Restart Radio: Spare parts, consumer hype and a pre-emptive petition

We talked with long-time Restarter Dave Lukes about a couple of appliance repairs attempted in Brixton, at our first Restart Party of 2016. The success of both hinged on the ability to find affordable spare parts. In the case of a vacuum, this was not possible. In the case of a dehumidifier, we were actually able to find a replacement circuit board.

Then we did a sort-of debrief from the Consumer Electronics Show, a yearly monster of an event in Vegas, where manufacturers demo and introduce their shiny shiny products. There really was not too much to talk about, but we managed to have a laugh about the self-driving drone-car, smart belts, and a new turntable.

To close things out, we talked about a rumour that the iPhone 7 will have a new headphone jack, ditching the long-standing 3.5mm jack we all know and love. We talked about the technical, environmental and social implications, and then discussed the significance of a spontaneous online petition protesting this rumour to Apple, already signed by nearly 250,000 people.

For reference, in order of our discussion:

• Two Brixton repair businesses: The Spin Doctor and AGT Social
• Wired: Panasonic’s Reborn Turntable…  and Gizmodo: The Holiday’s Most Popular Home Audio Gadget was a Cheap Turntable
• Lifehacker The CES Trends that Will Matter in 2016
• Sum Of Us Petition “Apple is ditching the standard headphone jack to screw consumers and the planet“

[Feature image “134/365+1 Jacks” by Flickr user Wikidave is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0]

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