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A former jockey who was left paralyzed from the waist down after a horse riding accident was able to walk again thanks to a cutting-edge piece of robotic tech: a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton.

When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old, *404 media *reports.

"After 371,091 steps my exoskeleton is being retired after 10 years of unbelievable physical therapy," Michael Straight posted on Facebook earlier this month. "The reasons why it has stopped is a pathetic excuse for a bad company to try and make more money."

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[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 201 points 1 month ago

Fortunately, Lifeward eventually capitulated and Straight was able to get his exoskeleton repaired — but that was only after an intense campaign in which he went on local TV, got highlighted in a horse industry publication, and gained steam on social media. If it weren't for that, he could still be struggling to find a way to get his mobility back again.

Uhg, needed bad PR before they changed their mind

[-] RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

got highlighted in a horse industry publication

Wait what?

Edit: duh, he was a jockey. I should let the moment of confusion settle before replying.

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[-] nothingcorporate@lemmy.world 150 points 1 month ago

The future is stupid, we were promised jetpacks, not planned obsolescence mobility devices.

[-] TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 month ago

Oh, we already have jetpacks. They're just not affordable for the average person and are insanely dangerous to fly with. Also, afaik, they only get less than an hour of flight time.

[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 125 points 1 month ago

This is why nobody should ever put any tech in their brain. Among 50 billion other reasons.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 79 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Oh that already happened too. A bunch of blind people got implants and the company abandoned them.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 month ago

The first thing that came to mind.
This is turning into a pattern now, fuck, I wish the lawmakers would fucking do something about it!

Context for other readers: 'Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported' by Eliza Strickland and Mark Harris.
It's a disgrace.

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[-] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

That came to mind, too. If this shit isn't open source it is not worth spit.

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[-] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 119 points 1 month ago

Prosthetics that are no longer supported, should be fully open sourced.And the copyright should immediately expire.

Support your products, or let others do it.

[-] Azal@pawb.social 43 points 1 month ago

I work as a biomed, our hospital had to buy completely new sets of a type of ultrasound machine we have. Why?

Because in order to do the yearly preventative maintenance you have to go through the manufacturers program to test calibration. They stopped supporting it this year and shut it down. Legit these machines were working just fine, but now in order to keep up with verifying accuracy they're essentially bricked. They did it on the exact day they hit the year mark that they legally were required to support in order to sell medical grade equipment passed.

This is only going to get worse, not better.

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[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 25 points 1 month ago

Absolutely 100% this. Or at the very least, have all schematics and software source code and other such things placed in escrow so if the company refuses to support them there is some kind of option. This goes double for anything implanted.

[-] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 9 points 1 month ago

The IP and copyright laws is century old and in dire need to get reformed. Nintendo being able to takedown a video just because it show the title screen of one of their game for literally a split second is ridiculous. Or a studio able to take all of the revenue from someone's video because they hummed a tune for a few seconds.

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[-] Zip2@feddit.uk 78 points 1 month ago

Poor guy, I guess legally he hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 21 points 1 month ago

Thnx, that was some dark humor that really hit the spot for me.

[-] TheDeepState@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago

He shouldn’t stand for this!

[-] Zak@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

He can't. He's paralyzed and his exoskeleton is broken.

On a more serious note, the 404media article (login wall) reports the problem was that the wristwatch controller for the exoskeleton had its battery wire's solder joint break. They seem to be trying to frame it as a right to repair issue, but that's a trivial repair for anyone with basic electronics experience.

[-] quixotic120@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

It’s a trivial repair assuming that’s the extent of the damage and there’s not any quirks associated with an extremely complex medical device that has no documentation whatsoever. Like maybe after not having the controller’s power supply connected for such a length of time there needs to be a calibration process upon bringing it back to life that can only be done with proprietary software

The biggest thing though is that by going in and fixing it yourself you open yourself to the possibility that the company will now say “oh this was worked on by someone else and that’s why it’s broken, we won’t work on it now”. That’s the state of repair rights in America, vendors are openly hostile to people who fix their own things even if they do it sufficiently. We used to have political representation that gave us regulations to allow us to work on and even modify our cars without impacting the warranty but that’s been eroded and there’s not really anything of that nature for tech stuff (other than judgements saying broken warranty seals don’t count for anything)

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[-] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 30 points 1 month ago

This is something I wish cyberpunk media touched more on.

One thing I always thought about when playing cyberpunk 2077 is why wouldn't companies have a failsafe for their equipment being used against them. In the game, you can use cyber decks from Arisaka and Militech and be able to hack and assault their infrastructure and employees with impunity.

I am not really sure companies would allow that...

[-] III@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Overlooking the concept of a failsafe? How did they get past the concept of the subscription model?

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[-] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

Presumably those failsafes can be circumvented and your character being a cool hacker applies those exploits to their hardware.

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[-] aesthelete@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

why wouldn’t companies have a failsafe for their equipment being used against them

Because they got tired of paying for the whiny engineers that would have to implement the failsafe and so they fired them all.

[-] III@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

so they fired them all

Even fictional evil companies need to meet goals set by the board.

[-] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

That's the problem with cyberpunk as a genre. Its to cool. The first Deus Ex did it right. If it was in the hands of a better developer Watch Dogs could have too.

[-] butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago

Ghost in the Shell called it thirty years ago.

[-] mechoman444@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago

I work in appliance repair. My favorite appliance to fix are sub zero refrigerators. They're easy to work on, straight forward and the company continues to support their product as far back as models from the 1970s.

Subzero makes nothing more than household appliances a thankless industry plagued by planner obsolescence and they can supply parts for their appliances longer than a medical company.

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[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

Anything related to healthcare has no business being any closer to the whims of "the market" than the public roads.

It would be unheard of for a government to stop maintaining a public road because whomever was supplying some ingredient of the asphalt said that particular mix is "to old and the new mix is not compatible with the roads created using the old mix".

They don't want to do it anymore, fine, then provide whatever is needed for someone else to maintain it for the cost of the materials to print/email/upload to GitHub the technical documents. It should not be legal to get someone hooked on your life altering medical device then rug pull them like this.

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 19 points 1 month ago

Imagine if Intel snapped and disabled Stephen Hawking's wheelchair and computer, and he needed to pay for a new one with a different voice, absolutely helpless without it.

[-] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago
[-] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago

371k steps over 10 years is like 100 steps per day. Is it really slow, or did he only use it once a week?

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago

My guess is he would use a wheelchair at home where the area is prepared to accommodate it. The exoskeleton is likely slower and harder to wear around the house, but can make him mobile in places where a wheelchair can't go.

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[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago

[Insert Steel Ball Run Reference Here Because Someone Mentioned A Paralyzed Jockey]

Anyway...

Human Greed is what's obsolete and it is beyond past time to end support for it.

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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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