

Now, rather than deeming them “credible” or “not credible” perhaps a better term would be “incredible.”

That’s because it now appears that both bomb threats were sent from the throwaway email address “madbomber@cock.li.” “cock.li” is an anonymous emailer service, whose website I wouldn’t necessarily recommend visiting — especially if you’re not a fan of autoplay videos. Either way, the guy who operates cock.li — Vincent Canfield — posted to Twitter that both threats were sent via the “meme” emailer, and that he had received subpoenas trying to find out who was behind the “madbomber” account.

Canfield has posted the details of his contact with law enforcement over all of this, including two phone calls with police where he asks about the gag clause in the subpoena and is told that it’s a “request” rather than an order. The first phone call was a bit more confrontational.

The releases also include the emails sent by the NYPD:

Good Morning,

Attached is a subpoena requesting subscriber, IP logs and other user information pertaining to a Cock.li email address, which used to send a threatening email to the superintendent of the NYC Public schools. We are requesting that these results be expedited do to the severity of this threat, thank you for your attention in this matter and have a nice day.

Detective Michael Arena

NYPD Intelligence Bureau

It does seem that that New York City made the right call in judging the threats to be non-credible, though a little ridiculous in originally pretending that Canfield was gagged over discussing them. And, it does appear that the LA Unified School District over-reacted in shutting down all of its schools (which it did without even talking to the LAPD) — though, to some extent, you can understand why such a decision was made.

Still, it seems that a bomb threat coming from “madbomber@cock.li” probably should have raised a few eyebrows…

Filed Under: cock.li, lapd, lausd, memes, nypd, schools, shut down, threats, vincent canfield

News Corp. Finally Realizes Locked Up, iPad-Only News Publication Was A Dud, Shuts It Down

from the about-time dept

Back in 2010 there was all sorts of buzz around News Corp. investing a ton of money into a “secret” project to launch an iPad-only paywalled publication called “the Daily.” Before it even launched, we explained why this was a bad idea that missed the point. We also highlighted Rupert Murdoch/News Corps’ long list of failed internet projects — with the large majority of them flopping because they were about trying to create “broadcast” style properties online, without recognizing that the internet is more of a communications (many-to-many) medium than a broadcast (one-to-many) medium. And, of course, soon after The Daily launched there was evidence that very few people cared.

To be honest, given all the bad press about how few people were reading it, combined with stories of staffers jumping ship soon after it was launched, I had kind of figured that The Daily had already been shut down. However, the latest news is that News Corp. is finally putting it out of its misery and shutting it down, giving most staffers 3 months severance. A few staffers are being folded into the NY Post:

News Corporation also announced that effective immediately, Jesse Angelo, the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Daily and long-time Executive Editor of The New York Post, will assume the role of Publisher of The New York Post. As part of a digital restructuring initiative, the company will cease standalone publication of The Daily iPad app on December 15, 2012, though the brand will live on in other channels. Technology and other assets from The Daily, including some staff, will be folded into The Post.

Mr. Murdoch said: “From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation. Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term…”

Apparently the site was losing $30 million a year.

Perhaps this should stand as a response to the people who insist that giving away newspaper content free online was “the original sin” of the industry and they should have focused on paywalls. Paywalls don’t help you build up “a large enough audience.” The link above quotes a reporter there saying: “It was a really cool, hip product. I think this is nothing more than bad timing.” I’d say it was much more of a bad model — both business model and delivery model — than “bad timing.”

Filed Under: broadcast, communication, failure, paywall, rupert murdoch, shut down, the daily

Olympics Shuts Down Non-Commercial Online Service That Helped People Get Tickets

from the olympic-failures dept

Another day, another story of Olympics insanity. Apparently the website for the London Olympics has a really awful interface that highlights tickets that are available. So, some enterprising coders quickly hacked together a better system, called 2012TicketAlert that would help alert people when new tickets were available. It was just a typical internet case study: some people saw a system that wasn’t very good, and they built a better interface. Welcome to the internet.

Ah, but this is the Olympics, and the Olympics just doesn’t do things like that. So, they shut the site down:

It seems someone at LOCOG has taken exception to our idea (or the publicity it is getting) and instead of reaching out to us or addressing the lack of a notification system, they have simply blocked our access to their server. This means we are unable to check or post any new ticket alerts.

Welcome to the Olympics, where if you don’t pay the Olympics, you better not do anything to help make the Olympics a better experience.

And it’s important to note that they weren’t making money off of this. They were just helping to alert people to ticket availability and then driving them to the official Olympics site. They just hacked together a notification system.

Sometimes I wonder if the Olympics just wants to piss off everyone.

Filed Under: alerts, olympics, shut down, tickets

MPAA Gets Town To Turn Off Free Muni-WiFi Over Single Unauthorized Movie Download

from the the-internets-must-die dept

Dan alerts us to the news that the free muni-WiFi system used around the Coshocton?s County Courthouse in Northern Ohio was shut down over a complaint by the MPAA over a single unauthorized movie download. Amazingly, rather than admit that perhaps that was going a bit too far in punishing everyone in that town over a single individual’s usage, the MPAA couldn’t resist the opportunity to complain about the evils of movie piracy again. The MPAA doesn’t seem concerned at all about the collateral damage, and just thinks that it’s a good opportunity to push ahead with its misguided complaint against file sharing.

Filed Under: copyright, mpaa, muni wifi, piracy, shut down, wifi
Companies: mpaa

Creative Web Destruction: Sites Go Away

from the remember-that dept

As we await the official shutdown of Geocities at the end of the month, Ivor Tossell is reminding everyone that today’s internet hotspot — Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. — may be completely gone in a decade’s time. And, while it’s good that sites come and go as the next big thing comes along, it does raise questions for those who are relying on these sites as some sort of archive of a life lived online. It’s a good reminder of the importance of either being able to back up certain information — or control it directly yourself.

Filed Under: creative destruction, geocities, shut down
Companies: facebook, myspace, twitter, yahoo

Washington Post Story Convinces Service Providers To Pull The Plug On Major Spam Enabler

from the but-where-do-they-go dept

We’re seeing a bunch of folks pointing out that evidence collected by the Washington Post’s computer security writer, Brian Krebs, is basically responsible for getting that company kicked off the internet. Krebs is a fantastic reporter, so I don’t doubt the story — but I’m always a little skeptical of stories claiming that a huge percentage of spammers have been knocked offline. We see such stories every few months, and it never seems to have any real impact on the amount of spam out there. Just last month there was a report claiming that the world’s largest spam operation was shut down, but the actual amount of spam flowing across the network did not decrease.

This case is a little different, in that it didn’t shut down the spammers themselves, but rather a hosting company that apparently many of the largest zombie botnets relied on. However, it seems quite likely that they’ll find some other hosting company that will gladly take them on and everything will be up and running again. That’s not to say it’s bad that these guys get taken down — but at some point people should realize this seems like a big game of whack-a-mole, and there may be better, more efficient ways to tackle the problem.

Filed Under: botnets, hosting, shut down, spam, spam ring
Companies: mccolo, washington post

Huge Spam Ring Shut Down… But Will It Make A Difference?

from the we'll-see dept

Every so often, we see a random news story about authorities somehow arresting or shutting down some huge spam ring, and every time the articles are peppered with quotes about just how big the operation is and how much spam they send out. And, yet, every time, it never seems to do very much to dent the amount of spam that’s being sent. So, again, with this week’s big spam bust, all the numbers and explanations sound impressive. 35,000 computers in a botnet. Able to send 10 billion (billion, with a b) spam messages per day. The leading source of spam online in January (what, only January?). These all sound impressive, but the real question should be whether or not this does anything to decrease spam. Or will others just as quickly jump in to fill the breach?

Filed Under: botnets, shut down, spam, spam ring

GoDaddy Shuts Down RateMyCop; Gives Conflicting Reasons Why

from the perhaps-because-there's-no-good-reason dept

On Monday, Tim wrote about the pointless controversy around the site RateMyCop.com, which would allow people to rate police officers they had dealings with. Considering how many similar sites there are for teachers, doctors, restaurants, etc. — combined with the dangers that come with police abusing the power they are given — a site to rate police officers seems quite reasonable. But, of course, many police officers didn’t see it that way. However, what no one expected is that the site’s registrar and host would step into the fight and take the site completely offline with no warning to its owner. Yesterday, GoDaddy pulled the entire site offline, and replaced it with a page telling the owner to call GoDaddy (even though they had his phone number). People at GoDaddy gave conflicting reports as to why the site was taken offline, first claiming it was taken offline for “suspicious activity” and later that he had surpassed a 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, which the owner of the site disputes, saying there weren’t nearly enough page views for that to happen. Either way, he’s now ditched GoDaddy and found a host that won’t pull the site offline with no warning and no recourse.

Filed Under: shut down, websites
Companies: godaddy, ratemycop