Your Startup Sucks: Love in the Time of Surveillance — is that a camera in my ring?

Here at Your Startup Sucks, we’ve been highlighting some of the most ridiculous shit out there on Product Hunt. Oh, there have been some classics, haven’t there?

– Siri for Sex        – Date in a Box        – the app that reminds you to breathe

This week we have three solutions urgently seeking problems
1. have you always wanted to secretly record your wedding proposal?
2. do you always burn food when you cook it?
3. are you looking for something even more ridiculous than the Segway to ride?

In a first for YSS, all three of our products this week are SkyMall Certified: totally ridiculous, but strangely alluring.

Ring Cam — because all precious moments are better when secretly recorded

Eugene Onegin discovers Ring Cam. (With apologies to Alexander Pushkin).

Hail, Muse!

Why so glum, bum?

Here sits my friend Eugene, his brain afire,
His thoughts on fair Tatyana stuck.
And with my base, unworthy lyre,
From among his thoughts I’ll attempt to pluck:
“Tomorrow! Tomorrow, I will do it! I shall! I must!
I’ve got the ring, her father’s blessing. The lust
I feel is for her soul, her quiet spirit,
Her pensive air. Her voice, when I hear it,
Stabs my brains with spires of pleasure.
And so I shall ask her to be my wife,
But I must record the moment — as all parts of life!
Perhaps a camera hidden in the treasured
Ring I present her can capture me dropping down to one knee
And saying, “Tanya, will you marry me?”

O! Ring Cam!
I’ll capture her every gasp and cry,
Through the hidden camera’s eye.
And when we’re old, in bed we’ll lie,
And marvel at how the years went by.
We’ll watch the video, so bright and cheery,
and think “God, what a terrible mistake we made! How dreary!”

(This post was  inspired by Eugene Onegin — the surprisingly clever, witty and hilarious novel in verse. Strangely enough Stephen Fry was convinced to record an audiobook of Eugene Onegin for public consumption. He did, and that masterful result is available for free here.)

Ring Cam: SkyMall Certified 

Meld — your new knob

Meld is a simple method to help you cook: there’s a knob that you attach to your stovetop — this knob can turn itself, adjusting the cooking heat — the knob communicates with a clip — this clip attaches to your pot and monitors the exact temperature of what’s cooking — the clip, meanwhile, communicates with the app, which has built in recipes and cooking instructions.

Simple, right?

God love them, but slick as they are, many startup videos still have that late-night informercial feel.

“Whether you’re a novice cook or an experienced chef, things don’t always go as you planned in the kitchen.”
Fair enough.

“Sometime a dish turns out undercooked, and sometimes things turn out burnt.”
Things turn out burnt? What kind of passive-voice BS is this? Take ownership, man! “I burnt the toast! I undercooked the chicken!”

“Simple temperature control is still an unsolved problem in the kitchen.”
Is it?

“We want to help people cook the perfect meal every time.”
A laudable goal, sure, but is this unholy knob/clip/app contraption really the way to do it?

In the end I can’t say I trust those self-turning knobs? What if they become sentient, and decide to burn down the house, or worse, burn the chili?

Meld – SkyMall Certified 

Ryno – Rhinos can run up to 55 mph. This Ryno? Not so much.

In a way, it’s amazing there aren’t more innovative modes of transportation. We’ve got the plane, the car, the bike. Busses and trains and ships. But all these are ancient!

How will we be traveling in the San Francisco of the Future?  Hyper-loops? High-tech skateboards? Bicycles?

Perhaps, we’ll each have a little Ryno — an adorable unicycle / Segway / motorcycle mashup that can reach speeds of up to 10 miles per hour.

Poor Ryno, I kind of feel bad for the little guy. He’s not so useless, is he? Surely there’s a niche for little Ryno in between bikes and scooters? Does this half-motorcycle stand a chance? Could it be the Segway killer we’ve long been waiting for?

Then again:

Ryno – definitely SkyMall certified

Thanks for checking in with Your Startup Sucks. Know of any startups that suck? Hit me up in the comments.