Hello again,
It's another edition of Let’s Talk Tech Thursday, which is back to the usual format, but not the usual day. We'll get there...
Welcome, then, to the first weekend edition of LT3! It’s a bumper edition, to make up for the tardiness.
Our top story this week comes out of Brussels, as they demand all new phones have replaceable batteries from 2027. Well, they demand most new phones... actually, some new phones. We'll get into it...
Also, we take a look at a new good thing from Google, a shiny new rock from China, a delightful new collaboration between food delivery and accessible tech, and we check in on the definitely not-new Voyager I probe.
And for our blog spotlight, we take a look at how you can reclaim the web for yourself.
Let's dig in...
Top Story
📱 Brussels will require all phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027
A quick summary
Starting next year, smartphones and tablets sold in the EU must feature replaceable batteries. Crucially, this must be possible "without any specialised tools or assistance". Futhermore, batteries must be made available for up to 5 years after a given model is on the market.
The move is part of a range of legislation coming into effect in Q1 next year, aimed at reducing the amount of electronic waste produced by member states.
There are some caveats
If, like me, you're old enough to be hankering for the days where you could just slide the back cover off your phone and pop in a new battery, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. We probably aren't going back. The legislation requires either that no specialist tools be required, or the required tools be included in the box with the device. Still, it's certainly an improvement.
Beyond that, there is another big caveat. Batteries that can hold 80% of their original charge after 1,000 charges are exempt from the new legislation. Newer high-end phones like the iPhone 15 onwards already make this claim, so it's unlikely that Apple will change the way they operate (and, technically, end-users can change the batteries in newer iPhones). While some see this as a cop-out on the part of the EU, the other way to look at it is that it encourages technology providers to give us better batteries as standard. If the aim is to reduce e-waste, then this feels like a good step forward.
A shift towards more repairable tech
We've talked before about the "Right to Repair" movement (LT3s 4 and 8 both featured RtR stories). It's the idea that owners of electronics goods should be able to freely repair these products. In some cases, this has evolved into legal rights, which over the last few years has been gaining momentum particularly when it comes to mobile phones. As of the start of this year, a little over a quarter of Americans live in a state with some kind of right to repair protected by law, and by the end of this year that number should be closer to 35%.
Meanwhile, some manufacturers lean into the idea of swapping parts out, not as a perk but as the very concept of the product. Modular devices like the Fairphone handsets or the Framework laptops, advertise a 'buy once, upgrade forever' style of model, ultimately turning your device into a Ship of Theseus (or, Trigger's broom, for the learned among us).
Back over this side of the pond, since 2024 EU states have mandated that manufacturers offer repair services that are available "within a reasonable time" and "for a reasonable price". This new legislation takes the premise a step further. With around three quarters of people's main reason for changing their phone down to ageing battery life, it stands to reason that making it easy to get a new battery - rather than a new phone - is a smart move.
What will that mean for the UK?
Legally, nothing. But a lot of the things the tech world have to do for the world's largest trading bloc end up being more cost effective to roll-out across all western markets, rather than having (in this case) two production lines for different constructions of phones.
It's unlikely the UK will enact similar legislation of its own, especially with Starmer likely to bow to his highness Trump on the separate but not un-related issue of a digital services tax. But I think it's likely we'll see the benefit regardless.
What else is happening in the world of tech?
You know me, I love a good space-related news story. A couple of weeks ago it was Artemis II, but long time LT3 fans will know my one true space-nerd-out love is the Voyager probes.
After last year's Hail Mary to keep the boosters going, NASA have picked the latest system to shutdown in order to keep Earth's furthest object flying. The LECP measures background particles, and while it proved to be incredibly valuable in helping us understand the boundary between the edge of our solar system and the rest of the galaxy, it has now become too much of a drain on the ever depleting power cells.
We've no idea how much longer we'll get out of Voyager I, but it's certainly not done yet!
Following on from our story a few weeks ago about Britain's first public test of "quantum navigation", China have announced a new breakthrough that will also reduce the need for GPS.
Nuclear clocks, much like atomic clocks, are very precise ways of keeping time by measuring particles. Which is about as useful an explanation as saying that walking and driving are two ways of getting you somewhere by moving you away from where you are. Where atomic clocks measure electron vibrations, nuclear clocks measure the vibrations in an atom’s nucleus (hence the name). The much smaller nucleus gives a more accurate time difference, but has so far been only theoretical. The new crystal allows for a much thinner laser, which in turn means we can now accurately measure the smaller vibrations.
Better timekeeping means better navigation, using a method called "dead reckoning". If you know your starting position, your direction, your speed, and the elapsed time, you can know exactly where you are in any medium. More accurate time keeping means exponentially better navigation, and crucially reduces the need to use GPS, which as we know from our quantum navigation story is prone to interference and actually isn't all that accurate anyway. Also, it doesn't work underwater. Or in space.
If you've spent any amount of time on the internet, chances are you've come across "back button hijacking". I see them all the time on news articles (another shoutout to RSS, which doesn't do this). I click a link, read the article, and then when I hit back, I'm taken to another page on that site. Sometimes it even takes me to what looks like the same article, but there are more ads.
If you have experienced this, under the hood one of two things is happening. Either the page is using a cheeky bit of code to insert fake entries into your browser history, or when you first click the link, it takes you to a page and then very quickly redirects you to another page. Either way, the days of that kind of thing may well be numbered. Google have promised to penalise sites that do this kind of thing. Sites reported for back button hijacking will start to appear lower down on search results, or even better delisted entirely.
It's not the first time Google has intervened to stop bad website practice. Formerly of "do no evil" fame, the company has made plenty of substantial changes to it's SEO algorithm to support good content. Back in 2011-12, the adorably named Panda and Penguin updates both tackled low quality and spammy websites by, respectively, demoting websites in the search rankings with heavily duplicated (read: plagiarised) content, and those with obsessive external and paid link use.
In one of those rare stories where robots end up actually being used for good things, Coco Robotics is partnering with BlindSquare to use the data captured by delivery robots to improve spoken alerts for visually impaired people.
The delivery robots are programmed to catalogue hazards that they need to navigate around on their routes - fallen bicycles, open manhole covers, and the like. This data will now be fed into BlindSqaure's app, which allows people to walk routes and be given voice directions. It's not unlike how you might log a road closure on Google Maps, and it be shared with other Google Maps users. Only it's delivery robots doing the logging.
BlindSquare only operates in a small number of locations, but perhaps this kind of thing might become more popular?
Blog spotlight
This week's blog spotlight comes from one of my favourite newsletters. Matthias Ott runs the Own Your Web newsletter, a periodic email all about taking back ownership of what the internet "should be". In other words, how do you make sure that your existence online is owned by you, and not by companies.
It is both easier and harder than it sounds, but Matthias does a great job of collating knowledge, advice, and considered opinion together. This edition looks at how to keep track of content without the "help" of the usual algorithm-driven feeds.
Definitely give it a read, and if you like it for sure sign up so you don't miss the next one.
And that wraps up another LT3. Thanks so much for reading (assuming you did read it, and didn't just jump down here to the end).
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