Personally i think Dave was a bit harsh.. But thats his call, his forum and Blog. Its his style and its the cynical engineer thing.. The irony is that without daves video i woudl have never known about this, and i now i do.
A few people have said I was "a bit harsh" and shouldn't have "picked on" students and/or a university team.
My response is several fold:
a) I don't know what people mean by "a bit harsh"? A bit harsh because I actually did a video on it at all?, or a bit harsh in the things I said? If it's the latter then I think I was pretty generous and praised their chip several times. If it's the former, then see the comment below.
b) They aren't students, and this isn't student project. Students may have worked on it I don't know, but that's beside the point
c) This isn't some research paper or research project, I would never "pick on" anything research related or a published paper etc.
d) IIRC they actually invited engineering feedback in their video
e) They very deliberately went public with slick marketing for this thing they are looking to eventually sell . A slick promo video and demo. A slick website blog type page etc. They went to a lot of effort to do all this. It has become a commercial public product and that makes it fair game.
f) They were wrong, and have admitted as much.
What is "a bit harsh" anyway? Because I spoke my opinion? Because I spoke my opinion
and I have a big audience? They way I said things? My tone?
Once you put something out for public consumption and comment then you can expect public feedback,
especially in the science and engineering community from your peers, it is entirely to be expected.
People expect me to speak my mind (and I don't know anything else), so it's either the video I made, or no video at all.
Should a university team be immune to such criticism? No way.
Should they be able to operate in an all-to-familiar "safe space" these days? No frick'n way.
As for why I did the video, it's obviously not because I wanted to ridicule them or whatever, it's because I saw someone posted it on the forum, watched the videos and thought that was marketing BS.
I thought it would make an interesting video, and I was actually rather careful to praise the chip and just call them out on the obviously marketing BS and the niche application for this, both of which are 100% accurate.
A few people seem to not like it purely because it's a university group, but have no problem when it's a company or Kickstarter etc. I don't get that, they all involve real people with feeling and reputations etc. I make the choice based on whether or not it is fair game. They went public with marketing a commercial product, so it's fair game.