alt Hacker News>“The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city.
the two things i still dont understand are:
1) why is there not a dedicated demo environment for demos, like practically every other software? i cant think of any reason why they need live data for a demonstration. (this might be addressed in the article, but the paragraph where it looks like it might be mentioned is also where the article is cut off)
2) is the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MCJCCA) city-owned? if not, the city should not be able to give permission to use the cameras. if so, was the MJCCA notified that the cameras would be used for demo purposes? were the parents notified?
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I’ve seen dozens of these types of demos and it’s always live footage from a semi public place like this.
It’s much easier to just show live footage rather than rig up canned looping footage.
It’s pretty astonishing how no one watching the demo with me seems to care. No one asking “Hey, will you just be able to do this with our video if we buy from you?”
The camera's main selling point is instilling fear: better not misbehave, because Big Brother is watching. The creepier it is, the easier it is to sell to powerful people looking for invasive control.
They're appealing to entities that have surveillance and voyeuristic fetishes, showing that you can ubiquitously invade privacy in real-time, even in spaces society considers sensitive, is a feature worth demonstrating if you want to get contracts from psychopaths.
If it really has to be a live system, they could just set one up in a broom closet at hq?
Answer to 1 is simple and obvious based on Flocks previous actions: they have no idea what they are doing and are reacting instead of planning.