Schools Brace for Mass Chromebook Extinction Event
School districts across the country rely on Google Chromebooks for class instruction. Unfortunately, thousands of these devices have already become obsolete, and tens of thousands more are expected to meet their demise by next summer.
It's all thanks to so-called “death dates” baked into each device.
“Every Chromebook comes with an AUE, which stands for ‘Auto Update Expiration’ date. Essentially, this is an expiry date for your device,” maketecheasier.com explains. “Beyond the AUE date, your device won’t be updated and will become obsolete.”
According to the Mercury News, the Oakland Unified School District will lose 40,000 Chromebooks to the expiration dates. Over 20,000 devices at Torrance Unified will be rendered useless. Capistrano Unified in Orange County had to set aside $4.2 million for new Chromebooks due to the coming extinction of its devices.
“School districts are dealing with enough in their budgets. They shouldn’t have to throw away laptops that are in perfectly good condition,” said Sander Kushen, a consumer advocate with CALPIRG. “We expect expiration dates for milk, but not for laptops.”
Read more about the school Chromebook crisis at the Mercury News.
