No, a Stolen iPod Didn't Brick Ben Eberle's Prosthetic Hand

New submitter willoremus writes A wounded Army vet had his $75k prosthetic hand bricked when someone stole his iPod Touch? Yeah, not so much. I'm a tech reporter for Slate.com, and a Slashdot post earlier this week prompted me to look into this story and ultimately debunk some of the key info. Sorry for self-posting, but I thought folks here might be interested in the truth since the false story was one of the top posts earlier this week.

Comments

Rule of thumb

[nysus]

If something sounds too crazy to be true without substantial evidence to back it up, it probably is. I take everything I read on the Internet with a very fine grain of salt.

Re:Rule of thumb

[i kan reed]

Yeah, apparently "what engineer would ever design a product like that?" was the correct question to ask.

Because the answer is "no engineer"

Re:Rule of thumb

[Voltara]

Something didn't seem quite right, but I just couldn't put my finger on it...

Re:Rule of thumb

[Richy_T]

Or a marketer (vendor lock-in) or an auto company (special tool #16)

Re:Rule of thumb

[kdataman]

As the OP of the original post, I would like to point out that I listed 3 possibilities and the first was that the story was wrong, maybe even intentionally wrong.

Re:Rule of thumb

[i kan reed]

You don't need vendor lock-in when your product costs $100,000, and your customer can use at most 4.

Re:Rule of thumb

[mysidia]

If something sounds too crazy to be true without substantial evidence to back it up

If something sounds crazy, on the internet, especially Facebook,etc; It's probably click-bait. They just want your clicks to earn ad revenue.

They will earn money, even if it's false or bogus. Also, there are unlikely to be any negative ramifications at all.

"Sorry, our bad"

And everyone will forget.

Sort of.... i'm sure there will be many repeats, and we'll just never get it.

Re: Rule of thumb

[jd2112]

Personally I use two or three large salt mines. A single grain just doesn't cut it anymore.

Re: Rule of thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not an engineering decision. That's management told the product team to make the vacuum impossible for consumers to repair. He could have used ask security torx. Or he could have used all different bits. He used but one since that was sufficient to placate management and should be easy for you to defeat with a dremmel (cut a slot; now it's a flat head screw).

He wasn't an asshole. He was being as nice as he could without being fired.

Re:Rule of thumb

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not quite true. The article likens this to GM bricking a Corvette for losing the keys, but that's exactly what happens to a modern Toyota computer if you lose the last key (cost of replacing a key for my Prius $175. Cost of replacing key + computer $1,275, I checked and that convinced me to spend the $175 for a second key for my used Prius).

Slashdot got a sensational story wrong?

[Nimey]

Say it ain't so!

Re:Slashdot got a sensational story wrong?

[Nimey]

Now I hope all you jackasses who immediately piled on with your superiority complexes ("oh, how could an engineer be /that/ stupid? I know better than him, hee hee") have learned something, but I doubt it.

Re:Slashdot got a sensational story wrong?

[CanHasDIY]

I'm more incredulous that Slate ran a factual story that wasn't 99% opinion.

Re:Slashdot got a sensational story wrong?

[the gnat]

their No Nukes anti-vax GMO-free science illiterate readership.

Uh, which readership would that be? I've been reading Slate almost daily for a while now, and they've been very consistently against the anti-vaxxers and, to a lesser extent, haven't had much sympathy for the anti-GMO crowd either. They even employ Phil Plait, who rarely misses an opportunity to denounce scientific illiteracy. Perhaps you confused them with Salon?

Re:Slashdot got a sensational story wrong?

[gman003]

Are you reading the same Slate I read? Slate got my eyes by hiring Dr. Phil Plait, who is basically a full-time anti-science debunker, one who is specifically against anti-vaxxers, astrologers and conspiracy theorists. And although I don't often read many of their other authors, I've never seen an anti-vax or anti-GMO article there either. They've got their share of inanity (the advice blogger is almost hilariously bad), and they link to bullshit sites like Buzzfeed, but "science illiterate" isn't one of the complaints I'd voice about them.

The truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot readers don't want the truth, they want their own version of reality that fits their particular political/sociological/etc. slant.

Mythbusters

[dfsmith]

Maybe the hurried journalists quietly noted that there are now 66% fewer Mythbusters and thought, "Let's run with it—what's the chance of being caught now, eh?" B-(

Re:Mythbusters

[dfsmith]

I thought, "I'll run with it...".

Thanks

[alvinrod]

Thanks for actually looking into this. Reporting in general seems (or perhaps it's always been this way, but I just wasn't as aware of it.) to have gotten a lot more lazy recently, especially with the explosion of news blogs and other internet only news sources. There's such a rush to be the first to break a story and get the massive number of clicks and associated ad revenue that reporters have lost focus on digging deep and getting to the bottom of a story. After that everyone just links to the original without bothering to verify the information and the facts gets buried under a combination of half-truths and/or agenda-driven opinion.

Re:Still

[Nimey]

^^^ proof that any story can be derailed by conservative jackasses who want to complain about the government, right there. Needs more random CAPITALIZATION to make A POINT, though.

I have a logical explaination

[viperidaenz]

The guy said "they stole my iPod now I can't use my hand until I get a new one"
The media interpreted that as need a new hand, not need a new iPod. Since need a new hand means more clicks on headlines, they run with it without clarifying.

Re:Rule of thumb: expand it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to include printed sources too since this story was originally reported in the San Antonio Express - News and picked up by the national press - see link again.

If this Slate reporter/blogger didn't follow up, we would have never known for sure.

And here's the kicker, I guarantee you that Touch Bionics will be disputing this story for years to come.

All you need is someone who is careless or just lies because it sounds good, and it catches on, people remember the misinformation and never the truth. - mostly because it falls into their world view and they ignore anything that disputes it

I am no exception to the rule and I have been weening myself off of all news. If it's really important, I'll hear about it from my friends and neighbors. Everything else is just fluff, out of my control and irrelevant to me.

As a result, the World seems much safer, nicer, and I can listen to my neighbor's opinions and disagree without getting angry. Burying my head in the sand? Am i uninformed? What good is it to know everything happening in the Middle East when I cannot do anything about and it is irrelevant to my life? Who cares what the current leader of N. Korea says? Or the idiocy coming out of the politician's mouths? It's all lies, anyway. And don't get me started on the moronic cable news channels and the professional Trolls/Pundits like Hannity, O'Reilly, and those overpaid assholes.

Now, to ween of the Internet and all it's shit.

Sorry Slate reporter and Slashdot, but my life will be better without you.

Re:Still

[CanHasDIY]

^^^ proof that any story can be derailed by conservative jackasses

Um, it's only possible for a person to derail a story if you let them.

Which it appears you have done.

Ever consider just ignoring the people you find annoying? Works pretty well for me.

may need to reprogram?

[fermion]

While he can keep the same hand, it’s possible that he’ll have to reprogram some specific settings on his new device, said a spokesman for the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where Eberle is a patient.

I don't see why that would be needed. The iPod should be backed up to something. Even if the setting are not backed up to a computer or icloud, it would seem for that amount of money the firm supplying the app would provide a cloud based service to make the service device independent. What if the iPod no longer had charged and you wanted to use your phone?

It still seems kind of fishy.

Re:Notice how they refused to address the issue

[techno-vampire]

What made you think that the vet got screwed over? He lost his legs and his arm, meaning that his disability is service connected and he's responsible for none of the costs related to it. I know; I have a minor service connected disability (hearing loss caused by being around too much outbound shore bombardment back in '72) and all of my hearing aids, batteries, repair and replacement are done at no charge.