"This is the dystopian nightmare that we've kind of entered in":
A former jockey who was left paralyzed from the waist down after a horse riding accident was able to walk again thanks to a cutting-edge piece of robotic tech: a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton.
When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old, 404 media reports.
"After 371,091 steps my exoskeleton is being retired after 10 years of unbelievable physical therapy," Michael Straight posted on Facebook earlier this month. "The reasons why it has stopped is a pathetic excuse for a bad company to try and make more money."
According to Straight, the issue was caused by a piece of wiring that had come loose from the battery that powered a wristwatch used to control the exoskeleton. This would cost peanuts for Lifeward to fix up, but it refused to service anything more than five years old, Straight said.
[...] As this infuriating case shows, advanced medical devices can change the lives of people living with severe disabilities — but the flipside is that they also make their owners dependent on the whims of the devices' manufacturers, who often operate in ruthless self-interest.
[...] That some of these manufacturers can come and go isn't the point, though. As 404 notes, the issue is the nefarious practices that many of them use to make their devices difficult to fix without their help.
[...] "This is the dystopian nightmare that we've kind of entered in, where the manufacturer perspective on products is that their responsibility completely ends when it hands it over to a customer," Nathan Proctor, head of the right to repair project at the US Public Interest Research Group, told 404. "That's not good enough for a device like this, but it's also the same thing we see up and down with every single product."
"People need to be able to fix things, there needs to be a plan in place," he added. "A $100,000 product you can only use as long as the battery lasts, that's enraging."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday November 03 2024, @06:47AM (13 children)
who went blind a second time when the maker of his implant obsoleted his implant [theverge.com] when the company tanked.
Companies that make adaptive devices that real people rely on to lead a normal live should be required to get insured so their customers aren't left stranded.
In extreme cases like this man's implants, where a standard replacement of the hardware is impossible or very unadvisable, the company should be required to set up a skeleton crew of engineers in charge of maintaining the implantees' ability to function normally for the lifetime of the implantees, whose cost of operating is paid for in advance by the company - or again, paid for by the insurance company.
And of course, in all cases, the moment the company stops operating and leaves people who rely on their technology in a lurch, the company should be legally required to open-soruce everything so that people of good will in the open-source community can pick up the slack and create alternative solutions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Sunday November 03 2024, @10:57AM (6 children)
They can do it for military and nuclear technology. They have to be able to guarantee the availability of spare parts for at least 30 years.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday November 03 2024, @12:11PM (4 children)
There's always money for the military. Healthcare, not so much.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2024, @06:21AM
"Defending" the nation (and corporate profits) by bombing weddings and funerals thousands of miles away is a higher priority than defending the citizens from illness and poverty.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/02/19/wedding-became-funeral/us-drone-attack-marriage-procession-yemen [hrw.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airstrike [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Makin_airstrike [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 04 2024, @05:39PM
In the Star Trek TOS episode Friday's Child, I can't remember which Klingon it was, but he said: The sick should die.
Easy to say when it isn't you who are suffering.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 04 2024, @06:03PM
Only in America, land of 21st century fascism. I'd wager this would be far less of a problem in Europe, where they seem to care whether or not their citizens live and die, unlike here.
We are barbarians.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 10 2024, @03:57PM
The government spends half a billion dollars to buy a toilet for the ISS because they have exacting requirements, need it to work flawlessly because sending up a replacement is expensive, and they want to make sure they have spare parts in 15 years. It's expensive.
You ready to spend half a billion dollars of someone else's money through socialized medicine to have a stupid exosuit that lasts the rest of your life?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday November 04 2024, @05:41PM
The real fix is that if they close down or cease operations in any way, they must make all of their designs, blueprints, software, etc under an open source or creative commons type of license, whichever is appropriate.
Someone else can pick up the torch if there are no secrets about how to fix it.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday November 03 2024, @01:11PM (5 children)
Why? Do we require surgeons to put lifetime guarantees on the outcomes of their operations even after bankruptcy? I can see open sourcing the devices. I don't see the point of creating indefinite obligations for devices that don't last forever.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03 2024, @06:38PM (4 children)
If a needed medical device or implant fails prematurely? Absolutely!
This is another reason to demand universal health care so this won't be an issue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 03 2024, @11:26PM (3 children)
Assuming that universal health care would provide that. At least with present universal health care, you can pay for someone to fix these devices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2024, @02:06AM (2 children)
Without question universal health care will provide whatever 51% of the voters demand. It's not complicated.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday November 04 2024, @11:27AM (1 child)
Unless it can't because the demands are way too big. Then it gets complicated.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2024, @07:47PM
Only when you make it that way to avoid doing anything. Universal healthcare is not complicated. Civilized countries around the world are already doing it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03 2024, @08:02AM
You have the right to be totally screwed!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday November 03 2024, @11:08AM (5 children)
At least they eventually caved in and fixed the machine. Still it's kind of weird if it was just some lose wire, or bad solder joint, that made the entire machine stop -- and it was apparently obsolete or not worthy of fixing since it was old.
Not quite sure what the lesson of the story is, only get machines by companies that you hope are around forever and have good warranty? So a bit of a gamble then.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Sunday November 03 2024, @11:46AM (2 children)
This is 100% why we need right to repair and formal escrow of any proprietary information that might block that should a company EoL a product, or go bust (open source from the get-go would be better, of course, but this is the real world). It's great that Michael Straight has finally had this resolved, but that doesn't change the fact that he should never had have to deal with this problem in the first place, regardless of whether it's a $100 widget, $100k exoskeleton, or $1m+ piece of farming equipment. I'm hoping he's driven enough to realise the implications of this for others and keeps pushing - along with others that support right to repair - to get this kind of thing resolved once and for all.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday November 04 2024, @02:46AM (1 child)
As an EE, and maybe much more a hands-on fixer of things, I quite agree.
But, there's another angle to consider: good old liability. There are tons of things I'd like to get involved in fixing, but we live in a very litigious society, with tons of (too many) lawyers looking to make a case of anything.
As much as I'd like there to be a solid ironclad liability waiver, it's even worse if an incompetent repairer makes things worse, harms, or even kills someone.
Here's a thought: at my current job, where we make some pretty important stuff, along the way we have several inspections of work being done. In the case of repairing medical equipment, for example, or anything else that might affect human safety, I'll strongly advocate for fully open specs, schematics, software, repair information, but I'd want several top techs / engineers to collaborate and only proceed with actions if there's unanimous agreement.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday November 04 2024, @04:28PM
For some devices a lot of that could be fixed just by open sourcing the specs, which would likely result in any mods being made under whichever one of the standard FLOSS type licenses had been used and the typical disclaimers they include. For things like the exoskeleton in TFS, or more expensive stuff like the farm machinery example I gave, you're definitely going to want something more robust like vendor certification or some other proof of competency. Like most engineering projects, an EE project would likely include some measure of peer review of designs and completed work, plus final sign-off, so a similar framework could probably also be applied if there were a few volunteers working on it, rather than some one man band.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Monday November 04 2024, @02:57AM (1 child)
Please, please, don't take this in any way as an attack, insult, etc., on you.
I know that's a (too) common attitude, but I don't get it. And it seems to be getting worse and worse. Long ago people fixed things. Nowadays most people I encounter don't even consider fixing things- they toss them. They think new things are better.
I observe that older things were generally made better and last longer. Newer things often have more features, but always remember: industry is constantly finding ways of cheapening things. Cheapened usually means shorter lifetime. That and newer usually means more complicated and more expensive to repair, certainly true with cars and many appliances.
I admit that sometimes a thing has so many problems it might not be worth fixing. My current car would be such a thing. I call it my "rescue car". I bought it knowing it was in salvage and had problems, but I refuse to let a mechanical thing get the best of me, so I kept at it and fixed dozens of things and now it's a really great and fun car.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday November 04 2024, @06:14PM
Long ago people fixed things. Nowadays most people I encounter don't even consider fixing things- they toss them. They think new things are better.
When I was a poor young man in the 1970s and '80s I fixed my own cars. Twenty minutes to change a water pump in my '74 Le Mans, ten to change the thermostat. It took a trained mechanic forty five minutes to change the battery in the '02 Concorde I used to have, and I couldn't hazard a guess where its thermostat was.
Things today are being engineered to fail and if possible, to brick while failing and to be extremely difficult to impossible to repair, and do so purposely. Corporations all seem to be run by some evil genius from a horror movie these days.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Sunday November 03 2024, @09:44PM (6 children)
Of course, no one held a gun to his head and forced him to buy the product. He did so of his own free will.
I will say this, when you spend a hundred grand, it's probably a good idea to read and understand the EULA.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday November 03 2024, @10:09PM (1 child)
Is that "Caveat Emptor" or "There's a sucker born every minute"?
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Sunday November 03 2024, @11:29PM
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2024, @06:25AM
Any suggestions on which one he should have gone with?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday November 04 2024, @06:17PM (2 children)
You get the "Cruelest S/Ner of the Year" award for that unfeeling, heartless comment. It's even beneath a downmod.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday November 04 2024, @07:44PM (1 child)
Why thank you. I'd like to thank all the people I've shit on over the years for this incredible honor.
If there weren't a steady stream of stories on here about how "evil" "greedy" corporations are supposedly responsible for saving their stupid customers from themselves, I wouldn't have to keep pointing out it simply is not the case, legally morally or for any other reason you can pull out of your ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2024, @02:19PM
Heh, I bet you feel great that we can't outnumber you at the polls. You're in good company with all the other heartless bastards in this country
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday November 04 2024, @12:23AM (5 children)
This story of the powered exoskeleton being downed by one tiny little problem feels familiar.
Last week, my washing machine suffered a malfunction. It will no longer do the fast spins to remove the water. Everything else still seems to work, but now the clothes come out soaking wet. It is only 4 years old, and has the usual limited warranty that is so limited it is worthless. 10 year limited warranty that covers only the motor.
I put in a service call. Was $115 just for someone to come out. Diagnosis: Needs a new main control board, for $350, and a new inverter, for another $100, and labor will be an additional $200. That's the cost of a new machine. I am wondering if their diagnostics are programmed to lie, to drive up the price of repair. The whole thing stinks. You might also think that failure to spin is indeed a problem with the motor that is covered by a warranty on the motor. Nope, not when they get to define it! Wish I'd never spent that $115.
I am thinking what to do next. Disassemble the washing machine myself, in hopes of spotting something that is easily fixed, such as a loose or broken electrical connection? But I don't have lots of time for such things. Nor space, nor a whole lot of tools. Hunt around for a better repair deal? I did a little of that, and it doesn't look promising. Everyone wants a minimum of $100 just to diagnose. Or do I cave in to the consumerism, and pony up for a new washing machine? I can just see the scumbag appliance dealer, after charging me $50 to take away the old machine, fixing it themselves for pennies, and turning around and selling it as a refurb. It also occurs to me that I could make noise, even go as far as suing the manufacturer. But that seems disproportionate and risky. Maybe I can make trouble for them with bad reviews, and complaints to the BBB and various federal and state agencies.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2024, @01:25AM (1 child)
One alternative -- just visited a friend I hadn't seen since well before Covid. Noticed that in his garage was an old top loader washing machine and commented that I have one too--it's reparable. His reply was that this was a replacement for a couple of new machines that failed similar to yours, shortly after the limited warranty. A service tech suggested that he visit a local store (Orange County, south of Los Angeles) that refurbishes and sells old appliances (pre micro controllers).
He's had no problems with this one for several years now, but (like my older machine) the parts are available (timers, pumps, motors, etc) and there are plenty of YT videos on how to swap in the parts.
Forgot what brand he had, but I have a roughly 20 year old Sears-Kenmore (by Whirlpool). Just make sure that the original tag with model number is readable--that's the key into the parts database!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Monday November 04 2024, @03:23AM
Or why I paid an old retired repair guy $120 to come fix my 25 year old Whirlpool. Because it's all mechanical, does exactly what I require, and the only real way to replace it would be to root up another old washer off Craigslist.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Monday November 04 2024, @03:28AM (2 children)
The problem is that there is always condensation inside a washing machine, just the nature of the beast. And over time that condensation destroys the electronics (or why those fancy controls on newer washers are a very bad idea). From what I hear the typical lifespan is about 5 years. Which at the cost of a new one nowadays is ridiculous.
Or why I will keep repairing the 25 year old 100% mechanical Whirlpool until it can no longer stagger out the gate, and then I'll use the backup washer that is probably 10 years older (but cost me nothing) until one or the other of us dies of old age. One $120 repair in 25 years is a helluva lot better than your sad scenario. Sorry it bit you like that.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2024, @02:50AM (1 child)
> there is always condensation inside a washing machine
This might be the best argument for top loading washers. We leave the top open when not in use and the water vapor rises out--to be condensed and sent down the drain by the nearby dehumidifier. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor [wikipedia.org]
At the same time, a good argument against front loaders -- any vapor in the drum above the top of the door (open, I hope) can't easily get out. My parents had two front loaders, both stunk of mold after a year or less, no amount of bleach or other remedies made any lasting difference.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday November 06 2024, @12:14AM
The old front loaders must have been vented better. We had one back in the mists of time (1964) and it not only got clothes cleaner than any toploader of the era, it never stank. Same with commercial front-load washers. Conversely some top-loaders never entirely drained... when our old Maytag (of 1960s vintage and at least 3 owners) finally went nonfunctional at age 40-something, discovered upon dysmangling it so I could scrap it that it had a permanent puddle in there. And a large lump of concrete as a spin counterweight. (Well, no wonder it's so freakin' heavy... and wants to hop across the floor....)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.