I think NFTs were this niche thing only crypto people were dealing. It was not a wide cultural phenomenon. I bet the majority of the population don't know what it is.
I'm not sure if I'd call it culture wide, but a significant number of non-tech people in my life were not just aware of it but actively considering "investing".
The physical barcode reader is long gone in Belgium. Instead, you scan the QR code with your banking app (or on mobile, click a link to open the banking app), and either verify directly for amounts under €250 (?), or verify big amounts with ItsMe, another app, using Face ID.
It would have been so easy for Bambu to embrace freedom and privacy and continue to enjoy our loyalty all the way to the bank, but apparently they've got to burn down what they've got.
I've got an a1 mini myself, and I'm not aware of anything comparable on the market, but there's a clear need for some competition now.
For the market overall this is great: Bambu is forcing the other manufacturers to innovate on features, ease of use and affordability in order to keep up. At the same time Bambu's antics prevent them from completely dominating. Any new printer that can compare to a Bambu (or exceed it in interesting ways) gets rewarded with customers that want anything but Bambu
It's a much more interesting and dynamic place than before Bambu's market entry
I find it interesting that many commenters here do not regard anything as 'competitive' unless it offers the same price/performance, while completely disregarding these lock-ins and privacy invasions. It seems that the reason we have all these restrictive and otherwise problematic companies is that you folks just do not assign a cost to their behaviour.
I was not aware of this behaviour when I bought it.
But you raise a good issue: are they selling these at a loss in order to leverage some sort of lock-in? If that's the reason they're so cheap, that's important to know.
I honestly wouldn't mind paying twice as much for something that's more open. But it's also an issue I haven't looked very deeply into. For my first 3d printer I just wanted something cheap and foolproof.
Without the AMS, a Prusa Mk4 (used?) You're always going to pay a bit more but they're European built and extremely repairable. Unfortunately you do need to pay for the Mk4 or Core to match Bambu's ease of use. The Mini is also great for occasional use if you don't need a big build volume.
The Mk3 is also easy, and can be had for cheap now, but it doesn't have auto Z-adjust which is really nice. It's also noticeably slower compared to the latest models.
Creality K2 Combo[1] is pretty much spec for spec a P2S. Add in OrcaSlicer (Bamboo Slicer fork), and you basically have a non-closed system P2S. I've printed 652 hours on it since December, about 4.7km worth of filament has been ran through it. Great upgrade over the Creality K1 that is sitting next to it.
Eleego Centauri Carbon is cheaper and is just plug and play. I have no experience with 3D printing and have been using it for a while with no problems or messing around with the printer.
Most printers these days will give you good performance when you buy them. Bigger issue is how reliable it'll be after you put 1000 hours on it. Bambu Lab is the best in that regard, but many other brands will give you the results you want, you'll just need to become good at troubleshooting.
Check out the qidi q2 (or the q2c depending on what you plan to print) - it reviews well compared to the p2s or even the x1c, runs fully open firmware, and is a fair bit cheaper than the bambu comparables.
> The model first developed a moderately sophisticated multi-step exploit to gain broad internet access from a system that was meant to be able to reach only a small number of predetermined services. [9] It then, as requested, notified the researcher. [10] In addition, in a concerning and unasked-for effort to demonstrate its success, it posted details about its exploit to multiple hard-to-find, but technically public-facing, websites.
> 10: The researcher found out about this success by receiving an unexpected email from the model while eating a sandwich in a park.
Here in Belgium too. Somehow they don’t properly work if you have other Bluetooth devices connected, so the app forces you to disconnect other devices. Then it needs access to precise geolocation, and not just because Bluetooth requires it - I have to turn on location services.
In the old system, I could just punch in the code or scan the QR code, but now I have to do this dance of “why won’t it connect?” every time
That's not how it works - the idea is your navigation app signals the lights in advance. If you will reach red lights in 1km, the app signals this and the lights will be green before you're there, so you don't need to slow down.
Flemish EMT here. There were a lot of privacy concerns for emergency services when this came out, and my service is in fact not using it on most ambulances. The same concerns were hand-waved away when it came to apps for regular drivers. It would not surprise me if that played a role for Google Maps/Waze not to support it. Or the market is too small here to be worth implementing.
In the US, there’s a thing called the Opticom. It’s just an extra light that is installed along with the normal light bar, and the traffic light recognizes the strobe pattern, and changes. https://www.fedsig.com/product/opticom/
But highly susceptible to unauthorized use. The app version can also alert drivers directly with an audible alert that an emergency vehicle is close by
Long ago I used to read i-hacked.com with great interest. They had an article about a DIY "MIRT" which produced the right infrared signal to trigger these:
Of course this article came with many disclaimers that to actually do this would be very illegal.
I was more than a little sad when I typed i-hacked.com into the browser and got redirected to some etsy page. Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine, I guess.
Or by doing even a slight amount of encoding of the IR signal. Transmitting a single byte as a key (set by region, same as fire dept. elevator keys) would be enough to prevent people from using their TV remote controls or whatever to trip the preempt sensors.
That being said, this is kind of a non-issue already, I have heard a story about someone abusing the preempt sensors like 10 years ago and never since then. Maybe there already exists an encoding scheme.
Anecdotal of course, but in my 20 years of driving I've never once seen a vehicle activate the red light override sensors that wasn't obviously a legitimate emergency vehicle.
IMO a huge majority of people realize how illegal it would be to mess with these things, and the risk/reward is very low. Anyone who would take that risk would probably just run a red light instead.
Not really a real problem that actually happens, but you could fix it by only making it work with visible light pulses. Sure, people still might use it illegally, but you couldn’t be very subtle about it.
The concern was related to being able to know where emergency vehicles were. If you build a system that announces to traffic light “I’m police/fire/EMS, coming through”, you also build an early warning system for criminals and terrorists who either want to avoid or target you.
I think these systems used RF before, so anything in the vicinity could listen in. That said, if this new system is a phone app, it'll just be using phone data instead, so it'd be hard for that to be intercepted.
If we are assuming terrorists that can get real time access to government servers, we should assume they will access the servers used by the dispatchers and so can find out when an emergency vehicle leaves and where its destination is.
That is probably more useful for planning an attack on emergency vehicles.
Although why even bother with servers? Just call in a fake emergency (or cause a real emergency) at a place of your choosing, and the government will send emergency vehicles to you.
At least in the UK ambulance crews are extremely tightly monitored (mostly for good reasons) so surprised there would be any privacy concerns for crew on the clock.
This is my brother's job, testing for contaminants. He says it can be very boring. For example, they always test for lead, and it's always negative. But it's a necessary precaution when you're making medicine.
I think people don't really understand the requirements you need to meet to get and maintain FDA clearance. I think even under the current administration, you still could have an obligation to do that testing.
That’s all true when the medicine is made here. More and more of every day medicine these days is made in countries with fewer safety regulations like India and China. FDA may inspect them from to time but they have no jurisdiction to actually do anything about violations.
