Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death
- Reference: 1676313309
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/02/13/linux_ai_assistant_killed_off/
- Source link:
Furthermore, without immediate new investment, the company will be forced to cease development by the end of the month, [1]said the company's former CEO and operator of the Kickstarter campaign, Joshua Montgomery.
"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," confirmed Montgomery.
[2]
He said the company was now at bare-bones employee count: layoffs had reduced the staff down to two developers, one customer service agent and one attorney.
[3]
[4]
Montgomery said he had "poured a lot of [his] own savings, and additional funding from [his] foundation into Mycroft" but the company was runnung out of cash.
Mycroft AI experienced many challenges one would expect to encounter at a startup, such as difficulty finding hardware partners, which forced it to resort to off-the-shelf parts. Less predictable problems that arose were rising costs from the hellscape that was COVID-era supply chain disruptions.
[5]
Mycroft AI ended up spending more time than intended on the Mark II hardware, and the move became expensive and detracted software, which was what the company actually wanted to focus on, said Montgomery.
But what truly killed the company and product, he claimed, were expenses related to ongoing litigation.
In 2020, Mycroft AI was sued for patent infringement from what it [6]labeled a "patent troll."
[7]
The company suing Mycroft AI, Voice Tech Corporation, dropped its litigation, but not before costing the startup deeply.
"If we had that million dollars we would be in a very different state right now," said Montgomery.
[8]Roses are red, algorithms are blue, here's a poem I made a machine write for you
[9]Startup Mycroft AI declares it will fight 'patent troll' tooth and nail after its Linux voice-assistant attracts lawsuit
[10]Google's $100b bad day demo may be worth the price
[11]Google now won't black-hole all AI-made pages as spam
Billed as an "open answer" to Amazon Echo and Google Home but with data privacy, the Mark II went from costing $99 in components each to $300. That total doesn't include the costs of spending $100,000 on injection molds.
The product currently sells on [12]the company's website for $499.
The Kickstarter campaign brought in 2,245 backers for the smart speaker and raised over $394,000. The goal had been set at a mere $50,000. It's uncertain how many backers received a Mark II.
Backers have left disappointed and upset responses on its Kickstarter page – some mourning the death of hardware crowdsourcing, some pleading for their product, some alleging scam, and others urging the company to push through.
"Send us the components to assemble the pieces ourselves if that's the outstanding problem at this point," offered one Kickstarter supporter. "Why can't we make it into a group project to assemble MyCroft II in our homes?"
"I don't mind that I don't get my Mark II: the bigger goal of open source artificial intelligence was more important to me," said another. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-mark-ii-the-open-voice-assistant/posts/3729060
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y@rBE3dL8EuGOOy0ytkuSwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@rBE3dL8EuGOOy0ytkuSwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@rBE3dL8EuGOOy0ytkuSwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@rBE3dL8EuGOOy0ytkuSwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/12/mycroft_patent_troll/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@rBE3dL8EuGOOy0ytkuSwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/12/generative_ai_valentines_day/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/12/mycroft_patent_troll/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/column_ai_in_search/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/09/google_reverses_ai_page_spam/
[12] https://mycroft.ai/product/mark-ii/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Well, you could possibly file a countersuit for costs, depending on how much more you’re willing to spend on your own lawyers.
Because it is wrong, but unfortunately, legal.
And if you can't counter-sue, yer forked.
And that is how the game is played. What's even worse, the company may even have been just a stalking horse. Innovation and small companies are shut down all the time like this.
Just another reason why we can't have nice things.
Never do hardware development on Kickstarter
Oh good lord, Kickstarter the company (which takes a nice cut with no risk) should face a class action lawsuit. They have solid data and know very well the riskiest projects involve hardware, with a very low success rate. Despite knowing this, they just wash their hands off it after taking their cut, while well meaning founders obliterate their personal and often family finances, ruin relationships (with cofounders and family) and just about die.
Most founders work themselves unsustainably hard because they're the face of the project and are on the hook reputation wise, although some are not so well meaning and have that ability to walk away, many end up annihilating themselves. All while getting death threats from random backers (some of whom are seriously scary sounding) who believe one can launch a custom hardware project and deliver after raising the originally anticipated at-cost of the deliverables. Which don't cover any development, maintenance, sales, ongoing engineering, cost overruns, and in most cases they don't pay themselves. I raised almost 150k in the early Kickstarter years for a very complex project, didn't pay myself anything and worked myself and another guy into severe depression two years later. And I killed my 401k in the process. Of course, I should have known better, but Kickstarter most definitely knows better and has a decades record in taking money from naive but well meaning backers and founder.
Another one bites the dust.
-$100,000 on injection molds.
Just put it in an off the shelf box.
Difficult to do ventures without venture capital. Maybe crowd fund for non-commercial test systems (less patent grief) and use them to get a sack of VC from SoftBank.
"the company was runnung out of cash."
What's that? A cross between running and wrung, a present-past tense sort of thing?
Somehow it seems wrong that a company can cause a round of expensive litigation and then just walk away after buggering everything up.