The Wake

Photo by Ben Alpert

Now I’m as much of a technophile as the next geek. I’ve built computers and bought my fair share of surround systems, HDTVs and the latest, greatest videogame consoles. Most of them have been great, but something has plagued me over the last year and I don’t think I’m alone. It seems that with every technological stride we take, a hundred new problems come to fruition. As we add more and more gadgets to our lives, we need to ask something: Is it going to work in a year?

This past July, Microsoft proved my point when they were forced to extend their warranties and reimburse many early adopters of the Xbox 360. The $400 console suffered through a plague of the Red Ring of Death. In polling done by DailyTech.com, nearly one third of respondents witnessed the flashing red lights that signaled the consoles untimely end.

In the aftermath of this fiasco Microsoft was forced to initially extend warranties from a measly 90 days to a year, eventually settling for three. In addition, the software behemoth was forced to reimburse customers who paid for their dead console out of warranty. This cost the company between $1.05 and $1.15 billion.

Microsoft is now also facing a class-action lawsuit involving their other 800-pound gorilla, Windows Vista. Throughout 2006, the company stamped “Windows Vista Capable” on millions of computers, including the one that is being typed on at this very moment. That statement turned out to be true in this case, but not for a large core of computers sold during that holiday season. Nearly all of these computers couldn’t run the highly touted Aero user interface, though this was taken out of the class-action case.

Here it is straight from the Associated Press:

“U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but whittled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft’s “Vista Capable” labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn’t be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007.”

Now let’s not make Microsoft the whipping boy. Incompatibility and untimely death isn’t solely their territory. The Japanese government recently stated that recent Apple iPod Nanos sold in that country sparked while charging. The spark is linked to the lithium-ion battery used inside that model. Lithium-ion batteries are commonly used in cell phones, portable music players and laptops. The technology has forced major recalls from manufacturers like Dell, Apple and Sony.

Now I haven’t personally dealt with any of these of problems, but I have had my fair share of technological end games. When I bought a Sony digital camera for a trip to London, I didn’t think much about the possibility of it failing. Within two weeks the camera was dead. I was forced to call Sony’s warranty center in America. They claimed that I would have to send it back to the States. After making a few more calls, I was able to send the camera to the UK repair center, for no cost. Three months later the shutter button fell off the camera. Luckily I still had that warranty.

This was the first case in a long line of technology fucking me over. Next thing I knew my HP laptop didn’t hold a charge for more than 45 minutes. Then it decided that it didn’t like being charged at all, so I have to the move the power cord every which way in order to get the power flowing. That’s convenient.

Samsung decided that my brand new phone didn’t need a dedicated headphone jack, instead forcing me to plug an adapter into the power port to listen to music. Not only can you not charge the phone while listening to music, but the constant wear of the power port caused it to break. When I sent it out for a repair, they sent it back, claiming that the internal port was an external part and not under warranty. I had to hand out another $40 to get it replaced and now I pay $7 a month so I don’t have to deal with this problem again.

Even more recently I bought a Seagate external hard drive. I thought it was a good deal until the USB port decided to no longer work. When I received a free replacement a few weeks later I realized that it wasn’t my negligence, but the fact that the USB port was missing the female connectors; any bad move and I’ll have to call in for another one, waiting on the phone for 30 minutes with a less-than-interested customer service rep in India who calls himself Bob when he’s on the job. Oh, and they’re only open until 7 p.m., if you’re wondering. So when exactly am I supposed to call?

The technologies that we use everyday have become ticking time bombs. I’m waiting with bated breath for the next mishap. When did reputable companies like Sony become so money-hungry that they can’t engineer a camera that doesn’t break every five months? We shouldn’t be forced into extended warranties because the powers that be are money hungry. Just give me a product that works, you know, like you used to. My grandpa has had the same TV since I was born. That’s at least 22 years. Maybe you should follow that example and make products that last in order to keep us coming back rather than biting the hand the feeds you. Oh, wait, that TV can’t be used next year.

Thanks, guys.