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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Epson is facing a class-action suit from disgruntled US punters sick of being told what sort of ink cartridges to put in their machines.
Of course it is a cliché of printers that they send dismal warnings of imminent destruction if owners dare to go with cartridges bought from anywhere but the machine's manufacturer.
But the US case (PDF here) alleges that Epson went further with firmware updates that detected third-party ink in printers and simply disabled them. The suit claims the unofficial cartridges work perfectly well in machines that have not been updated.
It complains that Epson never warned users that installing the firmware would remove their ability to use third-party cartridges.
The case names complainants who own Epson WorkForce WF-3640 All-in-One Printer or an Epson XP-830 Small-in-One® printer.
[...] Epson refused to comment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:07PM (7 children)
Lexmark are the ones that came up with this scam and actually tried to make third party cartridges illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc. [wikipedia.org] This is equivalent to car manufacturers requiring you to use their brand of gasoline, and should be smacked down just as hard.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by legont on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:49PM (5 children)
coming to an electric fuel station near you...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:50PM (3 children)
This does scare me. Is there a standard in place or being planned to ensure all cars can charge at all chargers? If not, it will such when electric really starts to replace gas.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday October 24 2019, @09:15PM (2 children)
It looks like there is some kind of standard that combines all the plugs together into a couple of standards. (Depending if AC charging is supported, I guess.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System [wikipedia.org]
It says even Tesla is on board with this. But I would be surprised if you could charge a non-Tesla car at a Tesla charging station even if the plugs are the same.
While I doubt this prevents someone from intentionally making an incompatible plug ala-Apple, it would make cars incompatible with existing charging networks making them vastly less attractive.
Ok, after reading this [thedriven.io], my answer is "who the fuck knows?"
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday October 25 2019, @05:18AM (1 child)
The plug issue is a very minor one. Even phones check if they are connected to a friendly charger.
On a separate but similar note, most people do not realize how difficult it is to make shit a commodity. Oil is not the same and refineries have to be built for a specific supplier. Even more so for iron and coal ores. For example, Ukraine, if separated from Russia, can't be technologically integrated into the EU. Nothing will work and they will have to eat their pride and go back begging.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday October 25 2019, @07:36AM
Ukraine can be integrated into tge EU, as several eastern bloc countries already have been, such as Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovskia, and Slovenia. It just tskes money and time. The EU is well known for providing funds for integration.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @08:00PM
Be sure to use Tesla Brand Electricity... only Telsa Brand guarantees that each electron has been individually excited by Elon!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @09:37PM
Isn't that an anti trust violation (tacking)?