The 15-year-old passengers were riding in a driverless autonomous car around San Mateo Monday afternoon. The teens drank alcohol inside the Waymo taxi and shot Orbeez beads with a toy gun toward other vehicles.

A Waymo employee, who was remotely monitoring the car, tricked the unruly teenagers, authorities said. The employee told the young passengers that the Waymo was having mechanical issues and needed to stop.

Unknown to the teens, the employee had also called the San Mateo Police Department to report that a gun was firing from the car.

— The expectations of privacy in driverless cars – Terence Eden’s Blog by Terence Eden

Driverless cars are public spaces, currently owned by private companies who have the interest in protecting their property (the car) and their business (by being law-abiding, and avoiding issues like people dying in their cars).

Once (or if...) driverless cars become state owned, then I think that discussion should be relevant again.

In the late 1970s, concerned by resource use and scarcity, German industrial designer Dieter Rams developed his “ten principles for good design”. Among other things, he argued for design that is long-lasting and environmentally friendly. Half a century later, his concerns are more relevant than ever.

Repair is vitally important to making this happen, but current options are often limited or unaffordable. When a device breaks, consumers can struggle to find repair information, let alone spare parts. This means it is often easier, quicker and cheaper to buy a whole new device.

Building on the success of ecodesign laws and energy labels that drove efficiency improvements in products and homes across Europe, the 2024 European Sustainable Products Regulation sets out a framework for wider product sustainability, with repairability as one of its core principles. Similarly, the EU Batteries Regulation set requirements and conditions for how easy it is to replace batteries.

— The EU’s repair policies are changing the way tech is designed

Personally, I believe the best course of action is to make product companies a stakeholder that aims to have longer lasting products, instead of regulation around electronics. The Australian Consumer Law gives assurances that the acquired goods are of acceptable quality, which includes their duration. If a car or a phone does not last for the expected lifetime of that device, the seller is liable. In Europe, we simply require products to have a longer by-default warranty (4 years for phones instead of 2+1) and manufacturers would now care about repairability and durability of their devices. And, since we're asking, this could include Software and Security updates as well.

This is one of those exceedingly rare cases where EU legislation has produced an unambiguously good outcome: from February 2027, Logitech’s European wireless devices will ship with hard-pack, user-replaceable batteries, and Logitech will sell certified replacements.

— Rui Carmo on the EU-only user-replaceable batteries policy.

Personally, I have always looked for rechargeable USB-C batteries in my Logitech MX Vertical mice and Trackballs. I do not want to have to replace batteries — I mostly use the mice wired, and every now and then I want to use them wireless (when I am charging something else, or connecting to bluetooth devices).

Lately, I have been more concerned about bad batteries making devices unusable and electronic garbage. I fully endorse this EU policy of having user-replaceable batteries everywhere (and as standard as possible, but not USB-C mandatory standard). In fact, I would prefer for mice to use traditional AA batteries, but only if they are rechargeable! This is because I end up destroying the outside of the mouse before the battery dies on me. Speaking of which, I should order two more to replace the skinless ones I am working with.

Private repositories can create a false sense of security.

Making code private is not an appropriate mitigation for lack of ownership, patching capability, or operational assurance, so systems that cannot be safely maintained should be remediated or retired.

Moving code from public to private as a substitute for investment in secure-by-design delivery, ownership and remediation is a warning sign because it reduces sharing and scrutiny, can slow coordinated improvement across government and suppliers, and does not remove the underlying weaknesses in a running service.

— Government Digital Service

It looks to me like a small group within NHS England have received a report showing some potential vulnerabilities discovered by Mythos. Rather than following their own internal guidance, they’ve over-reacted and slapped a blanket ban on coding in the open.
I fervently hope that this new guidance will encourage DHSC to bring NHS England into line with best practice. If not, perhaps GDS ought to reassert itself as the technical authority with power to veto a department’s incomprehensible decisions?

— Terrence Eden (ex-GDS) in GDS weighs in on the NHS’s decision to retreat from Open Source

I just love the role GDS has had in the UK digital infrastructure. Nowadays, government digital services are a critical infrastructure. Protecting it is a national responsibility and should be done with the proper resources.

In Portugal, I do not see a push towards open-source. There are a few exceptions but, in general, Portugal is lacking in developing in the open. I would love to spend time fixing bugs in the software I have to use.

We need this to come from the top. And proper resources to be spent in our infrastructure, which means paying competitive wages and hiring top talent to spread good practices to the rest of the government, like GDS did in the UK.