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$75K Prosthetic Arm Is Bricked When Paired iPod Is Stolen
kdataman writes U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ben Eberle, who lost an arm and both legs in Afghanistan, had his Ipod Touch stolen on Friday. This particular Ipod Touch has an app on it that controls his $75,000 prosthetic arm. The robbery bricked his prosthesis: "That is because Eberle's prosthetic hand is programmed to only work with the stolen iPod, and vice versa. Now that the iPod is gone, he said he has to get a new hand and get it reprogrammed with his prosthesis." I see three possibilities: 1) The article is wrong, possibly to guilt the thief into returning the Ipod. 2) This is an incredibly bad design by Touch Bionics. Why would you make a $70,000 piece of equipment permanently dependent on a specific Ipod Touch? Ipods do fail or go missing. 3) This is an intentionally bad design to generate revenue. Maybe GM should do this with car keys? "Oops, lost the keys to the corvette. Better buy a new one."
He'll be right. He is from the ARMy after all.
The guy who stole it could now be controlling his hand. "Now hand over your wallet! No, wait... I'll do it! Bwahahahahah!" Small favors and all that...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Seriously, they charge an arm and a leg for prosthetic limbs!
=Smidge=
Shouldn't the app be an Android app?
Hmmmm?
You should have gone with a more reputable news aggregation service like FARK or 4chan. Their editors are top notch compared to Slashdot.
$70k is the standard repair fee for prosthetics not covered under an Applecare agreement.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No, that's not right. You have to pull the finger. I'll show you. Pull my finger.
Hi, I'm a volunteer for The Math Foundation, the non-profit devoted to helping everyday people do math, because Math Is Hard(tm). After careful calculations, I have concluded that replacing all of your keys via the dealerships costs more than two orders of magnitude less than purchasing a new set of cars, which means you could purchase over 100 cars for the cost of a set of keys, on average. You can now safely take the "new keys" option with the assurance that it is the wiser financial path between the two, and you no longer have to lie awake at night wondering whether or not the "new cars" option would be cheaper.
the iPod has an ARM processor.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
So what you are saying is that Timmothy not only fails to edit most posts that need it. He goes above and beyond by editing posts at times to make them even crappier?
You must be new here...