Pet cameras — only if you love your pet
Pet technology, like other smart home technology, has incorporated the latest intelligence, including Alexa, lasers, cameras, and video montages of your pet’s day. Pet camera/dispensers include sensors to alert you when Fido is having a barking fit, or enable you to control a laser tag session from your smarthphone. Brands reviewed by Wired include Furbo Dog Camera (Alexa-enabled), Petcube Bites 2, Petcube Play 2 Pet Camera, Pawbo+.
dis-rup-shun: The Internet of Pets (IOP?) is alive and well, making it possible to assuage the guilt of a 12 hour day at the office, prevent total annihilation of your apartment or home, and continue training pets even when you are away. According to a 2018 study, Americans spend an average of $126 per month on pets, with spending on fish at $62 per month, mice or rats at $80 per month, and dogs at $139. Technology should be fully deployed to care for all of our loved ones, not only pets, but especially for seniors who are aging-in-place.
Apartments turning to smart home technology to retain renters
Apartment developers in Philadelphia state that the amenities arms race to attract and retain renters has moved from better pools and cooler club rooms to smart home technologies. Philadelphia Inquirer
dis-rup-shun: Just as you would not imagine owning a car today without power windows, door locks, backup cameras and support for tethering your smartphone, soon one would not consider buying a new home or renting an apartment without smart home technology. Expect at least the top half of apartment offerings to include smart home technologies within the next three years.
Doordash preps for IPO, hoping to improve a bad year for Softbank
Food delivery giant Doordash has quietly filed for a future IPO. The firm is valued at $13 billion and delivers one third of on-line food orders in the U.S., passing Postmates, Uber Eats, and GrubHub. Softbank, a major investor in Doordash, needs a win after losing millions on the struggles of WeWork, and its cancelled IPO. Doordash has run afoul of legislation in some cities that classify its contract workers as employees. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The food delivery businesses, like the closely related ride sharing businesses, enjoy a business model in which profits can be elusive. Going public and scaling up will be important before the next economic recession quashes the value of large growth and questionably profitable companies.
Samsung S20 Ultra: Smartphones have bumped their heads
The Samsung S20 Ultra, not named S11 in order to make a statement that this is a new generation of phone, has a larger, splashier 6.9 inch screen, longer battery life, and yes, a better camera. All this comes for the price of $1,399.99. Actually, the better camera is a combination of five camera in the range of 40 to 108 megapixels. The long distance capabilities are superior to the iPhone 11, but portrait shots may be lacking, and a complex array of settings make operating a bit confusing. TheVerge
dis-rup-shun: Now, (high-end) phone wars are about stretching the screen and adding more megapixels to the camera — both great features, but are they worth the continuing price escalation of top end cameras? Foldable screens apparently are the great diversion of the product category, giving manufacturers something new to try to excite the public as the costs of acquiring additional points of market share, in a saturated market, are extraordinarily high. Smartphones are so good that manufacturers have painted themselves into a corner — there just aren’t enough significant new features to make the next generation different. Let’s hope, for manufacturers’ sake, that everyone decides that 5G is a “must have” between now and the holiday season.