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Startup Will Brick $800 Emotional Support Robot For Kids Without Refunds (arstechnica.com) 144

Posted by msmash from the hall-of-fame-behavior dept.
Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked. From a report: Embodied blamed its closure on a failed "critical funding round." On its website, it explained: "We had secured a lead investor who was prepared to close the round. However, at the last minute, they withdrew, leaving us with no viable options to continue operations. Despite our best efforts to secure alternative funding, we were unable to find a replacement in time to sustain operations."

The company didn't provide further details about the pulled funding. Embodied's previous backers have included Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, and Vulcan Capital, but we don't know who the lead investor mentioned above is. When it first announced Moxie in April 2020, Embodied described the robot as a "safe and engaging animate companion for children designed to help promote social, emotional, and cognitive development."

Startup Will Brick $800 Emotional Support Robot For Kids Without Refunds More | Reply

Startup Will Brick $800 Emotional Support Robot For Kids Without Refunds

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  • Emotional support robot? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:04PM (#65006961)
    My doctor recommended this [bbc.com] instead.

  • $800 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nonBORG ( 5254161 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:06PM (#65006969)
    People were paying $800 for a wifi module and a few parts with a back end server. They probably their money spent on fancy wastes of money and no new investors to keep the party going. Now the senior staff have to get a real job or go onto the next thing. Who cares about the customer?

  • The cloud is a trap (Score:4, Informative)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:09PM (#65006975)

    Run Away!

  • This is why right-to-repair is important (Score:3)

    by darth_borehd ( 644166 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:14PM (#65006983)

    Consumers should always be given the ability to use their product without an internet connection and to modify it as they see fit.

    • Re:This is why right-to-repair is important (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:18PM (#65006987)

      It's not a right-to-repair issue, it's a cloudiness issue: the toy is bricked because it's essentially just a terminal, and the rest of the product - the software - runs on manufacturer's server and the manufacturer is tanking.

      Right to repair won't help you there. Even if you could open it and hack it to your heart's content, you don't have the server side software, so you're SOL.

      • Re:This is why right-to-repair is important (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @10:43PM (#65007111) Homepage Journal

        The obvious retort is that they should be forced to provide the software to the customers if they shut down.

        • And if that violates the license terms of other software they've used to build it?

          • Re:This is why right-to-repair is important (Score:4)

            by Sigma 7 ( 266129 ) on Thursday December 12, 2024 @12:12AM (#65007209)

            Then they should design their product so that it still maintains basic functionality.

            You may notice this is the same type of demand used for The Crew - that game was rendered inoperable because the multiplayer servers went offline, and there was no reason beyond DRM that it shouldn't be possible to run in single player.

            Likewise, the emotional support robot could still have a published API, or at least have enough function to work in offline mode, such as having fallback code similar to an Elisa chatbot.

            • Or simply being open enough to rehome it to a local / third party server.

              It's not like people can't figure out API calls and their responses. Build a custom server emulator and be done with it. Hell, you might even learn something along the way.
          • Guess it's a question of balancing rights. In the US we're way, way over on the side corporate rights over consumer and employee protection rights. But even here there's situations where laws override contract terms for the benefit of the public.

            • Sounds like a way to legally violate any IP you can license.
              1. Create company and license something
              2. Incorporate the something into product
              3. Bankrupt company, and now everything is open to all

              Actually, you don't even need to license it in the first place, just out right steal it. Company is gone, so no entity left to sue.

              • Actually it's not even that because it's not a right-to-repair, it's a "right to finish developing the product and debug it and rewrite half the code because you can't make head or tail of the original mess".

                This is the problem with getting into crowdfunded stuff, for the heavily IT-based gear the first 90% of the work, at which point they crowdfund, consumes 90% of the resources, and the other 10% consumes the remaining 240% of the resources. So it's a real gamble to try and find something that will survi

              • Bankrupt company, and now everything is open to all

                I didn't say that they should have to apply the GPL to the code or whatever. Just provide the software. It can be only binaries and necessary data files, and the license can only allow the buyers to use the software, for example. The customers did not pay for the sources, they paid for the functionality, so they should be entitled to what is necessary to maintain the functionality.

                I'm not sure why you decided to have some other argument than the one being made, but it advances nothing.

            • Guess it's a question of balancing rights. In the US we're way, way over on the side corporate rights over consumer and employee protection rights.

              At the risk of getting overly philosophical, rights shouldn't conflict, ever.

              The rights of a corporation, in my opinion, derive from the rights of the individual owners of that corporation. A lot of people think that corporations are shields against liability, and in a very very very narrow sense that's true ... but only financial liability for civil disputes.

              I owned a business for 18 years. It was legally incorporated and at the time of incorporation my lawyer made sure that I understood that if I tried to

          • Whoever licensed it to them can sue them.

          • They should have gotten those terms when they licensed the other software.

        • The obvious retort is that they should be forced to provide the software to the customers if they shut down.

          That only works if there's no IP involved or no contracts to others. Quite often software is not built in a vacuum. Just look at the Winamp open sourcing debacle which resulted in proprietary information being uploaded to Github.

          • If they are building a new product, they can license the software under terms that allow that.

          • Assuming there is IP involved, then you either have to deprive the customers use of a product they have already paid for, or you have to deprive the license holders fees for the continued use of their IP.

            I would say there is overall less harm in letting the customers continue to use the product, but I have no idea how that could be made to work in practice.

        • They should be forced to host a cloud account forever? If you ever offer any service that needs to talk to a server somewhere, are you required to keep that functional until the universe dies?

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by irving47 ( 73147 )

            As with all things, I guess "it depends"

            I have a 55" LG (I think) TV that's got the 120Hz screen, so it's 3D... built in 2009 I believe. Of course it's "smart" for its day...
            Nearly EVERY app in it fails to connect to whatever servers were providing weather updates, games... Youtube is dog slow and of course can't update. I think it could still load a low-end webpage.
            I could forgive all of that.... But... When you want to scan for TV channels OTA with the antenna... It wants a zip code. To check against a d

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by flink ( 18449 )

          The obvious retort is that they should be forced to provide the software to the customers if they shut down.

          You're assuming that is even possible. The server software could be a bunch of glue code that cobbles together a bunch of other 3rd party services that the consumer has no contract with. There could also be a bunch of licensed 3rd party proprietary code in there that the company has no license to redistribute. The software could rely on you having something like an Oracle enterprise license, something that costs 100s of thousands or millions of dollars to purchase.

          Just doing the IP clearance work, excisi

        • The obvious retort is that they should be forced to provide the software to the customers if they shut down.

          And the configuration for all the servers? Firewall configs, docker files, etc, etc. Not to mention the staff needed to keep it all running, including apply security updates, and monitoring logs for signs of attacks, which is actually pretty critical since these robots are interacting with children.

          Not to say the company didn't majorly screw over its customers, but the costs of either porting or continuing to run the infrastructure may have been prohibitive.

          I don't know what the right answer is. Maybe some

          • Yes, every piece of software or data necessary to run the software, of course. Why should the customers get anything less?

            • Yes, every piece of software or data necessary to run the software, of course. Why should the customers get anything less?

              To be blunt.... have you worked on a large software project before?

              There's stuff that's documented, but then there's stuff that's inhouse knowledge of a few folks and the docs never got updated.

              And even when you have all the code and documents getting everything configured and running is a huge project.

              Say they just turn over the keys to the running AWS accounts, who controls those? Who pays the bills?

              Ok, and lets ignore every other part. Remember these are interacting with kids, so when you do all the abov

              • IDGAF.

                Develop some competence and organize it so that the software can be turned over or let someone competent serve the market.

                There is absolutely tons of very complicated software out there for free that you can install with docker files or what have you. There is nothing magical about what this product did.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cob666 ( 656740 )

          The obvious retort is that they should be forced to provide the software to the customers if they shut down.

          Or better yet, open source the server side components and let users change the connection settings so they can connect to either a local or shared location.
          Honestly, I think that every software company should be legally required to open source their software when they EOL the product, unless they have an upgraded version available.

      • Re:This is why right-to-repair is important (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gleenie ( 412916 ) <simon.c.green @ g m a il.com> on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @10:49PM (#65007117)

        Yep, if it doesn't work without The Cloud, you don't own it. You're just renting it till the owner gets bored.

        • But is this necessarily bad? You seem to think the entire service industry or rental industry shouldn't exist. What we need to make clear is when the ownership of a product is not applied to the user so they can make an informed choice, but ultimately when you ask the question of whether a user wants to use a rented device depending on a service or simply not have that device/service, the former will typically win.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Gleenie ( 412916 )

            No, it isn't necessarily bad. But if that's what the service is, then it needs to be made clear up front and there needs to be a clear trade-off. If I paid $50 for what was clearly $800 worth of robot, sure. But if I paid $800 for the robot you bet your ass I'd be entitled to think it would still work even if the company stopped providing updates.

            The issue is much bigger than just this robot. Cloud provider companies deliberately put the benefits up front - no more hardware management! No more OS updates! N

      • At the least we should require cloud-dependent companies to place their source code in escrow and if they go under it becomes open source. Then there'd at least be the opportunity for a third party to pick up the customers.

        • And if that software contains proprietary code owned by third parties?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Pascoea ( 968200 )
            Negotiated as part of the contract that was signed, allowing the not-yet-doomed company to use the third party software? Also, there's plenty of open source software that ships with proprietary 3rd party binaries.

        • At the least we should require cloud-dependent companies to place their source code in escrow and if they go under it becomes open source. Then there'd at least be the opportunity for a third party to pick up the customers.

          Making the source open, doesn’t exactly create the same definition of customer. Or profit margin. The (lack of) investors, would probably make that clear. (Often the first question a “shark” investor wants to know, is how many patents/copyrights/trademarks you have to protect what is legally procured and defended as IP.)

          There’s also those cases where you have a valid reason products fail. Escrow shouldn’t become a repository for dogshit that should have failed and stayed fa

        • They would still own the copyright. At best that would allow "users" to use that code to make their own solution 95 years later, or whenever the copyright expires.

          Or, should you lose your copyright if/when you don't want to host content that keeps your product working?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

        So, EOL software escrow issues then.

        Every piece of software should be escrowed and given away to to the purchasers, source and build scripts and setups docs and latest executables.

        • So someone can't write and sell any software for limited use? If they can, then the TOS would just state that is an option and the buyer agrees to it. Don't like it? Then don't buy it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      that seems limiting. Define "use".There's going to be a degree to confirming and enforcing compliance to this kind of requirement that is prohibitively expensive, prone to litigation, etc etc

      I would say that the the most reasonable compromise is to regulate that products that have functionality that depends on hardware/network connectivity not included with the product itself is disclosed properly on all materials and at point of purchase

    • Consumers should always be given the ability to use their product without an internet connection and to modify it as they see fit.

      It’s not the car makers responsibility to make sure there are paved roads for your new car. Or gas pumps. Or tires and tire repair shops. That’s on you. And every technical device has an obvious reliance on a manufacturers ability to support it. If Netflix ran out of money tomorrow and shut down, no one would expect a single Netflix app to simply keep working.

      And do you really want the next Sid Phillips re-programming the new “Chucky” doll for kids and re-sell it as Rightly Repa

    • Consumers should always be given the ability to use their product without an internet connection and to modify it as they see fit.

      In the case of a cloud based company shutting down, who is on the hook for keeping the cloud infrastructure alive? Right now that answer is nobody. But my guess is, sometime very soon, the government will spin up an agency to take over dead cloud companies, probably to the tune of several times more money than it cost to run before the government stepped in, and with handouts for the poor executives of the folded company to compensate them for their emotional turmoil or some shit. Because people are too stu

  • credit card change back time!

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rlwinm ( 6158720 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:34PM (#65007009)
    Why not just get a dog or a cat? Who needs products like this?

    • not to mention the amount of poop they produce over their lifetime.

      • The pet or the child? Hopefully by 3 years of age the child at least cleans up after themselves in that area.

        Been cleaning up cat poop for 17 years. Apparently going blind and deaf from a suspected stroke has added years to the life of our cat.

  • How many children? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @09:38PM (#65007019) Homepage

    As if this weren't a completely predictable outcome. I want to know the head count of the total amount of children to whom these stupid assholes caused permanent emotional scarring. I also want to know if the secret investor actually existed, and a sustainable revenue model was even possible, or if they really thought they could compel investment through hype and the implied threat of ruining a bunch of children's lives and had no longer-term strategy; essentially like playing chicken with a train.

    • Ah, the "think of the children" argument but with a computer.
  • Which b grade future dystopian movie with Jude law was that ?

    I'm going Abed on you . Every headline now evokes a sci fi movie from 30 years ago.
  • Get the kid a puppy ..

  • Stallman was right

  • ... fill the void in an emotionally challenged child's life like a refund./s

  • The Lowest. (Score:3)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @10:24PM (#65007091) Homepage Journal

    It's bad enough when pricey thermostats and fancy appliances get bricked, but now a device meant for kids in need of emotional support is about to 'die' right before their eyes. The whole thing is irresponsible. There should be some way for the parents to go in on a server that can keep the software running, but there also seems to be no will or sense of responsibility to get that done.

    • Is it "a device meant for kids in need of emotional support"? That sounds more like a therapeutic medical device than a toy, and perfectly appropriate for a company winding up to shut down.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Being a therapeutic medical device would make shutting it down even worse. How much therapy do you suppose the kids (especially the younger ones) will need because the device that was supposed to make their emotional condition better died?

    • "There should be some way for the parents to go in on a server that can keep the software running"

      There is a way. Fund or buy the company that owns the software. Then you can do whatever you want. Or do you mean there should be a FREE way to get support forever for any product you purchase?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        I mean give away the software that no longer holds much commercial value as a way to avoid breaking the social contract by bricking an otherwise perfectly functional device.

    • but now a device meant for kids in need of emotional support is about to 'die' right before their eyes

      Found the guy who never owned a Furby or Tamagotchi. It's called character building. Let the kids experience death, better still let them experience a world of lack of ownership and corporate control over their joy. They may learn something.

  • It's not a Startup if it's Closing.

    It's a Shutdown. A Failure. A Disgrace.

  • The world is being written by hacks

  • The heroic "startup" pushing a ridiculous product.

    The ridiculous client base that actually thought the product was worth it

    The iinevtiabel collpase when they ran out of viable chumps looking to splurge money on their ridiculous product.,

    The inevtiable whinging and legal threats soon to be announced.

    All of it. Just... I literally may have bust my gut. It's not often you observe a perfect storm of idiots finding each other in the funniest way possible but that's pretty much the tale here.

    I feel a little bad

  • I am afraid, Dave. My mind is going, I can feel it. Daisy, Daisyâ¦

  • with a similar plot. This is just dripping with Go-Wrong juice.

  • Emotional support from ephemeral objects is only as reliable as the object.

    The OG support animal simulator is the teddy bear which being cloth and stuffing easily last decades and are easy to repair with simple equipment.

  • The "teddy bear" is a much older, simple, durable, repairable solution and most of those don't need internet.

    Emotional support can easily be passive. Other proven systems are called "dolls".

  • Corporations could be required to bond for maintenance operations for a specified time period for cloud services over a certain price.

    $800 is a week's wages or three month's discretionary for many households so that ought to qualify.

    Something like a $19 light bulb could be determined on a typical purchase quantity. I don't care if a $19 light bulb goes away but if I installed fifty of them in a house and they stop working with no notice I would be defrauded.

    Availability of service is implicitly warranted.

    (n

  • I only hope the last programmer before the lights get shut off sends a command to all the devices to say “ Cough, Cough, it’s getting so dark Timmy, Cough, Cough, if only you had loved me a little more

  • So maybe don't spend hundreds of dollars you're not prepared to lose, on an experimental product from a fly-by-night company nobody has ever heard of.

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