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Surgeons may be endangering patients by performing a complex hernia repair surgery without the appropriate experience, or worse -- when a simpler procedure could have solved the problem, a New York Times investigation found. The number of times doctors ...

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The private equity arm of an NYC firm has acquired a majority stake in Columbus-based Sage Sustainable Electronics, accelerating its mission to keep old corporate laptops, phones and other devices out of landfills.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins had surgery Wednesday to repair his torn right Achilles tendon.

Kirk Cousins has surgery to repair torn Achilles

No injuries were reported in the incident at 312 Third Ave., which occurred at 3:06 p.m. According to news release from the fire department, the fire was burning in the ceiling/floor assembly of the building, which led to an “aggressive interior attack on both levels of the structure” within 10 minutes of firefighters being dispatched.

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Ohio-based Kokosing Construction Company, Inc. began initial repair work the week of October 16th, followed by milling the existing track surface on Monday, October 23 and completing the paving of the final asphalt surface layer on Friday, October 27.

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Has Been Repaved

In Kenner, water on the 3300 block of Irish Bend Rd. has been shut off. The Jefferson Parish Water Department says this is so crews can work to repair a water main. Residents with any questions or concerns can reach the Eastbank Water Treatment Plant at 504-736-6060.

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Visit the Cobblers Direct Secondhand Resale Repairs Page to learn more about volume discounts for resellers.

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Muscatine will be temporarily closing a street for an emergency water repair. The city announced in an email that Bartlett Street will be closed to through traffic between Mulberry Avenue and Cedar Street starting Monday, Nov. 6, for a private emergency ...

Muscatine to close street for emergency water repair

RPAIR

rpair

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background. Our team is innovative and hardworking, we all come from different backgrounds, where we are able to combine our transferable skills to make RPAIR successful. This means that we all see things slightly differently but we come together with our skills and expertise to drive this company forward. What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do? Our company, RPAIR, has developed an online comparison marketplace for watch and jewellery owners in the UK to get easier access to repairs for their watches and jewelry items by matching them with qualified and reviewed repair shops across the UK. What is the origin story? Like many ideas, RPAIR was born from real-world frustrations. While working in the watch and jewelry industry for over 15 years, I experienced many problems keeping customers updated on their watch and jewelry repairs whilst working at my family’s jewelry shop. In 2019 I thought "Could technology be used to simplify communication between the repair shop and customer, and repair this broken process?" When discussing this idea with my partner Michael one evening, the real lightbulb moment happened. Together, we quickly realised a solution that would solve many more of the problems experienced in this industry. One platform that could help customers easily find and compare watch and jewelry repair quotes whilst simultaneously helping jewelry and repair shops win and manage more jobs. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? We love working together, we have fun and make this more than a job and a business. We are a passionate group of people that are constantly challenging each other to get the best out of each other and to keep pushing our business forward. We are a group of forward thinkers on a mission to make watch and jewelry repairs fair and easy for all. We have a balanced blend of backgrounds and we believe this helps guide our market understanding and inform our product decisions. These backgrounds include the watch and jewelry industry, design, tech product development, software engineering, and sales. Together, we want to solve old school problems with new-age tools. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? We would be figuring out something else to start working on. To be honest I can’t think of much else to do. The four of us have met, individually and with each other at times to work together and build something, so if it wasn’t this it would be something else. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? At the moment we believe success is measured in different ways. Every week is a different level of success. We have set milestones to hit, and as we are growing we are hitting them and measuring our success by them. Our goal currently is to make the repairs process easier for customers, so they bother to get their repairs completed, but our goal is also to on-board more businesses so we can drive customers to them and increase their repairs business. As long as we are working towards both of these goals and making this process easier for customers and businesses then we are successful. CPA – Advertising cost per completed customer repair form Average no. of quotes received for a customer before a customer accepts one Repair Partners Response rate (How often they are quoting to show engagement) Win rate (How often they are winning jobs) What’s most exciting about your traction to date? We’ve seen a huge volume of repair jobs come through ranging from Rolex watch servicing to diamond ring resizing. It’s amazing to see people trusting the platform with their most precious items. We also had one repair partner make back their subscription fee in their first week by being really engaged with the platform and going above and beyond for the customer. What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why? We are excited about AI technology, specifically, with everything that has happened in the world recently. The combination of AI and vaccine development being able to significantly speed up this process could mean we do not have to suffer another pandemic in this way at all. Excited: We are not worried about any particular type of technology, but the addiction that we have to social media and technology. Technology is amazing, but how we choose to use it and how our behavior changes in a negative way are what is worrying. With the rise of technology and social media addiction, we sometimes worry about how to educate our children on how to use it responsibly. Worried: What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform? Interesting and varied articles across lots of interesting tech topics. 8-Bit branding is cool and the whole platform doesn’t take itself too seriously. What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself? “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing? We have learned so much, and so much of this is new to all of us. The key is to have the right people around you, make sure you are agile when an opportunity presents itself, or when a mistake is made. Just because you built a roadmap does not mean you cannot pivot and change direction. For example, within 2 weeks of our BETA launch, we saw significant issues with the customer journey and had to rearrange our priorities and work hard to get it sorted. Also we learned to not live in fear of putting out a product that isn’t perfect. What you can learn from being live and getting real-life feedback is invaluable. Don’t be scared of failing, just keep moving forward. VOTE for RPAIR as ! Startup of the Year in Waltham Abbey

Startup Interview with Abbie Shone, Founde and COO of RPAIR

Authors:
(1) UTKUCAN BALCI, Binghamton University, United States;
(2) MICHAEL SIRIVIANOS, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus;
(3) JEREMY BLACKBURN, Binghamton University, United States. Authors: Authors: (1) UTKUCAN BALCI, Binghamton University, United States; (2) MICHAEL SIRIVIANOS, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus; (3) JEREMY BLACKBURN, Binghamton University, United States. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Background & Related Work 2 Background & Related Work 3 Data 3 Data 3.1 Identifying Tankie Subreddits 3.1 Identifying Tankie Subreddits 3.2 Identifying Ideology Subreddits and 3.3 Post Collection 3.2 Identifying Ideology Subreddits and 3.3 Post Collection 4 User-Base Analysis and 4.1 Graph Construction & Community Detection 4 User-Base Analysis and 4.1 Graph Construction & Community Detection 4.2 Community Growth 4.2 Community Growth 4.3 User Migrations Over Time 4.3 User Migrations Over Time 5 Content Analysis and 5.1 What do tankies talk about? 5 Content Analysis and 5.1 What do tankies talk about? 5.2 Who are tankies talking about? 5.2 Who are tankies talking about? 5.3 Misalignment Analysis 5.3 Misalignment Analysis 5.4 Toxicity Analysis 5.4 Toxicity Analysis 5.5 Domain Analysis 5.5 Domain Analysis 5.6 Lemmygrad Analysis 5.6 Lemmygrad Analysis 6 Discussion & Conclusion and 6.1 Limitations 6 Discussion & Conclusion and 6.1 Limitations 6.2 Implications & future work, and References 6.2 Implications & future work, and References A DATA A DATA B NAMED ENTITIES B NAMED ENTITIES C MISALIGNMENT ANALYSIS C MISALIGNMENT ANALYSIS D DOMAIN ANALYSIS D DOMAIN ANALYSIS 4 USER-BASE ANALYSIS In this section, our objective is to comprehensively examine the prominence of tankies within the far-left ideology spectrum and their interactions with other far-left communities. We build a graph of subreddits based on the users that post in them, perform community detection to find clusters with similar user bases as tankie subreddits, and examine user migration patterns between tankies and other communities in the cluster. 4.1 Graph Construction & Community Detection Our first step is to detect communities of similar ideological subreddits. To do this, we follow a methodology similar to that of Squire [117]. First, we construct a graph where each node represents a subreddit and the edges between the nodes represent the number of users they have in common. These edges are weighted using Bonacich’s method [20], which assigns a weight to each membership affiliation based on its relative strength within the network. This method takes into account the fact that an individual’s membership in one group may be influenced by their membership in other groups, which helps us to reveal underlying structural patterns that might not be apparent in unprocessed overlap data. Next, we apply the Louvain community detection algorithm [19] to identify clusters of subreddits within the network. The algorithm, in a nutshell, works by optimizing a modularity measure, which quantifies the degree to which the network is divided into distinct communities. It is widely used and validated for identifying communities or groups of nodes within a network, particularly in social networks [42, 60]. We expect that if our subreddits do indeed represent different political ideologies, the structure of this graph will naturally lead to empirical clusters that align with the theoretical literature. To check if these clusters can be further divided, we recursively run the Louvain method on the identified clusters, recalculating the edges for each subcluster. This allows us to examine the spectrum of ideologies represented in our dataset. Fig. 2. Relationship between user base ideological subreddits. Far-Left subreddits are colored red (with non-tankies colored light red in 2b), Leftists are colored gray, Capitalists are colored green, and Feminists are colored blue. A stronger red hue indicates a higher similarity between the user-bases of two subreddits. Results. Figure 2a plots the resulting graph, where nodes are colored according to the community they were placed in, and the graph is laid out in space such that subreddits that share fewer common authors after normalization are farther apart from each other [63]. We next describe the clusters in more detail. Results Far-Left (Red Cluster). March [77] defines far-left political parties as those that see themselves further left than social democracy. Tankies are indeed clustered with subreddits representing wellknown far-left ideologies, e.g., r/communism, r/socialism, r/Anarchism, r/Marxism, and r/IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, a syndicalist labor union [28] representing nearly 9,000 workers across North America [62]). We also see r/alltheleft in this cluster, which has a similar extreme identity to the left similar to communist, socialist, and anarchist subreddits [78]. This cluster does not split into more clusters when we recursively apply the Louvain algorithm. Far-Left (Red Cluster). Other Ideologies. While the far-left communities were neatly formed in the first round of clustering, other ideologies ended up in a large cluster together. We thus apply the Louvain algorithm recursively until subclusters do not split more, as previously described. In the end, we find three coherent clusters that fit into ideologies that have been well covered in the theoretical literature: Other Ideologies. • Feminists (Blue Cluster): This cluster includes feminist and feminist-leaning subreddits (r/feminism, r/feminisms, r/anarchafeminism, r/radicalfeminism, and r/egalitarianism). • Feminists (Blue Cluster): • Leftists (Gray Cluster): This cluster includes left-leaning ideologies that are closer to moderate/center-left on the ideology spectrum (e.g., r/socialdemocracy, r/greenparty, r/progressive), as well as libertarian-left subreddits (r/libertariansocialism and r/libertarianleft) and some anarcho/anarchist-leaning communities (e.g., r/anarchopascifism, r/voluntarism, and r/republicanism). • Leftists (Gray Cluster): • Capitalists (Green Cluster): This cluster includes liberal-leaning ideologies (e.g., r/liberal, r/democrats), anti-authoritarian capitalist ideologies (r/libertarian, r/anarchocapitalism), and conservative ideologies (e.g., r/conservative, r/republican) alongside r/capitalism. • Capitalists (Green Cluster): When we look at how tankies and other ideology subreddits are layed out in Figure 2a, we see some meaningful positions. For example, we can see that r/democrats is positioned between r/Capitalism, r/progressive, r/SocialDemocracy, r/DemocraticSocialism, and r/Conservative. This may seem odd at first glance, but considering that these ideologies represent current US politics, it makes sense that they are positioned close to each other. Additionally, even though one of the closest subreddits to r/conservatives is r/liberal, they are still relatively distant. Tankie subreddits are also positioned on the periphery of the far-left cluster, highlighting their extremeness. To get a different perspective on the relatedness of different ideological communities, we plot a heatmap in Figure 2b showing the edge values for each pair of subreddits in our ideological graph. From this heatmap, we can see that the subreddits in the far-left and leftist clusters are relatively well-connected compared to those in the capitalist community. Additionally, we observe that tankie subreddits are clearly much better connected with each other than other subreddits in their corresponding community. This is strong evidence that tankies are a distinct community within the far-left. With this in mind, we now move on to further understand how tankies are positioned within the far-left. 4.2 Community Growth Although technically speaking, tankies are quite an old community, their tangible influence or presence within the broader context has historically been quite limited. To understand how things have changed, we first examine the growth of the tankies community on Reddit compared to other far-left communities by plotting the monthly active user counts (MAU) for each far-left community in our dataset in Figure 3. Starting in July 2020, the tankies community saw a large influx of active users, doubling in about six months and growing larger than the user base of r/communism. As of April 2021, tankies had more active users than any other far-left subreddits. MAU for tankies doubles again between November 2021 and March 2022, reaching 11,872 active users. r/socialism has the second highest MAU of far-left subreddits after tankies (3,559), which is 30% of tankies for that month. We also see a decline in monthly active users in every far-left subreddit except tankies starting in February 2022, which is the month Russia invaded Ukraine [65]. To understand the significance of the tankies community’s growth, we run a Mann-Kendall Test [68, 76], a non-parametric test for analyzing monotonic trends in time series data, on our MAU time series. For 𝛼 = 0.01, we find tankies is the only community with a statistically significant increase in MAU (𝑧 > 0 and |𝑧| > 𝑧(1−𝛼/2), 𝑝 < 0.01). We also observe a strong positive correlation between tankies’ MAU and time ( 𝜌 = 0.97 and 𝑝 < 0.01) when applying Spearman’s Correlation, indicating that tankies’ user base has been steadily increasing over time. These results raise an important question: are these completely new users getting involved in far-left ideologies or is the user-base of existing far-left subreddits migrating to tankies over time? This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Mapping the Digital Landscape of Far-Left Ideologies

240 Stories To Learn About Startups Of The Year

44,000 startups. 4,553 cities. “4 billion votes” It was such a blessing to get to know so many of your ideas and innovations from every corner of the world in 2021. The startup community amazed all of us with your hard work and persistence despite all of the challenges that we faced globally throughout last year. Not gonna lie, the competition got our hearts racing like Eurovision. We won’t let you wait for much longer, below are long-awaited results! ✨✨✨ To see who is a winner in each respective city, visit and pick a city. The name at the top of the list is the winner. (Compromised awards are under review.) startups.hackernoon.com The will announce the winners per region in their respective cities. Startups Winners Announcement Series 🔥 Central Europe Central Europe has always caught our attention with the talented pool of people in tech community. But were they able to get through 2021 despite the pandemic? Let’s cheers to the most outstanding amongst 4,500+ startups who have been working hard this year: Basel, Switzerland An overwhelming vote for ~ in their mission of helping machinery companies drive more service revenues from their installed base MachiQ Software Berlin, Germany We have with a whooping 538 votes! Let’s support Plan A with its mission to help companies to measure, monitor and reduce their environmental footprint. Plan A Düsseldorf, Germany It doesn’t get any easier with Kicking off in helping people organize online schedules more easily. EasyWeek! Geneva, Switzerland Manage code quality? We have to give props to for their startup! SonarSource Hamburg, Germany Taking over Hamburg is , an acoustic device to reduce noises in vehicle cabins. No more annoying sounds on the road 🚗 ReCalm Köln, Germany Small business? Hoping to manage your marketing campaign? is winning the vote! rankingCoach Lausanne, Switzerland is a Swiss-based company focused on cryptocurrency management solutions built for financial institutions. Metaco Leipzig, Germany empowers companies to operate and utilize drones for the most effective industrial data applications. FlyNex Mainz, Germany is growing sustainable digital mobility startups! Next Mobility Labs Munich, Germany wins for top-line, high-security international Identity Management! ORY Stuttgart, Germany Remote desktop application? Ask anywhere. AnyDesk Vienna, Austria , an IT company enabling privacy-preserving big data applications in the digital age. Mostly AI Zug, Switzerland Way to go 1762 votes for the first provably live pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) CBC-Casper blockchain designed for real-world applications. CasperLabs! Nyon Calling for robust data solutions for impact-driven organizations! Havuta LLC Zürich is revolutionizing small business lending to give easy access to capital to those who need it most: SMEs ✨ Teylor Heidelberg, Germany is an innovative HR startup providing a solution for fast and efficient recruiting of employees with simple job profiles. Talk'n'Job Stuttgart, Germany Congratulations for winning this title! AnyDesk Moving on to our buddies in... 🔥 Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is home to many familiar big names in our start-up world. Trace history for Miro, Telegram, and Grammarly and you know where they are from. Who is the next generation for Eastern European startups? Budapest, Hungary is a platform for mobile app development, enabling tens of thousands of developers to automate integration, testing, and deployment. Bitrise I__ __ stanbul, Turkey Leading here is - a brand new software intelligence platform- helps organizations deliver faster, high-quality products by connecting their DevOps tools. Oobeya Kraków, Poland is a human cloud platform that connects global enterprises with European software houses, offering tech talent as a service. Talent Alpha Kyiv, Ukraine 281 votes for , an AI powered app where people can swap faces in the videos, GIFs and images in just a few seconds. Reface Sofia, Bulgaria 387 votes for __ __378, leading Blockchain and DLT solutions company that specializes in helping enterprises and blockchain startups design, build and scale innovative solutions using Blockchain & DLT! LimeChain Warsaw, Poland is a next-generation blockchain document management software (DMS). DoxyChain Yerevan, Armenia Whoever clicked to vote for was sure a vote, because it ended up winning as a full-service software provider delivering Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning solutions for businesses. SmartClick smart Almaty Just like the name suggested, provides one pass to dozens of gyms and studios. 1FIT Debrecen got all the coders ranked figured out! CodersRank Kharkiv is complete solution digital assets management! Pics.io Minsk, Belarus with 243 votes is the first blockchain-powered sports media platform. Scorum Moscow, Russian Federation 1 e-grocery company in Russia with 26 votes and #1 on our HackerNoon board for Minsk. SberMarket Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation leads this area as a personal finance application that rewards responsible spending and savings. CoinKeeper Kazan, Russian Federation Smelling a sweet victory? 3d App designers for flower bouquets is in the house! Flowito Western Europe 🔥 Brexit? Pandemic? It seems like startups in Western Europe still keep their spirits regardless. Startups in Western Europe that stood out in votes this year go to: Antwerp is on a streak! As a bug bounty platform, it ensures online security through a crowd-sourced platform for computer experts. intigriti Belfast A record-breaking 10,003 votes? is an independent coffee shop. Come grab a coffee! Bobs & Berts Birmingham What’s happening in Birmingham? We have , an innovative UK-based advanced lithium battery developer aiming to accelerate the global shift to cleaner. Aceleron Bordeaux 30 is an open-source web framework for building modern apps and websites with Vue.js. NuxtJS Boulogne-billancourt is a software company that provides an in-store analytics platform to optimize operations. DiGEiZ Brighton In for some jam? offers musical education services. BIMM Bristol Another tasty victory for Western Europe is enabling the strongest digital encryption on the internet. KETS Quantum Security Brussels A fashionable win for , a social fashion network. You scan barcodes in fashion shops and see every influencer wearing those outfits! Share your wishlist with your friends and earn cashback. SCANDALOOK Cardiff is a technology company developing end-to-end digital connectivity for the point-of-care diagnostics market. Bond Digital Health London A whooping number of 1085 vote__ __ offers hardware based cyber-security solution for authentication and encryption in a wired local network. Crypto Quantique Edinburgh Hopping up on the crypto movement, just launched last year but they are already rocking it at making crypto accessible to everyone. Zumo Ghent 5379 votes for ! A Belgian InsurTech startup that helps insurance providers all over the world to better connect with their digital customers. WeGroup Glasgow specializes in single-cell analysis transforming the life sciences. Biomage Paris Show some love in the city of love for , a sports platform that is connected to a mobile sports coaching application. AirFit Aberystwyth enables artificial intelligence, data science & digital innovation solutions for the agriculture, biotech & life sciences industries. Agxio Norwich Congratulations for the amazing win of 1124 votes! WATR Charleroi Congratulations for your amazing win! Hirering Gibraltar Give a round of applause to Fortknoxter! Waltham Abbey is ruling the area with its amazing 72 votes! RPAIR Antwerpen Rocking up Antwerpen area is the rising startup ! Willow Egham What’s happening in Egham? Proudly announcing winning the Noonies this year! ATA.ONE Leicester Leicester is calling the name of as the winner for the region! DeadHappy Macclesfield Who else but ? Congratulations on dominating the award! AeroCloud Northern Europe 🔥 Want to listen to some music? Spotify. Need some games to kill time? Candy Crush. What about a quick call to someone you haven’t seen in a long time? Skype. These are all startups that originated from Northern Europe! Noonies, let’s take a look at the upcoming generation of startups from Northern Europe that hopefully will see an even bigger and brighter future. Gothenburg, Sweden Shipping was never made for small shippers, so took on the mission to built an end-to-end logistics platform to empower small businesses to spend less time and money on shipping and more time on growing their businesses. Sendify The Netherlands provides a virtual platform for many kinds of conferences and events. Let's Get Digital Helsinki, Finland A curated collection of public basketball courts in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area called . Everyone is welcome to submit to their local court. Koripallopaikat Lund, Sweden develops an antibiotic-free, safe and effective treatment of vaginal fungal infections. Gedea Biotech Luxembourg, Luxembourg 🚀 is a job-matching platform that connects developers and tech experts with CTOs and team leads from the best tech companies across Europe. 👾 nexten.io Malmö, Sweden Feeling studious, Noonies? __ __e is a tool for Google Classroom, that enables formative matrix assessment towards course learning objectives directly. StudyBe Oslo, Norway is the platform supports a unified API across all connected device categories, removing significant friction for app developers. Domos Labs Reykjavík, Iceland __ __s is a mobile-first technologically advanced neo-bank. Indo service #S__ __ tockholm, Sweden is the biggest blockchain start-up in Sweden. Double winner of the most prestigious nomination in Nordics 'NyTeknik 33-listan', winner of the Deloitte Fast 50, and now Noonies Award! ChromaWay AB T__ __ allinn, Estonia Passing 1000 votes is a fully digital and decentralized ecosystem for all actors in supply chain. OBORTECH Vilnius, Lithuania is an easy-to-use money app for cards and accounts. Via Genome, users can open a business or a merchant account or a personal one with dedicated IBANs, access transfers, exchange currency, process payments, and manage the funds. Genome Aalborg Digura A legaltech offering tenants fast, digital and reliable legal assistance Aarhus Partisia Market Design provides secure, simple, efficient solutions for auctions and exchanges realizing the potential of the market. Helsingborg is a hi-tech company developing cardiac occlusion devices and other vascular implants. Occlutech Tallinna is an AI-powered system for marketing automation in social networks. POSTOPLAN 🔥 Southern Europe Southern Europe’s economy went through a hard time this year due to a huge reduction in tourism. But our startups are of course always headstrong, from Spain to Italy and all the way through Greece. Who are the heroes rising amidst changes of Southern Europe? Skopje is a versatile software development company that solves the business challenges of SMBs, big brands, and brave hearts with awesome ideas. CodeChem Sliema Sounds like just a relaxing exhale. is a holistic health and wellbeing app built to allow users work on the development of their physical, mental and spiritual health Few Tajonar is a company of experienced business & industry entrepreneurs offering solutions to industries based on cutting-edge technologies. das-Nano Tarragona is a technology-based company focusing on the production of integrated microsystems. IMICROQ Terni is an ICT-based integrated solution that is able to modulate, respond, assist and learn to control most home activities. Mind Tirana is a video content and e-commerce platform for the Balkans built on top of an Albanian language specialized search engine. Gjirafa Torino develops and commercializes algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence to increase the autonomy of small satellite missions. AIKO T__ __ orres Buy online groceries like you would buy offline with personalized picking as fast as in 4 hours with Vedras 360hyper! Trento is a music-based platform built around streaming platforms that allow users to discover new emerging artists and make new friends. Brots 2021, what a YEAR. Congratulations to all of the startups that made it to the top winning list for Europe! Stay tuned for Startup awards in 2022 and let’s cheers to a new year of more innovative ideas, bold innovations, and robust creations from you, Europe 🌷 More Information: If you’re a winner, please answer ! If you’re a reader, participant, just a curious individual, consider answering one of our interviews . this interview here Read the FAQs about or . Startups here here To see all of the winners you may visit , pick any city and view the name that appears at the top. this site If you’re interested in partnering with us, we invite you to look through some of these or reach out to our business department. unique sponsorship options Perhaps creating your very own tickles your fancy or maybe you have a whole new idea for how we can partner! writing contest Thank you to all of our sponsors! We truly appreciate your contribution to the tech world and thus the future! The Startups Awards are sponsored by: , , , , , , , , , , Blockster Brex FreeCodeCamp LaunchDarkly Coil Udacity Udemy Vercel Asia Pacific Transgender Network Bybit Everscale Network This post was written by An Le and edited by Natasha Nel. If you have any questions or concerns or would like to report a discrepancy please email ellen@hackernoon.com.

Meet the Winners of Startups in Europe

This article is copublished with Grist. . Read on our collaborator's site This story was published in partnership with , a nonprofit media organization covering climate, justice, and solutions. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter . Grist here New York State toward curbing the power of Big Tech when lawmakers passed the Digital Fair Repair Act, giving citizens the right to fix their phones, tablets, and computers. took a historic step For years, advocates for the “right to repair” have pushed for such legislation in statehouses nationwide. They argue that making it easier to repair gadgets not only saves consumers money but also reduces the environmental impact of manufacturing and electronic waste. Most of those bills have failed amid intense opposition from tech companies that want to dictate how and where their products are serviced. The passage of the Digital Fair Repair Act last June caught the tech industry off guard, but it had time to act before Gov. Kathy Hochul would sign it into law. Corporate lobbyists went to work, pressing Albany for exemptions and changes that would water the bill down. reportedly They were largely successful: While the bill Hochul in late December remains for the right-to-repair movement, the 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.) signed a victory more corporate-friendly text 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. Draft versions of the bill, letters, and email correspondences shared with Grist by the repair advocacy organization reveal that many of the changes Hochul made to the Digital Fair Repair Act are identical to those proposed by , a trade association that includes Apple, Google, Samsung, and HP among its members. Repair.org TechNet Jake Egloff, the legislative director for Democratic New York state assemblymember and bill sponsor Patricia Fahy, confirmed the authenticity of the emails and bill drafts shared with Grist. “We had every environmental group walking supporting this bill,”  Fahy told Grist. “What hurt this bill is Big Tech was opposed to it.” 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. Reached for comment, the governor’s office sent Grist a copy of a statement that Hochul released when she signed the bill, outlining changes made to the text. Her staff declined to address questions about the potential negative impacts of those changes, or about the process behind them. For years, consumer technology companies like Apple have effectively monopolized the repair of their devices by limiting access to parts, tools, and manuals to “authorized repair partners,” which often only perform a small number of manufacturer-sanctioned fixes. Those limited services often force consumers to choose between continuing to use a broken device or obtaining a brand-new one. The that passed New York’s Senate and Assembly last spring sought to level the playing field for independent shops by requiring that companies make parts, tools, and documents available to everyone on fair and reasonable terms. version of the Digital Fair Repair Act A broad coalition of manufacturers opposed the bill in the spring, and its sponsors had to make significant compromises in order to pass it. “We made a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in the first day or two of June,” Fahy said. Those changes included explicit exclusions for everything from home appliances to police radios to farm equipment. Fahy says she was willing to omit those devices because she thought focusing on small electronics would give consumers “the biggest bang for their buck.” Data from the repair guide site iFixit shows that eight of the top 10 devices New Yorkers attempted to repair in 2020 were small consumer electronics, with cellphones and laptops topping the list. The passed the Assembly by a vote of 145 to 1, after clearing the Senate 59 to 4. Despite that overwhelming support, the tech industry was surprised by its passage, said Democratic state senator Neil Breslin, who sponsored the bill. Digital Fair Repair Act “There’s a number of people who were advocating on the parts of the [manufacturers] who really, in private chats, were not expecting it would be passed,” Breslin told Grist. At that point, the bill’s opponents approached Hochul seeking concessions. In particular, show TechNet held frequent meetings with the governor between June and December, when she signed the bill. state lobbying records Lobbyists representing Apple, Google, and Microsoft also met with the governor, state records show. All of these organizations have right-to-repair bills in other states, often citing intellectual property and cybersecurity concerns. lobbied against But some, most , have in recent years. Fahy said Microsoft “constantly tried to reach out” to her office to cooperate on the bill. notably Microsoft softened their stance In a letter sent to the governor in November, the company requested several edits but did not ask for a veto. (Microsoft, Google, and Apple declined to comment.) In letters sent to Hochul in July and August, Apple, IBM, and TechNet all asked the governor to veto the bill. (IBM also declined to comment.) When a veto didn’t immediately happen, TechNet sent Hochul a with edits attributed to , the trade organization’s vice president of state policy and government relations. trimmed-down version David Edmonson Among other things, TechNet requested that the law apply only to future products sold in the state, that it exclude products sold only through business-to-business or government contracts, and that it exclude printed circuit boards on the grounds that they could be used to counterfeit devices. It also sought a stipulation allowing manufacturers to offer consumers and independent fixers assemblies, such as a battery pre-assembled with other components, if selling individual parts could create a “safety risk.” Additionally, TechNet wanted a requirement that independent repair shops provide customers with a written notice of U.S. warranty laws before conducting repairs. Hochul’s office sent TechNet’s revised draft to repair advocates to get their reaction. Those advocates shared the TechNet-edited version of the bill with Fahy’s staff, which gave it to the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, the agency charged with protecting American consumers. Documents that Repair.org shared with Grist show that FTC staff were highly critical of many of the changes. The parts assembly provision, one commission staffer wrote in response to TechNet’s edits, “could be easily abused by a manufacturer” to create a two-tiered system in which individual components like batteries are available only to authorized repair partners. Another of TechNet’s proposed changes—deleting a requirement that manufacturers give owners and independent shops the ability to reset security locks in order to conduct repairs—could result in a “hollow right to repair” in which security systems thwart people from fixing their stuff, the staffer wrote. “These particular TechNet edits all have a common theme—ensuring that manufacturers retain control over the market for the repair of their products,” Dan Salsburg, a chief counsel for the FTC’s Office of Technology, Research and Investigation, wrote in an email to Fahy’s office. Despite the agency’s stern warning, all of the changes described above, and numerous other edits TechNet proposed, appeared in Hochul signed—many of them verbatim. the bill Chris Gilrein, TechNet’s executive director for the Northeast, told Grist in an emailed statement that the bill the Legislature passed “presented unacceptable risks to consumer data privacy and safety,” and that his organization’s recommended changes “addressed the most egregious security issues.” Manufacturers often cite cybersecurity as a reason to restrict access to repair, an argument the FTC found “ ” to support in . scant evidence a report to Congress published in 2021 Gilrein disputed the notion that the final version of the bill favored the tech industry. “At its core, the law remains a state-mandated transfer of intellectual property that is unwarranted at a time when consumers have access to more repair options than ever before,” he said. Todd Bone, the president of , a company that maintains and repairs network and data center IT equipment for corporations and the federal government, says the law offers “nothing” to his business because of the governor’s carveout for devices sold under business-to-business or government contracts. XS International “It was very disheartening,” Bone told Grist, “to see the governor working with TechNet and not paying attention to the votes from the Congress and the Senate in the state of New York, [and] what the consumers of the state of New York wanted.” Jessa Jones, who founded iPad Rehab, an independent repair shop in Honeoye Falls, about 20 miles south of Rochester, N.Y., 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, both of which were requested by TechNet. “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.” After repair advocates shared TechNet’s draft with Fahy’s office, they collaborated on a counterproposal that pushed back against many of the proposed changes. The last-minute negotiations with the governor’s office were “frustrating,” Fahy said, although she still ultimately wants to see the bill become law. Fahy hopes the New York Department of State will clarify aspects of the bill that got muddied by industry influence. The agency, which plays a role in consumer protection, will craft regulations dictating how the law will be implemented. Ultimately, Fahy says the bill will still help consumers save money and keep old devices out of landfills. And every little bit counts: In New York State alone, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group estimates that Americans discard roughly 23,600 cellphones per day. Fahy also believes the law—imperfect though it may be—will have a ripple effect beyond the state’s borders. It could give momentum to the efforts to pass similar laws in . dozens of other states Eventually, the passage of state bills could lead to a national agreement between electronics manufacturers and the independent repair community, similar to what happened after Massachusetts passed an auto right-to-repair law in 2012. in the car industry Other lawmakers agree that New York has provided a welcome starting point. “When you’re the first state, sometimes you have to pass something very small to get across the finish line,” Washington State representative , a Democrat who is sponsoring a digital in her state’s house, told Grist. Mia Gregerson right-to-repair bill New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act, Gregerson said, “gives us something to work from.” “We’re going to take that now and try to do a better piece of legislation,” Gregerson said. By of Grist Maddie Stone Also published here Photo by on @felipepelaquim Unsplash

Big Tech Rewrote the Nation’s First Cellphone Repair Law: Here's How They Did It

How do you document infrastructure failures and outages? Post-mortem discipline: a way to document serious problems At the very beginning of my career, I familiarised myself with the post-mortem practice. After each large outage (fortunately, they were really rare), we created a document describing the nature and first occurrence of an outage, our course of action, and outcomes. Post-mortems were finalized with a follow-up section indicating plans and Jira tickets to prevent similar events in the future. You can familiarise yourself with a typical structure of a DevOps post-mortem in article, as well as with a great example . this here Our structure was similar: First occurrence and event log The course of action and responsible persons Root cause analysis Follow-ups to mitigate similar issues I really like this approach and advocate this practice to avoid recurring issues. The nature of DevOps tasks speaks for itself: the task density is so high that it’s hard to remember every workflow. In this case, post-mortems are useful to keep vital information available, introduce the experience gained for the rest of the team, as well as to onboard newcomers. More issues, less time However, when I acquired my own fields of responsibility and started to work independently, I realized very soon that my scope of work included much more issues to fix than time to document them in post-mortems. The nature of my tasks included dealing with dozens of multilayer services, each of them being quite volatile and sensitive to multiple hardware factors: network speed, free disk space, inter-service connectivity, etc. Moreover, they were based on open-source software and required constant updates to remain functional - and often, an update only brought new issues. All in all, it looks like an administrator nightmare, doesn’t it? In fact, it was not, but still, I soon realized the necessity to document how I fixed small issues of different nature. And here, I returned to the Post-Mortem workflow wondering if it can help - and adopted it. Large repair logs to solve small problems First of all, I decided to use one unified document (namely, a Confluence page) to store descriptions of all fixed issues. Since my work sometimes reminded me of Warhammer 40k Adeptus Mechanicus, I named it “ ”. And presented this document officially as a . Prayer Book: How we fixed minor issues Repair Log So, what was inside? I stuck to our Post-Mortem plan but excluded some redundant steps: namely, the first and last bullets from the plan above. The resulting structure was easy to read and could be filled in 5-10 minutes for each issue: Short description of an issue and which service it affected The root cause of the issue and, optionally, steps to reproduce The course of actions to mitigate the issue On top of this structure, I made two rules to fill the log: - Always, right after you fix an issue. When? - Short and precise, don’t highlight general issues, describe actions you took even if you are not sure they fixed the issue. How? The latter rule may surprise you, but it’s self-explanatory: sometimes, you try to fix an issue in multiple ways, and lack of time to check the outcome does not allow you to be sure what exactly solved the problem. I decided to leave such entries for future amendments. So I created a small and fast-growing version of Post-Mortems for internal use. What was the outcome? The Repair Log was appreciated by the rest of my team and started to grow. Together with Post-Mortems, this document became a vital part of our onboarding process. It is easy to read and expand, but most importantly, it remains my “second memory” when I face any issue that looks familiar. In some months, I even started to notice that the number of issues began to decrease, and nearly all of them became a part of the log. Then, I said to myself: “Probably, it’s the best solution to increase the quality of your operations with these services”. Now, I still work with them, but maintenance does not take a significant amount of time.

How DevOps Repair Logs Increase Your Happiness

It’s the most prevalent issue faced by almost all Microsoft Outlook users. This is a file corruption issue in Microsoft Outlook including PST files (Personal Storage Files). This may be attributed to a sudden system shutdown or not closing MS Outlook properly. Whatever that might be, it only leads to corruption of outlook data and you will find that all your emails are gone when you try to open them. At this point in time, you'd need a tool that could recover your lost outlook data, preferably a quick and easy way out. Microsoft Outlook Corruption Issues: One of the most common issues with MS Outlook is "Corruption". Sometimes due to abrupt termination of MS Outlook during operation, it ends up saving corrupted data. In other cases, corruption of PST files occurs due to memory card failure or virus attacks during Outlook operations. Corruption can also happen if there is a problem with the header of your personal storage file (PST), which stores all the outlook data of Microsoft Outlook. At times, physical damage to PST file components such as headers and allocation tables may also result in PST corruption. Apart from this, several other technical issues might cause corruption of MS Outlook files including: Installation error Software malfunctioning A power surge or Shutting down your computer abruptly Once you realize that your MS Outlook has been corrupted then the first thing you need to do is not to panic and stop using your MS outlook immediately so as to prevent further damage to data. Now some points need to be noted - your MS Outlook profile and mailbox should be safe and you can access them using a new installation of MS Outlook i.e., you won't lose all your Personal Folders (PST files). Now, if corruption occurs during work, then the first thing you need to do is make an offline backup of your corrupted PST files or emails either in file format or by having another email client like EMLX where it shows a preview of these emails or even in Exchange Server mailboxes directly. .TXT If you are unable to do the above-mentioned things then you need to use a third-party utility, which is really helpful in getting back all your data including emails and other information. This tool will definitely recover your inaccessible outlook data and provide you with an option to save it to the desired location. Stellar Outlook PST Repair Software: Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair software is one of the most effective software that restores corrupt MS Outlook files. It repairs corrupted Microsoft Outlook files ( ), (Offline Storage Table) and (Exchange 2000 Server or higher) format files proficiently and provides previews of recovered items such as Messages, Contacts, Calendar items, etc., before saving them at the user's desired location. .PST .OST .EDB The user can also choose whether he wants to save the output files as Unicode or ANSI (Default) and can also choose between RAW and Outlook mode while saving repaired PST file. Another good thing about this tool is that it recovers unreadable data from severely corrupt /damaged files, which cannot be repaired using Microsoft scanpst.exe utility, and renames the recovered items to their original state so that the user doesn't have to rename them manually. .PST This software provides read-only access to damaged PST files so you need not worry about corruption of your drive where you are trying to access your corrupted PST file due to a virus attack. The interface of the software is very easy such that all types of users will find it easy to work on it without any trouble. Stellar Outlook PST Repair Software offers different scanning options for users to choose from. The user can opt for Full Scan or any one of the following Quick Scan, Smart Quick Scan, or Custom Scans in order to repair their Outlook data files depending on the size and type of corruption in the PST file. The software is very fast when it comes to repairing PST files as it recovers 10 GB of data within a few minutes (depends upon size and level of corruption). Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair Key Features: Recover permanently deleted emails along with email properties like cc , bcc , sent date, received date, etc., Repairs highly corrupt/damaged Microsoft Outlook (.PST) files. Recover password-protected files. Repairs files from encrypted file format. .PST Provided read-only access to the damaged PST file. Restore data in Unicode and ANSI formats. Allows saving recovered Outlook items in different formats such as DBX, MBOX, MSG, EML, EMLX, vCal, and vCard for all popular email , including MS Outlook 2016/2013/2010/2007/2003 & Windows Live Mail 2012/2011/2010. clients Conclusion: Outlook users can now very well recover their damaged PST files by using Stellar Outlook PST Repair Software. It provides previews of the recovered items and allows saving them in different formats such as DBX, MBOX, MSG, EML, EMLX, and vCal/vCard for all popular email clients including MS Outlook 2016/2013/2010/2007/2003 & Windows Live Mail 2012/2011/2010.

How to Repair Corrupted Microsoft Outlook Files 

Manufacturers in a broad range of industries have a monopoly on who repairs machines—and when devices are deemed unfixable By Jon Keegan As critically ill COVID-19 patients started showing up in droves at emergency rooms around the world, ventilators became a crucial technology keeping patients alive. When hospitals’ own resources became overwhelmed, the Strategic National Stockpile dusted off and distributed thousands of the life-support machines throughout the country. But were in working condition. not all J. Scot Mackeil, a biomedical technician with more than 40 years of experience, worked on a team tasked with inspecting machines sent to Massachusetts’s Emergency Management Agency. In mid-April, while performing spot checks on hundreds of ventilators packed in freight pods, Mackeil discovered one with a damaged power connector. But when he asked the manufacturer to send him a replacement part, he was surprised to receive the manufacturer’s response: “ ‘Absolutely no.’ ” “I had just expected, ‘Oh, no problem. Where can we send it?’ ” he said. “I wasn’t expecting them to dig their heels in.” Mackeil was well aware of what’s become a common obstacle for hospitals: Manufacturers not only have a monopoly over even simple replacement parts, but they also often allow only their authorized service technicians to repair equipment. Mackeil told The Markup that over his career, manufacturers resisting hospitals doing their own repairs has become the norm. “Medical equipment manufacturers look at the service phase of the device life as a huge profit center,” Mackeil said. Medical equipment manufacturers look at the service phase of the device life as a huge profit center. - J. Scot Mackeil, biomedical technician With the ventilator, he had thought they might relent. “It was just a shame,” he said. It’s not just medical device manufacturers who keep a tight grip on the inner workings of the products they sell —mobile phones, game consoles, coffee makers, and farm equipment all share examples of the same sort of repair restrictions that advocates calling for “right to repair” laws seek to eliminate. And though you might technically own your camera, game console, blender, or phone, you repair it at your own peril. Going outside the official route for fixes is either impractical without repair manuals and proprietary tools or could void the machine’s warranty (though consumers on that front). have some protections “We are no longer able to fix the things we buy,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, who is the executive director of , a coalition of businesses and organizations seeking legislation across the country that would give consumers the right to repair their own machines. The Repair Association The right-to-repair movement has drawn an unusual coalition of stakeholders, including environmentalists, libertarians, engineers, independent repair shop owners, gamers, hobbyists, and farmers. Groups like The Repair Association have helped push consumer electronic right-to-repair bills introduced in dozens of states. None, however, have become law in recent years. Lobbyists for the electronics manufacturers have also raised concerns that unqualified repairs could lead to and that states with right-to-repair laws could become . dangerous failures of their products havens for hackers Such laws could eliminate a manufacturer’s monopoly on not only who can fix a product—but also on when a product is essentially deemed unfixable. Right-to-Repair Bills Have Been Introduced in 32 States. None have yet passed Other than Massachusetts’s 2013 Auto Right to Repair law, efforts to pass such legislation have been blocked. Here are the years in which right-to-repair legislation has been underconsideration. Right-to-Repair Bills Have Been Introduced in 32 States. None have yet passed Other than Massachusetts’s 2013 Auto Right to Repair law, efforts to pass such legislation have been blocked. Here are the years in which right-to-repair legislation has been underconsideration. Why Won’t Apple Fix My Phone? Can Someone Else Do It? Today’s mobile phone is a marvel of precision engineering—watertight seams, sealed batteries, and a lack of visible fasteners that would make most consumers unsure of how you would even go about opening it. To get inside requires detailed schematics, diagrams, and specialized tools. Apple has all of those, of course, but in July 2019, Apple VP Kyle Andeer testified to Congress that the company and its authorized service providers perform only four types of iPhone repair: display, battery, speaker, and camera. If your phone dies (when it is no longer covered by warranty or optional AppleCare coverage) and it can’t be fixed by one of those repairs, Apple may suggest you buy another phone. Jessa Jones, founder of iPad Rehab, a mobile device repair shop in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., says that’s disingenuous. “I think that my customers are largely unaware that what they’re being told by the manufacturer of the device, about the problem that they’re having and about the repairability of that problem, is false,” she told The Markup. “We aim to avoid the need for repair in the first place,” Apple spokesperson Keri Fulton said in a statement to The Markup. “But when a repair is needed, there should be safe, dependable options available to bring a device back to its best possible performance.” Jones runs a popular YouTube channel on which she uses her soldering skills under a microscope to perform several repairs that Apple does not offer. She particularly specializes in restoring data from dead phones—often helping people recover precious photos of loved ones. “There’s a chip on the board that is soldered on there that contains all of your memories, and those memories are encrypted by default,” Jones said, and it’s time-consuming though entirely possible to retrieve. Our ability to just take something from the junkyard of iPhone parts and plug it into your new phone is becoming increasingly limited. - Jessa Jones, founder of iPad Rehab “The only way to decrypt that and get them back out is you’ve got to get a multi-meter out and solve problems on that logic board,” she said. Jones also noted that there are many relatively simple repairs that shouldn’t require a trip to the Apple Store or an authorized dealer. Tips are easy to find online, and sites like iFixit offer detailed repair guides, tools, and replacement parts. Independent phone repair shops can be found in towns large and small, but they often operate without official manufacturer certifications to repair devices. These shops may use unofficial aftermarket parts from overseas, or replacement parts harvested from inoperable phones. But like many other device manufacturers, Apple increasingly employs strict digital controls over the hardware that the device detects, making non-Apple repairs of some components impossible without Apple diagnostic tools. “Our ability to just take something from the junkyard of iPhone parts and plug it into your new phone is becoming increasingly limited, because the parts are now serialized, meaning there’s a serial number in the part that the phone refuses to operate [without],” said Jones. Fulton from Apple declined to comment but pointed The Markup to the company’s 2020 Environment Report, which says products are becoming easier to repair. “For our iPhone devices, we’ve utilized stretch release adhesives, which securely hold the battery during use yet can be swiftly debonded by service partners to install replacements,” the report says. Apple is not alone in making devices that are hard to repair. Jones said manufacturers of Android devices employ manufacturing techniques that make repairs difficult. iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens told The Markup, though, that there are manufacturers who are voluntarily adopting right-to-repair principles. “Motorola is the first smartphone manufacturer that stepped up and is basically complying with right to repair,” he said. “They have worked with us.” There’s a Diverse, Growing Movement Behind the Right to Repair—but It Faces Hurdles Some of the earliest calls for right-to-repair legislation came from farmers, who’ve been struggling for the ability to fix their own John Deere tractors for years. John Deere equipment is sold with software restrictions that only authorized technicians can bypass, . frustrating traditionally self-reliant farmers During their campaigns for president, both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders cited the plight of these farmers unable to repair their own equipment and called for a national right-to-repair law as part of a host of proposals to help American farmers that ended up being adopted as for 2020. a plank in the Democratic platform A spokesperson for John Deere declined to comment. The company has recently made an effort to smooth things over, offering a program with diagnostics, training, and documentation for farmers wanting to do their own repairs, starting in 2021. In 2018, an won long-sought exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow farmers and other consumers to —without breaking the law. These (which are considered every three years under the law) enable the legal “jailbreaking” of new phones, voice assistants, and software locks on tractors, cars, and home appliances—though not on video game consoles. Importantly, they also allow you to hire someone to do this breaking for you. alliance of right-to-repair advocates break software locks on the products they own latest exemptions Massachusetts, where a voter-initiative with in favor, shows the potential popularity of expanding such laws. automotive right-to-repair law passed in 2012 86 percent voting This November, Massachusetts voters will consider an , which would allow consumers to access and control the automobile diagnostic and telemetric data that’s increasingly sent directly to car manufacturers via cellular radios. update to the automotive law Massachusetts also has a consumer electronics right-to-repair bill that advocates say is the furthest along of any in the country, though it’s currently awaiting a vote by both chambers of the state legislature. In 2018 … Apple, Verizon, Facebook, AT&T, Toyota, Caterpillar, and others successfully lobbied against a proposed New York State ‘Fair Repair Act.’ The Massachusetts bill has served as a template for proposed automotive and consumer electronic right-to-repair legislation around the country—some of which has come close to becoming law, only to be killed at the last minute by lobbying from electronics and automobile manufacturers. New York State for 2018, for instance, show that Apple, Verizon, Facebook, AT&T, Toyota, Caterpillar, and others all successfully lobbied against a proposed “ .” lobbying disclosures Fair Repair Act Industry groups opposing right to repair include Consumer Technology Association, , and TechNet (a large industry group whose members include Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Comcast). Association of Equipment Manufacturers In 2019, TechNet’s then Northeast executive director, before the Massachusetts state legislature’s Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure in opposition to the proposed . Christina Fisher, testified digital right-to-repair bill Fisher argued that the bill was “legislation in search of a problem”—that consumers already have plenty of choices for repairs and that such laws would hurt innovation. TechNet declined to comment for this story, pointing The Markup to the group’s previous statements. An all-star list of engineers and cyber security professionals founded Securepairs in 2018 to counter these arguments, which the group says are . without merit What Comes Next? If Massachusetts were to pass the nation’s first consumer electronic right-to-repair law, it could have national influence. When the Massachusetts Automotive Right to Repair bill passed in 2012, all major car manufacturers signed a voluntarily adopting the requirements of the Massachusetts law nationwide. memorandum of understanding Aside from legislation, Apple does appear to be moving forward with several efforts at for its products, but recent , disclosed as part of a U.S. House antitrust subcommittee hearing in July, show internal confusion surrounding these initiatives. increasing the availability of parts and repairs internal emails “What is our repair strategy? Are we comfortable releasing our repair manuals for all products moving forward?” read one email from Lori Lodes, Apple’s former director of corporate communications, from March 2019. 13,000 - Number of service and maintenance manuals for life-saving equipment that iFixit collected and made available online. Apple declined to comment on these emails directly and referred The Markup back to its 2020 Environment Report, in which the company says it has “broadened the reach of Apple authorized service repair. Through a partnership with Best Buy, we added 1000 more AASP locations in 2019, tripling the number of U.S. AASP locations compared to three years ago.” Meanwhile, prompted by the pandemic, there’s a bit of a guerrilla movement afoot, at least when it comes to medical devices. When Wiens, CEO of repair website iFixit, heard about the crisis of the shortage of ventilators in Italy as that country struggled at the height of its first wave of COVID-19 cases, he wanted to help. Aside from selling replacement parts and repair tools, iFixit offers for repairing electronics—and Wiens decided they could do something similar for crucial medical equipment. detailed documentation Wiens and his team collaborated with volunteers to collect and organize a free library of more than for lifesaving medical equipment. The move was potentially so far, the materials remain online. 13,000 service and maintenance manuals legally risky, but . Originally published as " Why Can’t I Fix My Own Phone, Toaster, or Tractor? " with the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license

Why are so Many Opposing the Right-to-Repair Laws

Broken phones are an everyday occurrence. In the United States alone, phone screens are cracked every two seconds, and almost three-fourths of the population have broken their smartphone. How is this currently being handled Annually, almost 100 million smartphones are damaged by accidental drops, amounting to almost $30 billion in electronic devices. That being said, over 50% of consumers would rather replace their device than repair it, wasting time, effort, and money, and would rather use their damaged phone until it’s not functional before repairing it. 21% of people Breaks are so common because most people don’t take the precautions to protect their device. Almost half of the population who broke their devices weren’t using cases when the damage occurred. Common areas where damage occurs are in cars or parking lots, the workplace, bodies of water, and during physical activity. After damage occurred, over 50% of consumers took more precautions like adding a phone case and being more aware of the way they handle their device. Why choose repair over replacement? There are many benefits to repairing your device rather than purchasing a new one. Every time someone repairs their phone, it means fewer manufactured devices, which lowers greenhouse gas emissions and prevents harmful chemicals that phones contain from polluting the environment. In addition, repairs require less energy and support resource conservation by reducing the need to mine new raw materials.  Not only is it more beneficial for the environment, but it also saves you time and money. Repairing your device also lends to a better consumer experience. Repairs have been proven to be more convenient; instead of transferring files and adjusting to a new device, you can keep all your information. Repairs are also much more convenient for your wallet.  Instead of paying over $1,000 for a new smartphone, consumers will spend just a fraction of that on a repair. Before concerning yourself with potential damages or repairs, there are steps you can take to extend the life of your device. Getting a sturdy, protective case made of materials like silicone or rubber that is shock absorbent will best protect your smartphone against drops. Screen protectors can protect against aesthetic damages like scratches. In the unfortunate event that you damage your phone, look into repairing rather than replacing it. More stats and valuable insights have been included in the : infographic

Hacking The Phone Repair Revolution: Current Phone Replacement Cycle

As my friends discuss some up and coming opportunities in the technology space, something came up this afternoon about a new law that’s been approved by 75% of voters in Massachusetts, called “right-to-repair”. I’ve done some reading and got some interesting thoughts for the near future. Do we know all about our car/bike/truck? We all own automobiles, but we aren’t sure if we own the data generated by it. You have the vehicle, but if you take that to a local mechanic and if they can’t read the health of that vehicle — they cannot help you troubleshoot it or fix if something’s wrong. This can be done by storing data in the obscure proprietary format, limiting the ability to read the data, not following a global open protocol to read it, etc., This is unfair as it sounds, which could only benefit the companies and forbid the owners from getting it checked/repaired wherever they want. What does right-to-repair enable? This is a measure that amends and broadens a law that gives consumers the right to repair the vehicles they own. The measure will require that sell vehicles with telematics systems to equip them with a beginning with the model year . automakers standardized open data platform 2022 This standardized open data platform has to give vehicle owners and independent repair facilities direct access and the ability to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application. ( ). source What data does my car capture? A simple thing to start could be your engine light. Everybody says that if you see it up — there’s something wrong. Unless you have a way to read what’s happening under the hood, you cannot fix it. If the car manufacturer doesn’t allow you to read this data, your local mechanic can’t fix it. So, you have to get it fixed by the manufacturer, who could be charging much higher given various price dynamics. To enable this, all the mechanical details in any vehicle can be read using a common standardized port called There are laws passed in the past to make this standardized and enable people to know the diagnostics data of their vehicles. OBD port — OBD stands for On-board Diagnostics. Sophistication in cars & data transmission Car as know is changing every moment. Cars today are closer to computers, sophisticated systems that can detect what’s inside and around. They have got a ton of sensors to detect everything around them. Every monitoring and sensing device will emit data, as the sensing can happen only when a signal of data is being transmitted to its brain-like processor. While this gets processed, it also gets stored somewhere for analyzing later to either enhance the driving experience or to learn from the driving patterns to become more cognitive. Sophisticated cars and self-driving enabled cars like Tesla data as they drive around, from the cameras and other sensors, and the computers can use that data to learn by example. collect Autopilot This data gets transmitted wirelessly to the cloud and the owner can’t decode it or read this data for any of his advantages. As the sophistication increases, the touchpoints where the proprietory plugs can be added also increases, which restricts a lot of vehicle diagnostic firms and mechanics from understanding or analyzing it. Possibilities by enabling this data to be read My thoughts around the opportunities and possibilities that open up with these data-sharing laws are endless. For example, if we can analyze this telemetry data, which is wirelessly transmitted to let the owners know more about the health of their car, it would be damn good stuff. It’s like wearing a Fitbit or Apple watch for your body. You get to know what’s happening underneath, you’ll get warnings if something’s not right apart from standard diagnostics provided by the manufacturer. To do this, one must understand more about cars, how this additional data can be inferred, and, should be able to provide some useful insights and metrics from that. Take away from this article From all this, we see that data emitted by every sensor on an automobile is valuable. Democratizing the access to it would be awesome (though there are some concerns about manipulating it and safety concerns as every good step has). For app developers and innovators out there, if you can derive 4 important metrics that matter, you can make a Fitbit for cars that are ‘car agnostic’ — without having to worry about the manufacturer compatibility. Follow me if you would like to hear about more such analyses and discussions from our brainstorming sessions. Also published . here

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