irobot roomba mapping home
Continue Reading

Your Roomba May be Mapping Your Home and Sharing Your Home Map

iRobot, the company behind the Roomba vacuum, along with other cleaning robots, has sold 15 million of those little suckers worldwide. Part of the Roomba’s brilliance is mapping your house in order to be as effective and efficient as possible. However, many people are not aware of this mapping feature, and even those who are may not realize that the mapping data – i.e. the map of their home – is being sent back to iRobot HQ, and stored in the cloud. Nor have they likely realized that iRobot might like to share the map of their home with others. But that is exactly part of iRobot’s business strategy.

wrong home torn down demolished because of google maps
Continue Reading

Google Maps Error Causes Wrong House to be Demolished

Relying on the Internet as your co-pilot for navigational technology is not without its pitfalls. Sometimes it can lead to humourous situations, like the woman caught peeing in the street by Google maps, but sometimes it can also lead to horrific outcomes, like the Google map that is thought to have lead to the death of James Kim when he took a route suggested by Google maps that was otherwise known to have been treacherous. This week, Google maps is being blamed for the accidental demolition of the home belonging to Lindsey Diaz, of Rowlett, Texas.

Continue Reading

Amazon Echo Series – Part 4: Amazon Echo Smartthings plus Amazon Echo IFTTT Recipes and Hacks to do Much More

[Note: This article contains easy-to-follow instructions for creating your own Amazon Echo IFTTT recipes and hacks!] Did you know that you can use your Amazon Echo voice commands with home automation smartthings, such as lights and thermostats, as well as to send an email or text, post to Facebook and Twitter, and much more? In addition to the onboard Amazon Echo features which will control home automation smart things, the Amazon Echo list of commands is nearly limitless when you use IFTTT recipes, which count as some of the best Amazon Echo features and hacks.

Macbook wireless wifi settings
Continue Reading

Make Your Macbook Connect Automatically to Your Home Wifi Again

If you are wondering “Why won’t my Macbook Air connect to my home wifi network anymore?” or “How come my Macbook stopped connecting automatically to my wireless network?”, like many other people, here are a couple of things you can try to fix it.