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Documents obtained by Motherboard: "No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale."
Apple released its Environmental Responsibility Report Wednesday, an annual grandstanding effort that the company uses to position itself as a progressive, environmentally friendly company. Behind the scenes, though, the company undermines attempts to prolong the lifespan of its products.
Apple's new moonshot plan is to make iPhones and computers entirely out of recycled materials by putting pressure on the recycling industry to innovate. But documents obtained by Motherboard using Freedom of Information requests show that Apple's current practices prevent recyclers from doing the most environmentally friendly thing they could do: Salvage phones and computers from the scrap heap.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday April 24 2017, @08:50AM
Quite right. If I am lucky, at least I kinds "set the standard" for the interface design.
I have come to the conclusion a long time ago there was no way for me to build stuff in quantity profitably.
But I can build really neat stuff. My plan so far is I have been working on a specialized Arduino-like configuration built on the Arduino system. With it, I can build all sorts of simple controllers. Interface boards are the main thing with me. And they all have to play together like tinker-toys.
Currently, I am building a demo set which will use the diesel van I just bought. It needs its systems upgraded to this century. I need one of these, so by golly, this is what I had trained years in aerospace to do. Do it!
As I type this, I am designing the SMPS power supply for it to isolate the system power from vehicle power, as vehicle power can be really nasty with voltage spikes resulting from inductive things like air-conditioning clutches, starter motors, and alternator load-dumps. Under no circumstances should those spikes be able to make it across to the system's power rails. Or should any failure of the power supply components result in vehicle power going directly to the system.
Other boards control relays and solenoids. While yet other boards read sensors and current monitors. If I command a solenoid on the transmission to engage, I want a current sensor acknowledging the expected current draw, as erroneously engaging solenoids on a live transmission in a moving vehicle can have disastrous results.
When I finish the designs, I will release the whole thing open source. Probably first through GitHub, FarmHack, and the Diesel truck forums.
This can only appeal to Arduino buffs or similar though, as one MUST have a firm hold on microcontroller programming techniques to use it, though. If you want the thing running for your machine out of the box, best buy a MegaSquirt or Baumann engineering box. I am not in that business.
What I am designing is the hardware that should be flexible enough to drive darned near anything. Its up to the user to know how to program it.
If anyone out of China wants to replicate this, I would appreciate it if we worked together so as to avoid putting erroneous crap out there and ruining my design concepts.
I have placed a helluva lotta thought effort in the fundamental architecture of the interface communication methods, so I don't run out of I/O.
But yet keeping it all extremely simple.
Like music artists, I may never see a cent of "record sales". That's just the way it is. I can't own a fire. No one can. If its good, I am quite sure the Chinese will replicate it, just as good music gets uploaded to YouTube.
Trying to chase down copyright violation is probably about as productive as trying to own a gust of wind.
I hope to make any money by custom work, custom designs, or teaching.
I believe a fellow Soylentil here, mcgrew, has a very similar approach.
This is something I am going to do, whether I get paid or not.
The main reason I am not doing this for someone else as an employee is I am an old fart and not all that good at ass-kissing and office politics required to maintain corporate employment. If I am going to work in a company, I need to work for the top guy, not his pretty-boy suit-guy who is afraid I am after his job.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]