Fight to Repair Daily: Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Apple Watch Ultra: rugged...and repairable? Fight to Repair goes to FixFest 2022. Also: Car Talk host calls for auto right to repair in WAPO editorial.

Teardown: Apple Watch Ultra: Beautiful, Rugged, and…Repairable?

While Apple made a big deal of features like a long-awaited Action Button, massive screen, and dive computer capabilities, it once again buried what may be the biggest leap in the Watch’s design. Just as it neglected to mention with its radically rebuilt iPhone 14, Apple has made a potentially giant step towards making the Watch more repairable.

It got less than a second of screen time in an hour-and-a-half presentation, but we caught it: a glimpse of an external screw on an Apple Watch. The staging was dimly lit, the shot was accompanied by lightning flashes (subliminal messaging?), and worst of all, the screw that peeped out was our nemesis, the dreaded pentalobe. But still—we never thought we’d see the day when we’d spot an exposed screw on an Apple wearable. (iFixit.com)

Fight to Repair goes to FixFest 2022!

Fight to Repair will be attending FixFest 2022 in Brussels, Belgium this weekend. Organized by the amazing Restart Project, FixFest is a two (ish) day conference that brings together some of the top minds (and voices) in the global fight for the right to repair. On Sunday at 10 AM, I will be speaking on the subject of cybersecurity andpair as part of one of the Un-Conference talks at FixFest. My talk is entitled “Botnets of Bulls**t: Repair, The Internet of Things And The Lies Manufacturers Tell Us." In it, I unpack the dire state of connected device (in)security that has led to the creation of global “botnets” of connected devices. I use that to contrast with the many untruths that electronics manufacturers and industry groups make about the security of the stuff they sell as they lobby against right to repair laws. (The Restart Project)

Gay Gordon-Byrne on Protecting the Right to Repair

Recently, The U.S. House Committee on Small Business held a hearing on the Right to Repair and what it signifies for business owners. Gay Gordon-Byrne, the Executive Director of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, testified at that hearing. (Smallbiztrends.com)

‘Car Talk’ host: Independent auto shops deserve the right to repair your car

As a radio host who has advised thousands on their car problems and as an independent shop owner myself, I know all too well that car owners benefit when they have more choices. Congress is considering a national “right-to-repair” law, and lawmakers need to pass it to protect your rights as a consumer.

Back in the old days, when people were still switching over from traveling by mastodon, you repaired cars with your eyes, ears, nose and hands — and, if you were desperate, a Chilton repair manual. Now, you often repair a car by first plugging a computer into the on-board-diagnostics port and seeing what the computer tells you is broken.

So, what’s the problem? Carmakers and their dealerships want to maintain control of modern diagnostic tools, which forces customers to come to them for repairs. Even though independents are willing to pay to license these tools, dealers see an advantage in exclusivity. (Washington Post)

NHTSA looking into Tesla adding crash test code to vehicle software

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is looking into recent reports that Tesla has added special codes in its vehicle software related to crash testing with auto safety agencies.

The agency is aware of the reports, and is currently discussing the topic with the manufacturer and reviewing all pertinent information, a NHTSA spokesperson told Repairer Driven News.

Speculation about the codes was triggered earlier this month when a Tesla software decoder named green (@atgreentheonly) tweeted, “Tesla just added ANCAP support in their code. This is in addition to already existing ‘I VISTA’ (Chinese testing grounds), EuroNCAP and Korea NCAP”. The coding is related to advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features, green said. (Repairer Driven News)

Maintaining monopolies in the cloud

The Coalition For Fair Software Licensing is a group of businesses that have banded together to resist some of the most worst cloud-based abuses. Their main targets are companies like Oracle and Microsoft who sell software, software as a service, and cloud hosting, and use these three prongs to entrap and gouge their customers.

Writing for Bloomberg, Brody Ford gives a high-level view of the scam: whereby integrated monopolists charge extra to run their rivals' software on their cloud systems, or block them altogether. That makes it hard – or impossible – to shop around for cloud services.

The group itself lists nine demands for "cloud fairness," ranging from no-brainers ("Licensing terms should be clear and intelligible") to absolute yikes!es like "Freedom from retaliation for cloud choices" (involving "intrusive software audits" and "higher software licensing fees"). (Pluralistic.net)

October 15th is Repair Day - Get Involved!

This year for the sixth annual Repair Day, we want to show the world that you can find Repair Everywhere. We want to make repair so visible that it will become everyone’s first port of call when something breaks. We’re asking novices to try out new fixing or maintenance techniques, fixers will showcase their favorite repairs, and we’ll celebrate the brilliant community repair groups and businesses that are at the heart of our movement. And we want everyone to share their fixes on social media so that as we approach 15th October, repair really will be everywhere.

Get involved! Try a bit of maintenance or fixing, and share what you did. Don’t forget to use the tags #RepairEverywhere and #RepairDay so we can share your stories. (The Restart Project)