Comment Eleven (Score 5, Funny) 138
As with most technolgies, the further away you get from Seattle the less likely it is to work.
I'm Glaswegian, other people can barely understand me. Windaes isnae gonnae work.
Submission + - Mycroft (the Open Source Voice Assistant) is dead 1
stx23 writes: Mycroft, the open source voice assisstant will fold at the end of month, no longer fulfilling backer rewards and selling off the last devices. Michael Lewis, the investor turned CEO, posted the following to the Kickstarter this morning:
"So what went wrong? The single most expensive item that I could not predict was our ongoing litigation against the non-practicing patent entity that has never stopped trying to destroy us. If we had that million dollars we would be in a very different state right now.
With so much of our focus on hardware, and less funding to devote to improving our software — the quality and features available on the Mark II at launch were clearly underwhelming. It is more robust and stable than it has ever been, but this came at the cost of fewer new features. That in turn I believe has resulted in less than flattering reviews, and little mainstream coverage. The hardware itself has proven itself to be a solid base to work from, but without good reviews you get less sales, and without strong sales, the plan doesn’t work.
Which brings us to the present day. We will still be shipping all orders that are made through the Mycroft website, because these sales directly cover the costs of producing and shipping the products. However we do not have the funds to continue fulfilling rewards from this crowdfunding campaign, or to even continue meaningful operations."
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
"So what went wrong? The single most expensive item that I could not predict was our ongoing litigation against the non-practicing patent entity that has never stopped trying to destroy us. If we had that million dollars we would be in a very different state right now.
With so much of our focus on hardware, and less funding to devote to improving our software — the quality and features available on the Mark II at launch were clearly underwhelming. It is more robust and stable than it has ever been, but this came at the cost of fewer new features. That in turn I believe has resulted in less than flattering reviews, and little mainstream coverage. The hardware itself has proven itself to be a solid base to work from, but without good reviews you get less sales, and without strong sales, the plan doesn’t work.
Which brings us to the present day. We will still be shipping all orders that are made through the Mycroft website, because these sales directly cover the costs of producing and shipping the products. However we do not have the funds to continue fulfilling rewards from this crowdfunding campaign, or to even continue meaningful operations."
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
Comment Re:Use it for a complaint channel. (Score 1) 77
4291
Comment A lot of programming was done without a keyboard (Score 4, Insightful) 111
I've programmed with switches, with punchcards. This doesn't seem that outlandish.
Comment Ursine Defecation Rife in Woods, Research Finds (Score 0) 67
Downton Abbey is shit anyway. It's not even worth it free.
Comment Don't Stand So Close To Siri (Score 1) 61
So there's a chance of Tantric SMSs from Sting?
Comment Re:Mycroft, obviously. (Score 1) 186
Yeah, that's what came to mind. It's maybe more of a Echo/Alexa competitor but in the same space.
Comment C programmers clearly some kind of deviants (Score 1) 391
And go programmers appear not to have space bars.
Comment Re:Slashdot is not far behind... (Score 1) 264
+1
Comment Re:Slashdot is not far behind... (Score 1) 264
I haven't been here in 4 years. I sometime read the RSS but that news has usually been broken elsewhere.
Yours, naked, petrified and covered in grits.
Comment Re: never heard of it (Score 1) 264
That is neat, oh for a slightly faster packet delivered on registration day.
Comment Right On Commander (Score 1) 173
Due to a combination of bitterness from buying the unplayable First Encounters and their most recent output being part of Star Wars Kinect I wouldn't give him anything to be part of this beta test.
Comment Why Mat? (Score 1) 222
Something I haven't seen through reporting of this is why Mat Honan was targeted, was it the Gizmodo / Wired connection or something more sinister directed at him?
Comment Caller ID : 0000000000 (Score 1) 473
They've managed a neat trick in calling me recently, CallerID shows up as a row of 0s. It has also enabled me to set a silent ringtone to the number so I don't hear them call either.
Comment It's the Sun wot won it (Score 2) 118
The Sun is perhaps the last place to ask about possible censorship of the web as it's part of Murdoch's empire which includes paywalls in places such as the Times. Dierdre must be about a million years old now.
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