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Industrial Athletes Compete for No Prizes, Amazon Sidewalk Goes Live, and More Home Products from the Fruit Company

Thursday, June 3, 2021Thursday, June 3, 2021By William Mapp
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I was told this week, that I shouldn’t take things personally. I’m glad it’s Thursday. For our regular readers, I wound up not taking the entire day off. I logged in, in the morning and at night. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week, Amazon devices use Sidewalk mesh, industrial athletes compete for nothing, and Apple job posting teases new home products. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

Amazon Sidewalk Mooching Off of My WiFi

AMAZON SIDEWALK GOES LIVE THIS WEEK: SHOULD YOU OPT-OUT

I am. Amazon devices the world over will have Sidewalk activated by default next week. Amazon Sidewalk is a WiFi mesh networking service used by Amazon Echo and Alexa powered devices to expand their range. The service is designed to be only used by Amazon devices in order to extend coverage for d evices on the fringe. For instance, if you have an Amazon Ring device that’s on the edge of your home WiFi range, your Ring could piggy-back on your neighbor’s WiFi to operate properly. Not a bad concept since the mesh network is only used for these devices, but it’s an opt-out, not opt-in deal. For me that’s a non-starter. If you want to opt-out of Amazon Sidewalk follow these simple steps:

  • Open up your Alexa app
  • Tap the More button
  • Head to Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk
  • Use the slider to disable Sidewalk

INDUSTRIAL ATHLETES DESERVE MORE AT AMAZON

In a leaked pamphlet obtained by Motherboard, Amazon has started telling its employees that they are industrial athletes, and not the over-worked cogs in the smiley box. Amazon’s on the job injuries are higher than their competitors and I’ve heard first hand from some employees about how the company denies bathroom breaks. The pamphlet brags about employees walking 13 miles per day and burning up to 400 calories per hour. Thing is though, athletes train for all of that arduous activity.

A WEEK AHEAD OF WWDC APPLE TEASES homeOS

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference will start next week. Twitterer, Javier Lacort, noticed a job ad Apple posted hinting that the employee will be working on homeOS technology. The small leak hints that Apple may be announcing more devices and more integrations for home electronics beyond the Apple pod. All I know is that they can take my money. A friend of mine just got an Apple Card and he asked me to protect him from himself.