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DRM Rearing Its Ugly Head

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Hardware
  • HP Remotely Kills Perfectly Good Ink Cartridge With DRM

    Ryan Sullivan was trying to print out a tweet about peeing on toilet seats when his HP printer told him it wouldn’t happen. Sullivan’s printer had plenty of ink, but HP had remotely disabled his printer because he’d cancelled a service called Instant Ink—a monthly service charge HP levies for the pleasure of using ink cartridges in certain printers. Sullivan had a printer full of ink, but no way to print until he reactivated his subscription through HP.

  • Spectrum discontinues home security service, leaving customers with bricked equipment

    Spectrum is discontinuing its home security service on February 5th, leaving customers out hundreds of dollars for cameras and other equipment they may not be able to reuse or return.

    The company is offering existing security service customers discounts on similar services from Ring and Abode, but apparently is not planning to make its own equipment compatible with other systems or give rebates for equipment purchased.

    “A number of suppliers that provide the equipment and network service necessary for your system to function will be shutting down their networks or ceasing operations,” reads a notice on Spectrum Home Security subscribers’ portal. “We are dedicated to making this as smooth a transition as possible and have partnered with two leading home security companies, Abode and Ring, to provide exclusive offers for alternate professionally monitored services.”

  • You Don't Own What You've Bought: Under Armour Smart Hardware Gets Lobotomized

    Time and time again we've highlighted how in the modern era, you don't really own the hardware you buy. In the broadband-connected era, firmware updates can often eliminate functionality promised to you at launch, as we saw with the Sony Playstation 3. And with everything now relying on internet-connectivity, companies can often give up on supporting devices entirely, often leaving users with very expensive paperweights as we saw after Google acquired Revolv, then bricked users' $300 smart home hub.

2×63: Give You The Key

  • 2×63: Give You The Key

    There seem to have recently been various examples of companies selling a thing and then exerting control over it after they’ve sold it. Sonos speakers have “recycle mode”, HP printer cartridges in their “Instant Ink” programme stop working if you unsubscribe, and farmers buy 30-year-old tractors rather than new ones because they’re still fixable in the field. But are these actually examples of a trend for the worse, or is this not actually the problem that it’s being painted as? Is this just how capitalism works, and is this how we want it to work? We’ll dive into this, from a few different perspectives, and see where we end up…

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