Enlarge (credit: Getty )

Like in other parts of the world, Canada is working out what the right to repair means for its people. The federal government said in its 2023 budget released Tuesday that it will bring the right to repair to Canada. At the same time, it's considering a universal charging port mandate like the European Union (EU) is implementing with USB-C.

The Canadian federal government's 2023 budget introduces the right to repair under the chapter entitled “Making Life More Affordable and Supporting the Middle Class." It says that the "government will work to implement a right to repair, with the aim of introducing a targeted framework for home appliances and electronics in 2024." The government plans to hold consultations on the matter and claimed it will "work closely with provinces and territories" to implement the right to repair in Canada:

When it comes to broken appliances or devices, high repair fees and a lack of access to specific parts often mean Canadians are pushed to buy new products rather than repairing the ones they have. This is expensive for people and creates harmful waste.

Devices and appliances should be easy to repair, spare parts should be readily accessible, and companies should not be able to prevent repairs with complex programming or hard-to-obtain bespoke parts. By cutting down on the number of devices and appliances that are thrown out, we will be able to make life more affordable for Canadians and protect our environment.

The budget also insinuates that right-to-repair legislation can make third-party repairs cheaper than getting a phone, for example, repaired by the manufacturer, where it could cost " far more than it should.”

Enlarge / Ecuadorian police tweeted this picture of officials investigating a drive mailed to a journalist in Guayaquil. (credit: Policía Ecuador/Twitter )

It's no secret that USB flash drives, as small and unremarkable as they may look, can be turned into agents of chaos. Over the years, we've seen them used to infiltrate an Iranian nuclear facility , infect critical control systems in US power plants, morph into programmable, undetectable attack platforms , and destroy attached computers with a surprise 220-volt electrical surge . Although these are just a few examples, they should be enough to preclude one from inserting a mysterious, unsolicited USB drive mailed to them into a computer. Unfortunately, one Ecuadorian journalist didn't get the memos.

As reported by the Agence France-Presse (via CBS News ) on Tuesday, five Ecuadorian journalists have received USB drives in the mail from Quinsaloma. Each of the USB sticks was meant to explode when activated.

Upon receiving the drive, Lenin Artieda of the Ecuavisa TV station in Guayaquil inserted it into his computer, at which point it exploded. According to a police official who spoke with AFP, the journalist suffered mild hand and face injuries, and no one else was harmed.

Enlarge / HDMI cable. (credit: Getty )

If you're using a USB-C port to connect a computer to a display, you're most likely using DisplayPort Alternate Mode (Alt Mode). Some less-intensive uses might opt for DisplayLink to connect to a dock or adapter and eventually output to a screen. But due to non-existent adoption, we can pretty much guarantee you're not using HDMI Alt Mode. And according to the HDMI Licensing Administrator (HDMI LA), you never will because the feature is dead.

NotebookCheck spoke with HDMI LA, which is responsible for licensing the HDMI Forum's HDMI specs, at CES 2023 in Las Vegas last week and learned that there won't be any certified adapters supporting HDMI Alt Mode over USB.

"According to HDMI LA, there are simply no more uses for Alt Mode," the publication reported on Wednesday. "One of the reasons is that companies like Apple have begun putting HDMI ports on their products again. HDMI Alt Mode also no longer offers any advantages. As a result, the specification will not receive any further updates."

Enlarge / The Lightning connector's reign on Apple devices looks like it's coming to an end. (credit: Getty )

USB-C has won the war on charging in the European Union (EU). As of December 28, 2024, smartphones, tablets, and numerous other consumer devices that charge over a cable will have to support USB-C charging in order to be sold in the region. That means the clock is ticking on Apple's Lightning, the most prominent company resistant to the USB-C takeover.

As announced by the European Parliament Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the Official Journal of the EU's Twitter accounts today and spotted by The Verge , the EU's USB-C legislation is published in the Official Journal. The law goes into effect on December 27 and requires compliance by 2024.

The legislation will first affect smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, earbuds, portable speakers, handheld video game consoles, e-readers, keyboards, mice, and portable navigation systems. In April 2026 it will apply to laptops.

Enlarge (credit: Getty )

Intel announced further details about the next generation of Thunderbolt today. The company wouldn't commit to a name for the upcoming specification or a release date for what we hope will be called, simply, Thunderbolt 5. However, we do know that the next Thunderbolt will support up to 80Gbps bidirectional bandwidth and be able to transmit data at up to 120Gbps.

Will it be called Thunderbolt 5? Hopefully

In a meeting with the press, Jason Ziller, general manager of the Client Connectivity Division at Intel, said the next version of Thunderbolt isn't named yet. However, he noted that Intel has typically taken a simple approach to Thunderbolt naming.

Ziller acknowledged that the USB-IF's naming scheme for USB specifications is "very confusing." The USB-IF yesterday published the unfortunately named USB4 Version 2.0 spec and, more recently, ditched its recommended SuperSpeed branding for consumers in favor of performance-based names like USB 40Gbps.