This week on Cool Tools' Maker Update: Kitty Grabs Gold, a beer cooler that follows you, the Circuit Playground Express, Adafruit and Microsoft, Other Machine Co. and Bre Pettis, Tinkercad Lego export, a great kit for gadget and toy hacking, and Maker Faires. — Read the rest
It's not your imagination: Sony's Playstation 4 really is unusually vulnerable to cockroach infestation. The reasons why remind me of airline disasters: a combination of several individually-trivial mistakes that combine to form something awful. But the results are so gross Sony won't repair PS4s with roaches in them, writes Kotaku's Cecilia D'Anastasio, sending mystified owners into the arms of disgusted local repair shops. — Read the rest
Louis Rossmann is an independent service technician in New York City who has repaired Apple products for years.
As mobile tech has shrank considerably in recent years, it's also become much harder to repair. Moreover, computer equipment manufacturers are constantly pushing against legislation that gives consumers the right to fix their own devices. Instead of submitting to the endless cycle of regular device upgrades and relying on expensive repair services after shattering your phone screen, you could just fix your own stuff. — Read the rest
Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it both a crime and a civil offense to tamper with software locks that control access to copyrighted works — more commonly known as "Digital Rights Management" or DRM. As the number of products with software in them has exploded, the manufacturers of these products have figured out that they can force their customers to use their own property in ways that benefit the company's shareholders, not the products' owners — all they have to do is design those products so that using them in other ways requires breaking some DRM.
The tamper-evident "Warrant Void If Removed" stickers violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, which allows device owners to take their gadgets for service at independent depots without voiding their warranties.
New York is one of four states considering legislation that would guarantee your right to get your stuff fixed by independent repair centers, curbing manufacturers' attempts to limit access to technical documentation and parts, meaning you pay less to keep your stuff working, and that means that your gadgets don't become immortal, toxic e-waste.
iFixit is the gold standard, with vast numbers of how-to guides on taking apart the stuff you only think you own. Take it Apart is a new challenger encouraging you to "void your warranty." It's not just cellphones and laptops, either, but oddities such as credit card swipe machines and greasy old drills. — Read the rest
Amazon's Kindle devices run a custom version of Android that, until today, supported full-disk encryption. Now they don't.
What's your ultimate adventure? Bungee jumping in New Zealand? Learning Spanish with Costa Rican locals? Bottling vino in Tuscany? We want to take you on a trip of epic proportions—and handle the bill.
But that's not all…win a rare Q&A session with star of The Tim Ferriss Experiment, and author of #1 New York Times Best Seller The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss himself. — Read the rest
Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans jailbreaking devices, even for lawful purposes — meaning that you can't jailbreak your tractor in order to take it to the service-center of your choosing or fix it yourself.
Ifixit's Kyle Wiens writes about the state of modern farm equipment, "black boxes outfitted with harvesting blades," whose diagnostic modes are jealously guarded, legally protected trade secrets, meaning that the baling-wire spirit of the American farm has been made subservient to the needs of multinational companies' greedy desire to control the repair and parts markets.
iFixit rips one to shreds and sacrifices the innards to technosatan. Surface Pro 3 scored 1/10 for user serviceability.
More than 25 tech companies — including Happy Mutants, LLC, Boing Boing's parent company — have signed onto a letter asking Senator Ron Wyden (chairman of the Senate Finance Committee) to oppose "Fast Track" for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a secretly negotiated trade agreement that allows for big corporations to trump national law, suing governments that pass regulations that limit their profits; it contains a notoriously harsh chapter on Internet regulation that will allow entertainment companies unprecedented power to surveil, censor, and control the Internet. — Read the rest
Thinkgeek have teamed up with Ifixit to create a Game Console & Electronics Refurbishing Kit, with all the tools you need to crack the case on most games consoles, phones and other gadgets. The 3.5lb box also includes a bunch of cleaning stuff for removing scuffs and marks, to spruce up your old gear to look like the day you unboxed it.
iFixit bought one of Apple's tiny but powerful new desktops, then took it apart.
— Read the restFor being so compact, the design is surprisingly modular and easy to disassemble. Non-proprietary Torx screws are used throughout, and several components can be replaced independently.
Elizabeth Stark writes, "We're pleased to announce the Device Freedom Prize: a crowdfunded reward for the first developer(s) who release an open source iOS 7 jailbreak. Providing users the ability to control their devices is crucial in an age where we're increasingly dependent on our mobile phones. — Read the rest
