Five products designed not to last

Don’t you hate it when something breaks just after the warranty runs out? Or what about that new electronic gadget that fails to work with your old accessories from the same manufacturer?

Some of these infuriating problems were caused on purpose, by product designers practicing “planned obsolescence.” Planned obsolescence occurs when something is intended to wear out or stop being useful after a predetermined period of time — and that time is often as short as a few years.

Critics have long complained that planned obsolescence wastes consumers’ money, uses up valuable resources, and chokes our landfills.

The good news is that consumers are not entirely at the mercy of corporations. Armed with some information and foresight you can extend the life of some products or avoid buying them entirely. Here are strategies for dealing with some of the most irritating sources of planned obsolescence.

MP3 Players

Planned obsolescence is a fact of life when it comes to consumer electronices. MP3 players are a glaring example. These units are rarely upgradable with more memory and their lithium-ion batteries often wear out before the product does.

In the worst case, such as with Apple iPods, the battery can’t be removed easily by consumers, forcing an expensive service request when it runs out. These advanced batteries are often expensive ($75 or more in the case of laptops, but still pricey for smaller devices), so extending the life is no trifling matter.

Luckily, there are a number of good quality “generic” batteries on the market for many devices. You can easily find them on eBay and elsewhere. These typically are not recommended by manufacturers, but problems are rare. It also isn’t that difficult to replace the battery in your iPod, and directions and how-to videos are online.

Finally, you can often prolong the life of your device by taking good care of it. Keep it out of temperature extremes, keep it clean and follow the charging/use patterns recommended by your manufacturer. In many cases, lithium-ion batteries do better if they are not run all the way down.

Ink Cartridges

A set of new inkjet cartridges can cost more than the printer itself…yet you may be prevented from using every expensive drop of pigment. Many ink cartridges come with proprietary smart chips on them that disable printing when one of the colors falls to a certain level, even if there’s really enough ink to do the job. Plus, the smart chips can discourage refilling or use of third-party ink.
Buy cartridges that let you refill the ink. This cuts down on plastic use, and saves you serious money. You can also probably get away with printing less. Use draft and grayscale settings to save ink, and optimize content from the web or email before you send to the printer, so you don’t waste ink on headers, footers and ads you don’t want. You can also skip printing by using online backup services, Google docs and emailing things to yourself.

Software

In software, as with some video game hardware, many titles are incompatible with previous files or programs. This definitely gives consumers incentive to upgrade across the board. Many users are also forced to upgrade to new editions after publishers stop providing support to older versions.

Instead of proprietary software, use open source titles, which are usually free for typical users, including upgrades. You also may be able to save money by using general titles instead of specialized ones that only do one thing, since you are less likely to get trapped into expensive service or upgrades later. For example, use Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets instead of custom accounting software. Some users may also find that they don’t really need to get the latest and greatest upgrades, unless there are security reasons to do so.

Textbooks

Planned obsolescence isn’t limited to newer kinds of technology. Even though not much changes from year to year for most core subjects, textbook publishers issue frequent updates. Trouble is, each new edition is usually printed with the information shifted to different page numbers, making it difficult to follow along in class with a previous volume.

Given that textbooks are quite expensive, some students are fighting back by buying recently used texts at a fraction of the cost from places like Craigslist. Or perhaps even cheaper and more convenient, you may be able to rent the textbooks you need. Chegg.com, for example, is a mail service not unlike Netflix, in which shipping on return books is free. Chegg plants a tree for every book users rent, sell or buy, and rental costs range from about 10% of list price to about 30%.

Finally, some savvy students have discovered that they need not even buy every text on the class list; rarely used ones can be referenced at the library or shared among friends.

Fast Fashion

One year fishnets are out, the next year they’re in. Unless you have your own warehouse like Demi Moore, chances are good that you don’t hang on to every piece of clothing you own to wait until acid wash comes back into vogue. Whether it’s because of cuts, hemlines or colors, a lot of what is advertised and sold is designed to go out of style in a short time.

Instead of buying the latest and greatest apparel, consider timeless classics. Vintage clothes are a great green choice, and offer nearly endless style possibilities. Avoid so-called “fast fashion,” which is churned out quickly based on ephemeral trends and isn’t designed to last. Rent the items you’ll only wear once or twice, like tuxedos, prom dresses or possibly even hand bags. Finally, learn to mend the clothes you already have — that’s the greenest option yet!

By becoming more educated consumers, we can enjoy higher value and have less environmental impact.

By Brian Clark Howard

New Laptops Dont Live Long

So your new laptop computer died in inside of a year. “I’ll never buy a computer from [insert manufacturer name here] again!” I’ve heard the protests time and time again.

Yeah, maybe you got a lemon, but no matter which brand you bought, you truly are not alone in this situation: An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade, which provides aftermarket warranty coverage for electronics products, has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail.

That’s actually better than I would have expected based on my experience and observations on how people treat their equipment.

SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company’s study is available here) on the research on its website. But here are some highlights about how, why, and which laptops fail:

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you’re more careful with it?).

> The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP’s hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade’s analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent.

None of the numbers are overly surprising. As SquareTrade notes, “the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones),” so failures are really inevitable.

Want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years? Ensure your laptop is as drop-proofed as possible (use a padded bag or case, route cords so they won’t be tripped on, lock children in another room), and protect it as best you can from heat and dust.

By Christopher Null

Apple’s New Mouse Has no Buttons or Wheels

On the heels of announcing blockbuster earnings for the past quarter, Apple unveils a slew of new products, including a pair of iMacs with razor-sharp, 16:9 displays, a redesigned plastic MacBook, and a new mouse that you can swipe with your fingertip, à la the iPhone.

First up: Meet the “Magic Mouse,” a touch-enabled successor to the tepid, trackball-toting Mighty Mouse. A sleek, smooth sliver of plastic, the wireless Magic Mouse comes without dedicated buttons or wheels; instead, you perform simple multi-touch gestures (like tapping, swiping, and “zooming” on the iPhone) on the mouse’s curved surface to select, rotate, or otherwise manipulate items on the screen. Lefties and righties can also configure the Magic Mouse as they see fit, according to Apple. I’ve yet to try the new Magic Mouse in person, but Engadget says that the new peripheral “feels much thinner than its predecessor,” and that “the whole front of the unit provides a satisfying, unified click.” Interesting. The price tag: $69.

Next: the new iMacs, including a 27-incher and a 21.5-inch model. Both retain the basic, all-in-one iMac design, but the upgraded models arrive with what look to be gorgeous new LED-backlit displays, complete with 16:9 aspect ratios ideal for movie fanatics. The new 21.5-inch iMac boasts a 1920 by 1080-pixel display, same as on your standard 1080p flatscreen, while the 27-inch model comes with a whopping 2560 by 1440 pixels … or in other words, 1440p. Nice.

The two new iMacs also deliver upgraded graphics chipsets, with the choice of integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M or dedicated ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics in the 21.5-inch model, or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4670 or 8850 graphics in the 27-inch iMac.

As usual, the new iMacs don’t come cheap, but even the priciest 27-inch model starts south of $2,000, with the 3.06GHz, 4GB 21.5-inch iMac (with a 500GB hard drive) beginning at $1,199, while the cheaper of two 27-inch configurations (with a 3.06GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive) starts at $1,699. Not included in the mix: Blu-ray support.

Moving right along, we’ve got a redesigned white plastic MacBook, which now takes on the “unibody” design of its bigger MacBook Pro brothers. The MacBook’s new polycarbonate shell weighs in at about 4.7 ounces and measures 1.8 inches thick, and it also comes with a non-replacable seven-hour battery—again, same as with the updated MacBook Pro line. Other improvements include an LED-backlit display and a bigger multi-touch glass trackpad. Prices still start at $999, though (for the 2.26GHz model with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive).

Last but not least: an upgraded Mac Mini, now with a faster processor (up to 2.66GHz) and more memory (up to 4GB), with prices starting at $599. Power users can also snap up a 2.53GHz Mini with dual 500GB hard drives and Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard pre-installed, for $999.

So, what do you think: Ready for the touch-sensitive Magic Mouse? How about the new, cinema-ready iMacs? Still chafing at Apple’s high prices, or do the new price points sound reasonable?

By Ben Patterson

Fake Security Software Affects Millions

Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime.

Cyberthieves are increasingly planting fake security alerts that pop up when computer users access a legitimate website. The “alert” warns them of a virus and offers security software, sometimes for free and sometimes for a fee.

“Lots of times, in fact they’re a conduit for attackers to take over your machine,” said Vincent Weafer, Symantec’s vice president for security response.

“They’ll take your credit card information, any personal information you’ve entered there and they’ve got your machine,” he said, referring to some rogue software’s ability to rope a users’ machine into a botnet, a network of machines taken over to send spam or worse.

Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43 million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.

“In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it’s tens of millions,” Weafer said.

It was also impossible to tell how much cyberthieves made off with but “affiliates” acting as middlemen to convince people to download the software were believed to earn between 1 cent per download and 55 cents.

TrafficConverter.biz, which has been shut down, had boasted that its top affiliates earned as much as $332,000 a month for selling scam security software, according to Weafer.

“What surprised us was how much these guys had tied into the whole affiliated model,” Weafer said. “It was more refined than we anticipated.”

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Gunna Dickson)
Copyright Reuters

Apple Drops Prices on its Entire iPod Line

Just hours before its “rock and roll” music event was set to kick off in San Francisco, Apple went ahead and chopped the price of its entire iPod Touch line by as much as $120. Also: price cuts for the Nano, Classic.
The 32GB iPod Touch—formerly $399, or a whopping $110 more than the upcoming 32GB version of the competing Zune HD—now sells for $279, a $120 discount that slightly undercuts the new Zune.

Meanwhile, the 16GB version of the Touch got a $50 price cut to $249—cheaper, but still $30 more than the 16GB Zune HD (which is slated to go on sale next week; check out my hands-on impressions). Finally, the 8GB Touch got a $40 haircut, to $189 from $229.

The iPod Touch wasn’t the only iPod model to get a price cut. Apple also trimmed the price tag of its iPod Nano players by $50 for the 16GB version (was $199, now $149) and $20 for the 8GB device (was $149, now $129). Also cheaper: the venerable, 120GB iPod Classic, now $229 after a $20 price cut.

The discounts come amid rumors of new iPods with built-in cameras (which may or may not be unveiled later today), although there has been chatter (all unconfirmed) of manufacturing problems that may delay their release.

And then there’s the touchscreen Zune HD, set for release Sept. 15, that boasts 720p HD video playback on an external HDTV with the help of an optional HDMI-enabled A/V dock. The Zune, of course, has a mighty big hill to climb before it can even begin to compete with iPod sales, but the Zune HD’s price tags—$289 for the 32GB model, and $219 for the 16GB version—were considerably cheaper than those of the iPod Touch before today’s price cut.

By Ben Patterson