I fucking hate when people write safety-critical code with the same level of sloppiness they write social media popup horseshit.
224 Injured After Glitchy Diabetes App Drains Insulin Pump Batteries
Submitted 11 months ago by sexy_peach@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
https://gizmodo.com/fda-recall-injured-faulty-diabetes-app-insulin-pump-1851467117
Comments
intensely_human@lemm.ee 11 months ago
sexy_peach@beehaw.org 11 months ago
Yup but the employers are to blame
intensely_human@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Everyone involved is to blame. Writing code that fails causing death is on whoever wrote that code.
Hirom@beehaw.org 11 months ago
They should look into exponential backoff
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
That’s horrifying. Why would a potential life-threatening device be controlled by a smartphone app? What functions could possibly not be handled on the pump itself and need to be offloaded? What FDA crook was paid off to allow such a stupid thing to hit the market?
souljah06@beehaw.org 11 months ago
catch22@programming.dev 11 months ago
The problem with this logic is the manufactures have no control over the iPhone update. The article didn’t go into exactly what happened, but it could have been that the device worked fine at launch, but then Apple released an update which caused an issue in the app. Even if it didn’t happen this way I could definitely see it happening. Using an app for critical life sustaining medical devices is like play Russian Roulette, an update from Google or Apple can put you in the hospital, or worse.
algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
Why does it need a connection to another device in the first place though? Silicon is tiny and cheap; all the logic, sensing, and scheduling could be done inside the pump.
brenstar@midwest.social 11 months ago
The same reason you don’t carry a camera, a music player, a phone, etc as separate devices in your pocket. Because it’s wildly inconvenient and super frustrating to swap between them. For diabetics in this case, you generally have two separate companies making the pump and the glucose monitor. So at that point you are carrying a phone around, a monitor for your glucose levels, and a controller for your pump. That’s three devices that you need to keep charged and on your person at all times. Not to mention they are generally not slim and sleek and easy to pocket.
The ability to swap between these from a single device and the mental offload that brings can’t be overstated.
That being said, people that use medical services on their phones should not do OS upgrades until they are notified by their makers to be verified and working and should be heavily tested before any updates go out.