Fake News
I am getting tired of headlines that present some thing you may want to do as something you’d have to be mad to do. Last week was an instance in point: Headline after headline shouted out that Amazon wanted to get a key for the residence. The initial reaction was, as you may expect, hell no — however, the reality is a lot more nuanced.
You see, there are plenty of people who reside in places in their front entry isn’t protected and they don’t really have a yard, so when they buy a package from Amazon it often goes to whoever sees it on the doorstep first. Finding a way to fasten the package is something these folks want to perform but they sure as hell do not want unknown delivery people wandering through their home five-finger discount shopping.
What Amazon has generated should make your house smarter and more secure as it is currently — not less secure, as the headlines could imply. Reactions to Amazon’s new deal demonstrate the pervasiveness of fake news and click on bait, regardless of the topic.
I’ll close with my product of this week: the interesting new TiVo Bolt Vox, which adds voice control to the most powerful DVR on Earth.
Click Bait and Fake News
What is probably the most annoying thing about President Trump and his claims about fake news is how frequently he’s perfect. Granted, an excessive amount of his claims do imply that anything he does not like, regardless of truth, is fake.
However, there’s a ton of fake news on the market. I am sure most of us, and I include myself, have noticed what appeared to be an interesting story and clicked on it, or listened to it on the information, and then realized we’d been duped.
I no longer click on any connection that implies I’ll see something amazing. But it is far harder to be discriminating if you see a headline like “Amazon Requires a Key to Your home.” There might be a reason for that, and I figured correctly. The story did have something to do with package theft, which has been a huge issue for Amazon and its own customers.
Amazon’s Solution
Amazon has not proposed that you simply give the company a physical key for your residence. What it has proposed is to take you a tiny bit into the future, providing you a basic smart house for a couple hundred dollars worth of hardware.
The hardware is a digital lock for your front door and also a wireless camera, both of which are attached to a Web service. When the cam is installed, you can track your package to the doorway, and the support will unlock your door long enough for someone to put the package inside. It then locks the door again.
The whole event — which you are able to watch live on your phone if you are worried — is recorded on video and stored. The delivery people know they’re on camera, and also the likelihood they will decide to go in and go shopping is distant, given the ceremony understands who they are and they would get arrested quickly.
They usually wouldn’t enter the house — they would just place the package within the door and leave.
