John Lockwood

polymnia said:

How long until stereo receivers & TVs boast HomeKit compatibility? Logitech would be the designer of the remote UI and hardware. Apple would provide the common interface protocol to A/V components.

Is this the way (aside from high-end, professionally programmed systems) that we can FINALLY move to the promised land of direct query of device states and direct commands (and ability to confirm execution of said commands) via data connection.

I cannot believe it is 2017 and I still have a little computer attached to an IR emitter that tries to remember if the TV is on and what input it is set to, instead of just QUERYING THE DAMN TV!

You are so right, especially as these days the overwhelming majority of AV devices - especially TVs have network interfaces as standard.

Sadly the impression is strongly given by all AV makers that they still live in the 70s - almost pre-Internet, their user interfaces suck, they generally are incapable of offering software upgrades of even the most basic level and their using the term smart TV is an oxymoron.

I think one of the triggers for this disagreement was the US government blatantly trying to bypass EU Data Protection legislation by ordering Microsoft to hand over emails stored on a server located in Ireland. The US government did not bother to apply for a search warrant in Ireland where the server was located and even when the Irish government offered to assist in processing a warrant the US government persisted in ignoring that and continuing to take legal action against Microsoft.

This was at the time a very high profile legal case with enormous ramifications for the Cloud/SAAS industries but ended up fizzling out as the defendant ultimately plead guilty to the charges meaning the email evidence was no longer needed.

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/microsoft-fights-us-search-warrant-for-customer-e-mails-held-in-overseas-server/2014/06/10/6b8416ae-f0a7-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html and http://dataethics.eu/en/microsoft-vs-us-can-sink-safe-habor/ amongst others.

Still the extremely high handed and illegal attitude of the US government was at least partly responsible for the pre-existing data 'safe harbour' agreement between the US and the EU being revoked.

This along with the fact that the US has been caught eavesdropping on the mobile phone of Chancellor Merkel of Germany has really pissed of Europeans.

By the way while the currently rejected proposals of the US government offer (supposedly) legal redress to EU citizens against US corporations what about legal redress against the US government itself which has been proven to spy illegally on EU citizens and to ignore EU laws. Can't see them allowing that.