take a Peep at this fail.

earlier this month, some sketchy start-up showed up at CES. their website is full of all kinds of vagueness and puffery. i'm doubtful their magical voice and data mesh will ever pan out, and the fact that Scott Redmond (the mastermind behind plenty of other tech-related epic fail) is behind this does not do anything to help the case.

however, one of the pictures in Rafe Needleman's CNet article is enough to make me want to travel back in time and laugh these fools right out of CES.

take a look at this picture:



according to Peep, the depicted object is the "Peep Pod walkie talkie", a $20 gadget that will allegedly sync with a bluetooth headset and transmit voice up to thirty-six miles. however, if you've ever logged into any somewhat sensitive computer systems, you're probably already thinking what i'm thinking. if you haven't, take a look at this:



this is not a Peep Wireless device. this is an RSA SecurID fob, a hardware token used in two-factor authentication.

compare it to the "Peep Pod" above. the shapes are identical. the recessed areas where it looks like something was removed are identical to the locations of the stickers on the RSA SecurID fob -- up to and including the little dent in the circle on the left. the layout of the number on the screen, as well as the dots down the side, are identical to an RSA SecurID fob.

from the looks of this, there's no such thing as a "Peep Pod" at all. it's a defaced SecurID, being used to try and dupe people at CES into thinking that they actually have prototyped hardware.