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Comment Re:Well done, W3C (Score 1) 10

by ciaran_o_riordan (#63255991) Attached to: W3C Re-launched as a Public-Interest Non-Profit Organization

I'm obfuscating nothing. Here's a brief to the European Commission with my name on it:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/...

Medical data is covered in the GDPR, cloud stuff is in the DMA, the Data Act, and hardware stuff in the Directive on Defective Product Liability. Those are all ongoing if you'd like to get involved.

There might be some things that aren't covered and maybe a CRA is necessary, but the current proposed text says you cannot publish or import software unless it follows the requirements of the CRA. So, people in the EU will be hesitant to publish software and software from outside the EU that didn't follow the CRA during the design phase will not be available to people in the EU.

Even security patches. If there software being used in the EU and it has a vulnerability, and if someone outside the EU produces a patch or an updated version of the software, then this fix will not be available to people in the EU if the author did not provide all the documentation required by the CRA! People in the EU will be stuck using known-vulnerable software because of the CRA!

Comment Well done, W3C (Score 1, Interesting) 10

by ciaran_o_riordan (#63254159) Attached to: W3C Re-launched as a Public-Interest Non-Profit Organization

The W3C has indeed done fantastic work. With the new status, will they be more involved in policy work?

The EU is working on a new regulation on standard-essential patents. The legislative procedure is advancing on the Cyber Resilience Act, which makes it difficult to publish software (and serving a webpage with javascript seems to fit into that). And there's the issue of DRM (which shouldn't have been given support in the W3C standards, but what's done is done, let's look for how to improve the situation).

If W3C will be more active in policy, I'll be looking forward to working with them!

Comment There's also non-tech, or a lighter list (Score 1) 16

Remember, FSF isn't telling you to buy these things, it's just a guide for *if* you insist on buying tech. You can always get people socks or a jumper.

FSF's guide is also for people who put a lot of value on freedom. And I hope a lot of people do. But if you want to make a small effort, another interesting list is Mozilla's "Privacy Not Included":

https://foundation.mozilla.org...

Submission + - Manufacturer uses DRM to Brick Vehicles 3

Submitted by goto11
goto11 writes: We're all familiar with companies like Tesla and John Deere that want to control the repair market for their products. What if a company took it one step further, beyond simply refusing to sell parts or support third-party repair, and made it impossible to even use spare parts from one used vehicle to repair another? Well, it's happened. San Jose, California-based company Future Motion sells a line of high-end personal electric vehicles (PEVs), used by many for commuting to and from work, in addition to recreation, and is doing everything they can to prevent third-party repair. These are not cheap throw-away toys, but sophisticated, durable PEVs costing thousands of dollars, capable of long range and high speed, with many of the older models still getting used daily, some with over 20,000 miles on the odometers and at least one that has nearly 34,000 miles on it, according to the online leaderboards that track recorded Onewheel mileage.

Future Motion just discontinued their older flagship model, the Onewheel XR, whose more recent firmware versions had made many people upset due to electronic countermeasures put in place to prevent battery upgrades that were once possible on previous models and firmware versions. A small company called JW Batteries reverse-engineered the battery communications system to develop a chip that restores the ability to upgrade the battery, and they are being sued by Future Motion for this legal act. Right to Repair advocate Louis Rossman has posted several videos on the matter from a repair service provider and consumer advocacy perspective (here's the latest from Louis Rossman: https://youtu.be/T5b3fHL6ko0). Attorney Leonard French analyzes the frivolous Future Motion lawsuit against JW Batteries from a legal perspective, but both miss some important points that I'll spell out below (Leonard French's video can be found here: https://youtu.be/PcHLCxmSvBQ).

Self-balancing vehicle technology, first brought to market by the Segway in 2001, has been around for a long time, and Future Motion wasn't the first to build a self-balancing skateboard, but they were the first to patent some novel aspects and the first to market a workable product in 2014. Due to Future Motion’s patents, no one else can sell a competing self-balancing skateboard, but there is a thriving DIY and aftermarket upgrade community because the technology is fairly basic by today’s standards. As a mechanical engineer, I am all for the appropriate use of patents, but it appears that Future Motion is engaging in anticompetitive practices and operating beyond their legal rights as a patent holder.

The more you unpack the short-sighted lengths to which Future Motion has gone to control the market, the worse the situation gets and the implications to the greater Right to Repair movement are the major concern. Like the auto manufacturers tried in the early days before courts guaranteed consumers the right to get their vehicle serviced wherever they wished, Future Motion claims their desire to control repairs is all about safety. As with the auto manufacturers, there is little to no evidence to support this safety claim and, were there valid evidence, the liability would not fall on Future Motion, so the courts have ruled that safety is not a valid concern for manufacturers to interfere with consumer rights to repair their products.

As with other manufacturers who have tried this before, the evidence indicates that Future Motion is motivated to kill off the DIY and third-party repair community in order to corner the market on profitable repair services and to drive sales of their newer models, while the older models end up in the landfill.
I'm sure this sounds familiar to anyone who owns a high-tech gadget, but Onewheels are relatively low-tech, really more vehicle than gadget, and even the very first model released in 2014 is still a great vehicle for getting around on. We know that old vehicles, especially electric ones, have a huge environmental cost when they are tossed into the landfill instead of being repaired or used for parts. While we can't expect a manufacturer to make replacement parts and perform repairs on older models forever, we can at least expect that they won't actively install countermeasures to prevent others from making repairs.

The real fear is that, if Future Motion is not stopped, more and more manufacturers will install electronic countermeasures to make unauthorized repair impossible, and the environmental impact of doing so would be even worse than that of today’s disposable consumer product market, where devices are merely made difficult to repair, but not impossible.

What do Future Motion’s countermeasures look like, and why are people still buying their products? That will be addressed below, after a brief synopsis of where the Onewheel market stands now, so the impacts of the countermeasures can be better understood. We don't know exactly how many Oneweheels have been sold since 2014, but there are enough of them out there to foster a fairly robust aftermarket repair industry, despite Future Motion's previous efforts to stop them. For reference, one of many online groups centered around Onewheels has nearly 45,000 members, and Future Motion’s latest tactics have been causing quite a lot of angry posts to the effect of, “We love the product, but hate the company.” The hashtag #FFM (F**k Future Motion) is widely used in the Onewheel community.

Many people preordered the newest Onewheel GT model back in October of 2021 for its greater range and power, not knowing anything about the new electronic countermeasures that would be put in place. Many delays later, the GTs started shipping in March of 2022, plagued by safety and reliability issues as they arrive in the hands of consumers. A reasonable estimate is that one quarter of all new GT boards have serious safety and functionality issues covered under warranty, and there is only a single repair center on the entire planet. New models often have issues, so we can all endure that, but the greater concern is long-term sustainability when there's only a single overwhelmed repair center, they already refuse to repair older models, only honor the warranty to the original owner, and refuse to repair Onewheels that have been modified by a third party.

The single worldwide repair location is even more problematic for people overseas with older, out-of-warranty vehicles, because shipping back to Future Motion for repair costs them hundreds of dollars in shipping, plus $600 or more for the repair itself, essentially leaving their vehicles totaled. Due to this single worldwide repair center approach, the Onewheel often costs more to repair than the vehicle is worth, sometimes just due to a simple cable coming loose inside, which is an easy repair for some, but not even a consideration for most consumers. The single repair center isn’t the big issue, though, only context.

The original battery replacement/upgrade countermeasure that was circumvented by JW Batteries with a $50 chip was only the tip of the iceberg. Now that the new GT model is in the hands of consumers, we have discovered that they have taken the electronic countermeasures to a whole new level. In the GT, the act of simply unplugging the battery and plugging the same battery back in, now leads to a bogus "corrupted memory" error that requires the entire 35 pound board, classified as dangerous materials due to the “non-user-serviceable” lithium battery, to be shipped at great expense back to Future Motion to reset what is just an artificial firmware countermeasure (previous models had no issues with the battery being unplugged).

The countermeasures get worse still. All of the major components, such as the motor controller and power management unit, are now digitally paired to each other in the new Onewheels, so repairs can no longer be made outside the single worldwide repair center. The aftermarket repair industry has always relied on spare parts from broken vehicles to repair new ones, much like third-party Tesla repairs.

It’s not ideal, but totally within Future Motion’s rights to refuse to sell repair parts. However, this practice combined with the newer, more egregious electronic countermeasures seems intended to kill the blossoming aftermarket repair industry and render these very durable PEVs as doorstops, forcing consumers to buy new ones instead of repairing old ones.

To better understand the potential longevity of these devices that is being intentionally curtailed through the implementation of electronic countermeasures, many Onewheels have tens of thousands of miles on them. Like old cars, people can readily replace bearings, tires, batteries and other wear items on older models to keep them going indefinitely, but when it comes to major components like controllers and PMUs, those must be sourced from used parts. New Oneweheels can cost over $2,700 with accessories, and used ones still sell easily for $1,500. Future Motion already refuses to repair its older models, which can fortunately be repaired with spare parts, but Future Motion will eventually refuse to repair its newer models, which cannot be repaired by anyone other than them, so all of those newer models will end up in the landfill, unless Future Motion is compelled to disable its electronic countermeasures.

Is that bad enough yet? It gets worse still. Not only does Future Motion prevent replacement of an electronic part that's guaranteed to wear out like a battery, but they require the board to be shipped back to them for tire replacements when those wear out as well. They won't just ship you a new tire, even if you live in Australia. The aftermarket community long ago figured out that Onewheels used the same size tires as many go-carts, and the market for tire replacement industry thrived, because the stock Onewheel slick tires offered from the factory weren’t great. This led to many options coming to the market like treaded tires that weren't offered by Future Motion. Onewheels were advertised for off-road use, but the only option for older models was a slick tire, and Future Motion claimed that aftermarket tire replacement would void the warranty (which isn’t legally true) or they would refuse to perform out of warranty repairs on vehicles with aftermarket tires.

Future Motion’s GT product launch in October announced that treaded tires would now be available straight from the factory... with a catch. The GT now has a new rim size, purportedly needed for greater heat dissipation to deal with more power coming from a bigger battery. So now, no one makes a tire that fits that rim except Future Motion. It’s unfortunate that they now destroyed the aftermarket tire industry, but someone will start making that new tire size, and it was necessary to change the rim for engineering reasons, right? Wrong.

As it turns out, the newer GT models are reportedly overheating and shutting down even more than the older models, when ridden side-by-side, and the data suggests that the new proprietary rim size is either to blame or simply has no effect on heat dissipation.

On top of this, the widely-held opinion is that the newer tire size just doesn't ride as well as the older size that had a ton of different options for varying rider preferences. The motor is inside the rim, and industrious users have discovered that the stator inside the old rim is the same size as the stator in the new rim, so they are cannibalizing the rims from older boards to put them on the new GT model to get the tire options they were once accustomed to. The problem with doing this is that Future Motion has a long history of refusing to repair boards with third-party upgrades, whether the repair is covered under warranty or not. So far, the few cases in which the old rim has been retrofitted to the new vehicle have not resulted in the motor overheating and shutting off. Further field data may prove conclusively that the change in rim size was purely to control the market.

“Your tire’s worn out? Yeah, we don’t repair those anymore, but we’d be happy to sell you a new Onewheel.”

How does Future Motion stay in business when they are so consumer-hostile? Onewheel owners would say it’s because they make a desirable product that you can’t get anywhere else. Owners would also say it’s a lifestyle product with a great community of people who love riding and customizing their PEVs. There are lots of PEVs out there, but the Onewheel offers a unique experience, and Future Motion knows this. What Future Motion doesn’t seem to understand is that the aftermarket upgrade community they are trying to kill off makes their brand more desirable, and that hurting that community hurts them even more.

Those who pay attention to the tech industry have seen this type of thing happen with companies like Apple and, although they still have their “walled garden,” they at least allow third parties into that garden now, because those partnerships make their brand stronger. The greater concern with these business practices has to do with durable goods like tractors and cars, as they get more widely integrated with components that make it easy to block third-party repair. So, while the Onewheel isn't something that most people need or want in their lives, the implications in the greater Right to Repair movement are pretty awful. If manufacturers like Tesla start bricking vehicles when spare parts from another vehicle or manufacturer are installed, or refuse to service vehicles with non-factory rims installed, then we're all in trouble.

Comment Yes, but also yes (Score 5, Interesting) 149

by aj50 (#62075399) Attached to: Facebook Exec Blames Society for COVID Misinformation

Sure, I can buy that misinformation is a societal problem. People like to repeat what they want to believe.

However, social networks would appear to have massively magnified the problem. Firstly by optimising for engagement which leads to promoting controversial content and secondly by normalising the "sharing" of a post to broadcast it to all of your contacts.

Submission + - Valve Opens Up a Steam Deck To Explain Why It Thinks You Shouldn't (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Valve has posted an official teardown of its upcoming handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck. Before diving into the teardown, though, the company spends about a minute to strongly caution against taking one apart unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing. "Even though it’s your PC — or it will be once you’ve received your Steam Deck — and you have every right to open it up and do what you want, we at Valve really don’t recommend that you ever open it up," a Valve representative said in the video. "The Steam Deck is a very tightly designed system, and the parts are chosen carefully for this product with its specific construction, so they aren’t really designed to be user-swappable." Despite its warnings, however, the company likely understands that people are going to take the Steam Deck apart anyway, so this video could be a handy resource for people who are considering doing so.

In the video, Valve shows how to swap out two parts of the system. First, Valve shows how to replace the thumbsticks. The company cautions that they are completely custom, but says that it will offer a source for “replacement parts, thumbsticks, SSDs, and possibly more” in the coming months. After that, Valve shows how to swap out the SSD, which could be helpful for people who may have reserved the cheapest version of the device with an eMMC hard drive with the intention of upgrading it themselves. Be aware that all versions of the Steam Deck use an m.2 connector, including the version with the eMMC drive, so if you plan to make a swap, you’re going to have to reinstall the OS and bring over any games you might have had loaded on your other drive.

Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter

Submitted by CmdrTaco
CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

Submission + - Multiplayer Zork (icculus.org) 1

Submitted by netfunk
netfunk writes: I took Zork 1 and made it into a multiplayer game! You can try it yourself by telnetting to multizork.icculus.org with some friends. Telnet seemed appropriate for a game from 1980, at least until I can figure out how to efficiently send everyone a 300 baud modem. A detailed technical explanation about hacking the Z-Machine to make this work is over here and source code is, of course, available. Enjoy, and don't get eaten by a grue!

Comment Re: A common problem (Score 2) 25

by aj50 (#61063618) Attached to: Clubhouse Criticized Over User Privacy Policies

They take all your contacts, they tell everyone that you've joined and they can contact you, which is exactly what the article is complaining about.

The fact they do it in a cryptographically secure way does mean they haven't got your contact list stored on their servers for someone else to steal is good, but the shitty user experience of "hey we just messaged all your contacts for you" is still shitty.

Comment A common problem (Score 3, Insightful) 25

by aj50 (#61063500) Attached to: Clubhouse Criticized Over User Privacy Policies

They're hardly the only messaging app which is quick to advertise how seriously they take the privacy of your messages but think nothing of uploading your entire contact list to their servers and sending a push message to all of them already on the service to tell them you've joined.

Looking at you Signal and Telegram...

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