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WSJ: We Need the Right To Repair Our Gadgets
An anonymous reader writes: An editorial in the Wall Street Journal rings a bell we've been ringing for years: "Who owns the knowledge required to take apart and repair TVs, phones and other electronics? Manufacturers stop us by controlling repair plans and limiting access to parts. Some even employ digital software locks to keep us from making changes or repairs. This may not always be planned obsolescence, but it's certainly intentional obfuscation." The article shows that awareness of this consumer-hostile behavior (and frustration with it) is going mainstream. The author links to several DIY repair sites like iFixit, and concludes, "Repairing stuff isn't as complicated as they want you to think. Skilled gadget owners and independent repair pros deserve access to the information they need to do the best job they can."
A good example is removable batteries in mobile phones. I was shopping around a few days ago and the only major Smartphones that still have removable batteries are the LG G3/G4, Samsung S5 (not the S6), and I think the Moto X. Everyone else has jumped on the Apple ship and denied you access to the smartphone battery, preventing a hard reset.
Stop copying Apple, you lemmings!!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
The FCC is currently trying to end 3rd-party wifi router firmware (think Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc.), by requiring manufacturers to build devices that only accept firmware updates signed with the manufacturer's keys.
This means you'll only be able to install software the manufacturer has certified comes with their own bugs, embedded backdoors and security #fails, rather than be able to put something better on your hardware.
It also may mean that router manufacturers will be required to place NSA backdoors in the firmware and be unable to tell consumers about them due to National Security Letters.
The WSJ is right: We Need The Right To Repair Our Gadgets.
Blame people using frequencies and EIRP they're not supposed to and interference generated as a result. That's the downside to the software defined radio approach; the software needs to be locked to maintain compliance with FCC regulations.
Has nothing to do with networking or repair.
You can always get a router that takes a FCC-approved wireless card and route to your heart's content.
..don't panic
Cars have become much harder to work on over the last 2 decades. At first, before that, during the muscle car era, things were simpler and there was a lot more room under the hood to work and see. Then things became compact, lighter, more efficient (and complex). Makes sense. Got a little harder to work on, and definitely harder to learn, but we got really efficient cars. But recently, with the increased electronification of cars, the automakers have been fighting in court to prevent reverse engineering their software. The thing is, what is done by software is a list that gets bigger all the time. So, yes, people who work on cars a lot have been feeling the lack of love for a while. A lot of these cars that are coming out now will have a lot of broken gadgets and other irreparable systems possibly leading to an early trip to the metal scrappers. The auto makers want you to buy new, the aging American fleet concerns them for obvious reasons.
manufacturers intentionally making it harder to work on them. Any car is modular - you have individual components that make a whole, and there is no reason why any of these components couldn't be taken out and replaced. .
you really don't know the first thing about mechanical engineering. Shafts that rotate at high speed, like turbocharger shafts and drive axles, cannot be manufactured economically with the tolerances required for interchangability. These parts must be carefully matched to each other in order to avoid vibration and early failure.
Most of that is scare tactics. Most cars are basically the same with varying build quality and materials. There is nothing mechanically special with a Saab when compared to any other gasoline powered FWD vechicle. Granted there may be some differences like with BMW and their current double VANOS system but even that isn't all that special just a neat way of doing variable valve timing and valve lift. Of course an unbalanced half shaft is going to cause problems and there are shops that can check and fix that that aren't Saab. Also all brake systems are high pressure and are really easy to work on. Since most vehicles don't use drum brakes anymore it is so much easier to do. The hardest set of disk brakes I have ever done were the ones on my old Bronco II and that was only because there were 2 pins that you have to pound out that held the caliper in place. The most difficult repair I ever did to a vehicle was replacing the valley pan on my previous car and I decided that since I was in there any way I would also to valve cover gaskets, and the CCV as well. It took about 8 hours but I didn't have any problems. After that the next worst repair was replacing the blower motor in that E39 BMW and that was mostly because physically getting the dash in and out of the car was a real bitch.
Time to offend someone