Although we’d rather bring you news of clever modifications and repairs down on the farm, more often than not, the name “John Deere” has appeared on the pages of Hackaday because of their opposition to farmers actually being able to work on the machines their livelihoods depend on. But thanks to a settlement reached between the company and the Federal Trade Commission this week, farmers seem to have been handed a much-needed win in the Right to Repair battle.
When a lawsuit against a company ends in a settlement, it usually means spending money they would rather pay than go to court. Indeed, earlier cases against John Deere have resulted in plenty of checks being written. But this time around, the FTC agreement requires Deere to make its diagnostic and repair software available to owners and independent shops. It also has a clause that prevents them from retaliating against owners who want to handle their own repairs rather than going through the company’s official service channels — hard to believe that’s something that actually needs to be specified, but it does give you a hint as to just how bad the situation has been. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this story.
Sounds like the Feds were busy this week, as the Federal Communications Commission also gave the green light to Reflect Orbital to launch a prototype satellite for their controversial “sunlight as a service” concept. The company plans to put the spacecraft into a roughly 600 km orbit around the planet, where it will deploy its 324-square-meter reflector and angle itself to illuminate a spot on the ground. It might sound like something a Bond villain would come up with, but Reflect Orbital says the capability will be used to beam sunlight directly onto solar panels at night and to provide light for search-and-rescue operations.
As you might expect, providing such a service on a global scale would require many such reflectors, which is where the concern really comes in. Critics note that a sky full of literal mirrors can cause all sorts of issues, ranging from the scientific to the scenic. The American Astronomical Society points out that each satellite in the constellation could appear to be four times as bright as the full Moon, and that it’s possible an amateur sky watcher could get an eyeball full of redirected sunlight should one of them unexpectedly zip past the aperture of their backyard telescope.
