Buying secondhand laptops and PCs might be about to get a little less scary as HP is looking to roll out a new feature that collects data around the use and life of a PC for future owners. The new feature will be implemented at a firmware level to store these life-cycle records securely on the SSD inside the device. Thus allowing new users the chance to see just what this PC has been through before landing in their laps.
According to IEEE Spectrum, HP got the idea from the motor industry's CarFax reports. These allow potential buyers the chance to check the maintenance history and usage of any vehicle before buying. By applying the same sort of mandatory record keeping, HP is hoping to make reusing old machines a little bit easier, and thus cut down on e-waste.
