Tag: ‘america’s
How Big Tech Rewrote America’s First Cell Phone Repair Law
“That New York passed any electronics right-to-repair bill is ‘huge,’ Repair.org executive director Gay Gordon-Byrne told Grist. But ‘it could have been huger’ if not for tech industry interference.”
The passage of the Digital Fair Repair Act last June reportedly caught the tech industry off guard, but it had time to act before Governor Kathy Hochul would sign it into law. Corporate lobbyists went to work, pressing for exemptions and changes that would water the bill down. They were largely successful: While the bill Hochul signed in late December remains a victory for the right-to-repair movement, the more corporate-friendly text gives consumers and independent repair shops less access to parts and tools than the original proposal called for. (The state Senate still has to vote to adopt the revised bill, but it’s widely expected to do so.)
The new version of the law applies only to devices built after mid-2023, so it won’t help people to fix stuff they currently own. It also exempts electronics used exclusively by businesses or the government. All those devices are likely to become electronic waste faster than they would have had Hochul, a Democrat, signed a tougher bill. And more greenhouse gases will be emitted manufacturing new devices to replace broken electronics….
Jessa Jones, who founded iPad Rehab, an independent repair shop in Honeoye Falls, about 20 miles south of Rochester, New York, says the original bill included provisions that would have made it far easier for independent shops like hers to get the tools, parts, and know-how needed to make repairs. She pointed to changes that allow manufacturers to release repair tools that only work with spare parts they make, while at the same time controlling how those spare parts are used… “If you keep going down this road, allowing manufacturers to force us to use their branded parts and service, where they’re allowed to tie the function of the device to their branded parts and service, that’s not repair,” Jones said. “That’s authoritarian control.”
The bill’s sponsor believes it could create momentum for dozens of other states trying to pass similar laws, the article points out, possibly leading ultimately to one national agreement between electronics manufacturers and the repair community. A lawmaker from another state argued that New York’s law “gives us something to work from. We’re going to take that now and try to do a better piece of legislation.”
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00K for submitting the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A company is trying to map America’s cell networks using mail trucks
Cell network coverage maps have always been dubiously accurate in the US, and even the ones released by the FCC in 2021 come with a ton of asterisks. A company called Ranlytics is hoping to make a much more accurate picture by attaching equipment to some of the mail trucks that are already driving to many locations in the US to deliver parcels and letters (via Light Reading). The data it collects will provide info on coverage quality “in a given town, on a given road, even at a given address”says the company’s CEO Keith Sheridan in an interview with The Verge.
In a press release earlier this week, Ranlytics says it’s working with the US Postal Service to measure AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s 4G and 5G networks in Seattle and that it’s…
America’s Oldest Dictionary Company Buys Word Game App ‘Quordle’
Word game Quordle has found a home appropriate to its theme—Merriam-Webster, publisher of Webster’s Dictionary. The Wordle clone now features a Merriam-Webster logo at the top of its web interface, and its website now redirects to the merriam-webster.com domain.
Read This Article on Review Geek ›
Automation Caused More than Half America’s Income Inequality Since 1980, Study Claims
Over the last four decades, the income gap between more- and less-educated workers has grown significantly; the study finds that automation accounts for more than half of that increase. “This single one variable … explains 50 to 70 percent of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” Acemoglu says….
Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, an assistant professor of economics at Boston University, used U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics on the extent to which human labor was used in 49 industries from 1987 to 2016, as well as data on machinery and software adopted in that time. The scholars also used data they had previously compiled about the adoption of robots in the U.S. from 1993 to 2014. In previous studies, Acemoglu and Restrepo have found that robots have by themselves replaced a substantial number of workers in the U.S., helped some firms dominate their industries, and contributed to inequality.
At the same time, the scholars used U.S. Census Bureau metrics, including its American Community Survey data, to track worker outcomes during this time for roughly 500 demographic subgroups… By examining the links between changes in business practices alongside changes in labor market outcomes, the study can estimate what impact automation has had on workers.
Ultimately, Acemoglu and Restrepo conclude that the effects have been profound. Since 1980, for instance, they estimate that automation has reduced the wages of men without a high school degree by 8.8 percent and women without a high school degree by 2.3 percent, adjusted for inflation.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Brett Arends’s ROI: These 2 states account for a third of America’s public-sector pension crisis
: America’s ports have a pollution problem. All-electric short-haul trucking is one fix.
Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America’s technology secrets
One of America’s most hated companies hired a security robot. It didn’t go well
Why America’s FTC Proposed Banning ‘Noncompete’ Agreements for Workers
The agency proposed a new rule that would prohibit employers from imposing noncompete agreements on their workers, a practice it called exploitative and widespread, affecting some 30 million American workers. “The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan in a statement. “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand.”
Noncompete agreements restrict workers from quitting their jobs and taking new jobs at rival companies or starting up similar businesses of their own within a certain time period — typically between six months and two years. They’re used across a broad array of industries, including in high-paying white-collar fields such as banking and tech, but also in many low-wage sectors as well, as President Biden has pointed out.
“These aren’t just high-paid executives or scientists who hold secret formulas for Coca-Cola so Pepsi can’t get their hands on it,” Biden said in a speech about competition in 2021. “A recent study found one in five workers without a college education is subject to non-compete agreements….” The FTC estimates that a ban on noncompete agreements could increase wages by nearly $300 billion a year by allowing workers to pursue better opportunities.
The rule does not take effect immediately. The public has 60 days to offer comment on the proposed rule, after which a final rule could be published and then enforced some months after that.
Thanks to Slashdot reader couchslug for submitting the story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.