Petnet goes offline for a week, can’t answer customers at all

Failing to work is one problem; failing to communicate with customers is another.

This pup will stare at you balefully until someone—or something—feeds it already.

Enlarge / This pup will stare at you balefully until someone—or something—feeds it already. (credit: Petnet)

Automated or otherwise mechanized pet feeders aren't particularly new; you can find analog models dating back to 1939 at least. But the 21st century being what it is, of course there are now app-driven, cloud-connected "smart" feeders that you control from your phone. And when some mysterious outage takes out that system for a full week, you and your furry friend may end up deeply annoyed.

The Petnet smartfeeder is one such system, and it did indeed recently suffer one such outage, as spotted by TechCrunch. Systems do occasionally go offline, it is true—but Petnet's outage seems emblematic of the difficulties consumers face with customer service in the app-driven economy. Namely, can you actually reach someone to complain?

Petnet began posting messages on Twitter on February 14 advising customers that some of its SmartFeeders "will appear offline," although they still would nominally work to dispense food. Of course, when something doesn't work, most people will try to turn it off and back on again, as that's the first-line repair for basically everything with a power switch. That, alas, was not the solution here, and Petnet explicitly advised against turning feeders off or on, adding, "We will continue to provide updates on this matter."

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Startup: Rückenschmerzen-App Kaia verzwölffacht ihren Preis

Eine E-Health-App hat am Montag drastisch höhere Preise eingeführt, obwohl sie mit 96 Euro jährlich schon viel kostete: Ab jetzt zahlen Neukunden 99 Euro – aber nicht im Jahr, sondern pro Monat. Dafür kann Kaia bei chronischen Rückenschmerzen wirklich …

Eine E-Health-App hat am Montag drastisch höhere Preise eingeführt, obwohl sie mit 96 Euro jährlich schon viel kostete: Ab jetzt zahlen Neukunden 99 Euro - aber nicht im Jahr, sondern pro Monat. Dafür kann Kaia bei chronischen Rückenschmerzen wirklich helfen, glauben nicht nur viele Krankenkassen. (App, Wirtschaft)

New Sony Xperia 1 II smartphone looks handsome, costs a ridiculous $1,300

It has a funny name, a square design, and a very high price.

It would have been Mobile World Congress this week if not for the panic over the coronavirus—so get great for plenty of news from the world of international smartphones. First up, we have a reminder that Sony is still out there making cellular telephones, and last night it announced the "Sony Xperia 1 II." Wait, the what?! The "Sony Xperia One Two?" Actually, this is branded similarly to the Sony cameras, so just as the "Sony A7 III" is pronounced "Sony Alpha seven mark three," this thing is apparently the "Sony Xperia One Mark Two." Wild.

Like most of the phones that will be announced this week, this is a flagship 2020 smartphone with the Snapdragon 865 and 5G, though Sony opted to only include mid-band 5G and not mmWave. There is a 6.5-inch, 3840×1644 OLED display, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a 4000mAh battery. The phone is IP68 rated, and it has a MicroSD slot and wireless charging. It may also be the only flagship smartphone in 2020 with a headphone jack.

Like every other Sony smartphone, the design is very square and rather handsome looking. While the rest of the industry is all about maximizing display space with camera notches and other display blemishes, Sony has a pair of symmetrical bezels on the top and bottom that house front-facing stereo speakers and the front camera. The combination of bezels and a 21:9 display makes this one of the tallest smartphones on the market, with measurements of 166mm × 72mm × 7.9mm.

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Daily Deals (2-24-2020)

So you signed up for that CBS All Access 1-month free trial I told you about on Friday, but now you’re looking for an easy way to stream to your TV? You’re in luck, because Amazon is running a sale on Fire TV media streamers, which means yo…

So you signed up for that CBS All Access 1-month free trial I told you about on Friday, but now you’re looking for an easy way to stream to your TV? You’re in luck, because Amazon is running a sale on Fire TV media streamers, which means you can pick one up for as little […]

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Sony Xperia 1 II smartphone features Zeiss II cameras, 5G, and a confusing name

Sony’s follow-up to last year’s Xperia 1 flagship phone has a similar design, display, and camera setup. But the new Sony Xperia 1 II sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor and 5G modem, making it the company’s first 5G smartphone…

Sony’s follow-up to last year’s Xperia 1 flagship phone has a similar design, display, and camera setup. But the new Sony Xperia 1 II sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor and 5G modem, making it the company’s first 5G smartphone. The new model also has a bigger battery, more memory and storage, and support for higher-capacity […]

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Sony Xperia 1 II smartphone features Zeiss II cameras, 5G, and a confusing name

Sony’s follow-up to last year’s Xperia 1 flagship phone has a similar design, display, and camera setup. But the new Sony Xperia 1 II sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor and 5G modem, making it the company’s first 5G smartphone…

Sony’s follow-up to last year’s Xperia 1 flagship phone has a similar design, display, and camera setup. But the new Sony Xperia 1 II sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor and 5G modem, making it the company’s first 5G smartphone. The new model also has a bigger battery, more memory and storage, and support for higher-capacity […]

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Bundesnetzagentur: Telefónica erhält Millionenstrafe wegen schlechtem Netz

Die Bundesnetzagentur wird Telefónica Deutschland wohl zu einer Strafe im zweistelligen Millionenbereich verurteilen. Der Netzbetreiber nennt dies “kontraproduktiv für die Netzversorgung in Deutschland”. (Bundesnetzagentur, Telekom)

Die Bundesnetzagentur wird Telefónica Deutschland wohl zu einer Strafe im zweistelligen Millionenbereich verurteilen. Der Netzbetreiber nennt dies "kontraproduktiv für die Netzversorgung in Deutschland". (Bundesnetzagentur, Telekom)

Microsoft reveals Xbox Series X specs, features

After revealing the design and a handful of features of its next-gen game console in December, Microsoft is spilling the beans on some of the key specs and capabilities of the upcoming Xbox Series X. The game console will be powered by an AMD Zen 2 pro…

After revealing the design and a handful of features of its next-gen game console in December, Microsoft is spilling the beans on some of the key specs and capabilities of the upcoming Xbox Series X. The game console will be powered by an AMD Zen 2 processor with RDNA 2 graphics for up to 12 TFLOPS […]

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Konsolen: Microsoft bestätigt 12 Teraflops für Xbox Series X

Nun ist es offiziell: Die GPU der Xbox Series X schafft eine Leistung von 12 Teraflops – ungefähr das Doppelte der Xbox One X. Damit treffen einige Leaks zu, außerdem stellte der zuständige Manager Phil Spencer eine Reihe weiterer Neuheiten vor. (Xbox …

Nun ist es offiziell: Die GPU der Xbox Series X schafft eine Leistung von 12 Teraflops - ungefähr das Doppelte der Xbox One X. Damit treffen einige Leaks zu, außerdem stellte der zuständige Manager Phil Spencer eine Reihe weiterer Neuheiten vor. (Xbox Series X, Microsoft)

Intel’s first Tremont chip is the Atom P5900 10nm processor (for networking products)

A few months after officially introducing its new “Tremont” architecture for energy-efficient processors, Intel is unveiling some of the first chips to use the new technology. The Intel Atom P5900 series processors are 10nm chips with 8 to …

A few months after officially introducing its new “Tremont” architecture for energy-efficient processors, Intel is unveiling some of the first chips to use the new technology. The Intel Atom P5900 series processors are 10nm chips with 8 to 24 CPU cores, base frequencies of 2.2 GHz, and support for up to 128GB of DDR4-2933 MHz […]

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