California Considers ‘Right To Repair’ Law

California is to consider a law that would give customers the right to get gadgets fixed by somebody other than the manufacturer. The Right to Repair Act would mean repair guides and any proprietary tools would have to be publicly available.

While similar measures are already under consideration in 17 other states, California could be the most significant, not just because of its size but because so many tech firms are based there. That includes Apple, which has publicly criticized the concept, particularly when it comes to phones.

The California proposal is spearheaded by assembly member Susan Eggman who says that as well as boosting consumer power, the move would benefit local businesses and reduce environmental damage from people giving up on gadgets as being unaffordable to repair.

Eggman hasn’t published her proposed bill, but based on her press release it likely contains some of the key points that appear in similar bills elsewhere. This includes repair guides, tools and service parts being available both to owners and independent repair guides. Normally such bills say the manufacturer can make only a reasonable charge for supplying the materials.

Even if any state does pass such a law, it wouldn’t necessarily override terms and conditions that void a product’s warranty if they are opened up by somebody not authorized to do so by the manufacturer.


Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube in 0.38 Sec [Video]

A robot that solves a Rubik’s cube in 0.38 seconds. That’s way faster than the previous world record of 0.637 seconds, and according to the robot’s creator, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

That was a Rubik’s cube being solved in 0.38 seconds. The time is from the moment the keypress is registered on the computer, to when the last face is flipped. It includes image capture and computation time, as well as actually moving the cube. The motion time is ~335 ms, and the remaining time image acquisition and computation. For reference, the current world record is/was 0.637 seconds.

The machine can definitely go faster, but the tuning process is really time consuming since debugging needs to be done with the high speed camera, and mistakes often break the cube or blow up FETs. Looking at the high-speed video, each 90 degree move takes ~10 ms, but the machine is actually only doing a move every ~15 ms. For the time being, Jared and I have both lost interest in playing the tuning game, but we might come back to it eventually and shave off another 100 ms or so.

[Ben Katz | Via]

Apple Drops Multimedia ‘iTunes LP’ Format

Apple is to stop selling iTunes albums with added material such as liner notes and bonus tracks. It won’t add any new ‘LP’ submissions to the catalog after this month.

The name was a nod to the experience of buying physical albums in the vinyl days when artwork and sleeve notes, including lyric sheets, was part of the music shopping experience. Apple originally introduced the program to try to win over music afficianados who were wary of the idea of simply buying the music itself in an intangible format.

In an email to music producers, Apple says it will stop accepting iTunes LPs after this month. It will then remove the existing LP format albums from the catalog at some point this year. However, customers who’ve already bought such albums will still be able to redownload them (including the bonus material and multimedia files) through iTunes Match even after they’ve been removed from sale.

Some more excitable analysts believe this might be a step towards Apple ditching music sales altogether and instead switching solely to a streaming subscription service. However there’s no real indication that’s happening any time soon.

Artist Changes Old Thrift Store Paintings by Adding Geeky Characters or Objects to Them [Pics]

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Rochester, New York-based Artist Dave Pollot likes to purchase old paintings from thrift stores and then modify them by adding objects or characters from pop culture, making them much more interesting in the process. For those interested, the artist has an Etsy store where he sells his creations.

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