जनता का आदमी

Sometimes you want Chicken Kiev but don’t feel like pounding out the chicken breasts, stuffing them with butter and herbs, and then cooking them. But if you’ve got some Antioch Farms Chicken Kiev sitting in your freezer, check the label because 29,000 pounds of the pre-stuffed chicken have been recalled for possible Salmonella contamination.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Aspen Foods, a division of Koch Meats in Chicago, recalled 28,980 pounds of partial prepared chicken products sold under the Antioch Farms brand.

The recall was initiated at the request of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) after Minnesota health officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified a cluster of salmonella cases that appeared to be connected to the product.

According to the USDA notice, the Minnesota Health Department investigation identified six patients who reported being sick after consuming the chicken Kiev.

Samples of the product collected during the course of the investigation by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture tested positive for Salmonella Enteritidis.

Investigators were able to prove that the illness strain was indeed associated with the Antioch Farms chicken.

The single 5-ounce plastic packets of Raw Stuffed Chicken Breast Breaded, Boneless Breast of Chicken with Rib Meat “A La Kiev” comes with sell by dates of October 1 and October 7, 2015. The product also bears the establishment number “P-1258″ inside the USDA mark.

Supermarkets that sold the product include Albertson’s, Shaws, Cub Foods and other retailers. A full list of retailers can be found online.

The product was shipped to stores in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The USDA reports that consumption of food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, one of the most common bacterial foodborne illnesses. The most common symptoms of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within 12 to 72 hours after eating the contaminated product. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days. Most people recover without treatment. In some persons, however, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. Older adults, infants, and persons with weakened immune systems are more likely to develop a severe illness. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact their health care provider.

Illinois Firm Recalls Chicken Products Due to Possible Salmonella Enteritidis Contamination [USDA]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

We at Consumerist have wondered for years now why courier service drivers haven’t yet figured out that business and residential customers alike have security cameras. Like the office on Long Island that caught a UPS driver kicking and shoving a delicate box back to the truck when they had to refuse the delivery.

Inside the box was a nitrogen calibration system worth about $12,000, according to the would-be recipient. It had been sent “cash on delivery,” and their policy is to not accept such shipments, because the company probably doesn’t just keep twelve grand in the receptionist’s desk.

You can see on the video that the driver is not thrilled that the large box has to go back to the truck, and let his frustrations out on the innocent box. He kicked, shoved, and rolled it, which raises the inevitable question of how he got it to the office entrance in the first place.

UPS, of course, delivers millions of packages safely all over the world every day, and I am not just saying that just because I’m at home right now waiting to sign for an important UPS package. Even the company that filmed the box-kicker admits that they receive shipments daily, and have never had a similar problem before.

When contacted about the video, a UPS representative said that this isn’t acceptable handling for any package, let alone one that’s so valuable. “UPS does not condone this specific driver’s behavior,” they told WCBS in New York City. “We are investigating the issue and will take corrective action with this driver.”

UPS Driver Caught On Video Kicking Package [WCBS]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Mrs. Gemstone)

The folks at Disney have patented a search engine that ranks and filters out results based on “authenticity” metrics, allowing it to exclude “undesirable” results, which it describes only as “results referencing piracy websites, child pornography websites, and/or the like,” lumping in people trying to watch Finding Nemo for free with dangerous sexual predators.

“[S]imply measuring the number of times a web page is visited or using a popularity index might not accurately convey the utility of a web page to the user performing a search,” reads the approved patent application for Disney’s “Online content ranking system based on authenticity metric values for web elements.”

The application explains that, rather than turn up legitimate sources of the things for which people search, the results “might return references to pages of disreputable sellers and even references to pages designed to push malware to a user’s computer, which may have nothing to do with the desired search.”

Among the various ideas presented in the patent is the notion that “official” websites would be ranked higher than sites that may be more popular or have more links back to them.

It gives the example of the official Disney website page for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs versus an online encyclopedia page for the movie.

When we searched for the movie using Google, the Wikipedia entry was indeed the first link, followed by its imdb.com page, with a Disney website coming in third in the results.

But under the patented search engine, the Disney site, “may be associated with an authenticity weight that is greater than the authenticity weight associated with the encyclopedia web page because Disney.go.com is the official domain for The Walt Disney Company. As such, with respect to the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film, the Disney.go.com web page may be considered more authoritative (and thus more authentic) than the encyclopedia web page.”

This is a stance that many companies and public figures have tried, to no avail, to convince Google to take, claiming that when someone searches for “Brand XYZ” or “Specific Former Pennsylvania Senator with Unique Last Name,” users are likely looking for the websites for Brand XYX or that Senator, not a retailer who might carry that brand or a scatological slang definition of that politician’s last name.

It’s not known if Disney intends to launch a new search engine — it has one of its own, but it only works on Disney sites — or if this is something it hopes to sell to a company like Google or Microsoft.

For its part, Google — which maintains that most pirates don’t use search engines to find free content — has been trying to demote search results for pirated material. and will promote legitimate sources of content if it’s paid to do so.

[via TorrentFreak]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Ian)

As we’ve reported previously, car manufacturers are required to report death and injury claims to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration so that the agency can identify potentially fatal and dangerous defects. Failing to submit those reports not only endangers drivers, it can cost a pretty penny for auto makers. Just ask Ferrari, the high-end carmaker must pay a $3.5 million penalty for its inaction.

NHTSA announced that Ferrari will pay the hefty fine and revise its reporting procedures as a result of failing to submit early warning reports [EWR] that included three fatalities.

Ferrari, a subsidiary of Chrysler Fiat, admitted that it violated federal law when, for three years, it failed to submit required safety information to the agency.

While Ferrari once qualified as a small volume manufacturer and was not required to file quarterly reports with NHTSA, that status changed when Chrysler was acquired by Fiat in 2011.

Additionally, all car manufacturers are required to submit fatal accidents no matter their volume size.

“There is no excuse for failing to follow laws created to keep drivers safe, and our aggressive enforcement action today underscores the point that all automakers will be held accountable if they fail to do their part in our mission to keep Americans safe on the road,” Anthony Foxx, U.S. Transportation Secretary, says in a NHTSA statement.

Under the settlement, Ferrari must improve its processes for EWR reporting, to train personnel on the EWR requirements, to communicate these improvements to NHTSA, and to retroactively submit all EWR reports.

NHTSA Fines Ferrari $3.5 Million for Failing to Submit Early Warning Reports [NHTSA]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Earlier this week, Dunkin’ Donuts announced that it was jumping on the call-it-anything-but-a-Cronut craze by offering its own croissant/donut hybrid. Alas, the early word from one fan of the original Cronut is not so appetizing.

Over at People.com, writer and food-tasting guinea pig Mark Marino — a self-described aficionado of the actual Cronuts created by NYC pastry chef Dominique Ansel — put the DD “crossaint-donut” to the test, with not-so-favorable results.

“The company claims it’s not ‘copying a specific bakery in New York’ with its holey creation, and I believe them,” he writes, “mainly because the Duncrodonsant… looks and tastes nothing like a Cronut.”

Marino likens the experience of eating a Fauxnut to parents’ failed attempts to placate children when their pet parakeet dies.

“[Y]our parents run out and buy a new one but try to convince you it’s the same bird even though it is bigger and has different markings and bears no resemblance the original bird,” he writes. “It’s kind of like that.”

As for his specific issues with the DD product, Marino cites the chain’s decision to glaze its creation, as opposed to Ansel’s unglazed Cronuts, which only have a light layer of frosting on top and a dusting of sugar on the sides.

But the problems aren’t just crust-deep, according to the review. While one should be able to peel apart the flaky layers of a croissant/donut thingy, the DD version contains “dense, yeasty layers” and “just tastes like a regular glazed donut.”

Marino writes that it’s not a bad thing, but concludes, “I definitely wouldn’t wait in line at 5:30 a.m. for one. Unless I had to kill time waiting for PetSmart to open so I could buy a replacement parakeet.”

No word yet on whether Ansel’s lawyers have sent Dunkin’ a cease-and-desist letter over its not-a-Cronut.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Groovnick)

When you leave a store without having paid for something, you’ve likely committed the crime of theft, but if you use someone else’s card to get into a warehouse club like Costco or Sam’s Club and then walk out of the store without paying for items in your bag, have you also committed the crime of burglary? A New Mexico appeals court says no, but it depends on where you live.

Back in 2010, a group of people in New Mexico — none of them Costco members — flashed a membership card on their way into an Albuquerque-area store. And while perusing the oversized aisles, they stashed some items in a purse belonging to a woman in the group.

They did pay for some bottled water and ice cream, but didn’t pay for the items put into the purse, so a loss-prevention employee stopped them.

In 2012, some members of the group were found guilty of burglary, which New Mexico state law defines, in part, as “unauthorized entry of any vehicle, watercraft, aircraft, dwelling or other structure, movable or immovable, with the intent to commit any felony or theft therein.”

Prosecutors argued that the crime rose to the level of burglary because the shoplifters had no right to enter the store since they were not Costco members. Thus, use of someone else’s card constituted an unauthorized entry by fraud, deceit, or pretense.

But a state appeals court panel unanimously reversed that conviction earlier this year, ruling that “retail stores are open to the public during business hours and, therefore, an individual who enters a retail store with the intent to shoplift is not guilty of burglary.”

In their opinion, recently published in Bar Bulletin [PDF, see p. 25], the appeals panel pointed to conflicting testimony provided by two Costco employees during the trial.

One greeter first testified that members of the public are not allowed inside Costco without a membership, but also told the court that it isn’t routine or in her “job description” to check the photos on membership cards, agreeing that a “ten-year-old Costco card, a friend’s card, [or] a card they found on the street” could be used to enter the store.

A second employee, this one from loss-prevention, also testified that only members could enter the store but later clarified that the store policy really just meant that non-members “cannot make purchases.”

“Notwithstanding Costco’s membership policies, we discern no particular security or privacy interest at stake inside Costco that justifies recognizing a departure from the general rule that we presume retail stores to be open to the public,” reads the appeals court’s opinion.

While Costco shoppers pay a membership fee to enjoy the benefits of buying in bulk from the store, the court claims that, “Once inside, the store is similar to any other retail store in that merchandise is presented for the shopping public to purchase.”

Thus, explains the panel, using someone else’s card to enter a Costco or similar store does not engender “the feeling of violation and vulnerability” normally associated with the crime of burglary.

The court also pointed out that there is no security purpose to the membership requirement, as there are already laws against trespassing and theft.

“Defendant’s entry into Costco during business hours, albeit deceptive, granted him access to an otherwise open shopping area, as opposed to an area ‘where things are stored and personal items can be kept private,'” writes the court. “Thus, as far as the privacy and security interests of the store itself are concerned, we see no heightened or unique security or privacy interest that distinguishes Costco from other retail stores that we generally consider open to the public.”

Commenting on the implications of assuming that faking your way into Costco may raise a petty theft to charge to the level of burglary, the panel concludes, “It would be an absurd application of our burglary statute to punish those who shoplift from Sam’s Club more severely than those who shoplift from Walmart.”

At the same time, the court acknowledges that some states have a much broader definition of burglary, citing the California criminal code, which states that “Every person who enters any store with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary.”

In that case, the definition is so broad that it doesn’t matter whether you use someone else’s card or your own Costco ID; if you go into the store to steal, you’ve committed a burglary in California.

[via ABQjournal.com]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Kerry Lannert)

Police say that what happened yesterday at the Palisades Center mall in upstate New York was a terrible accident. Residents from a nearby group home for developmentally disabled adults were on a trip to the local mall, and somehow––nobody knows quite how yet––one of the residents fell over a third-floor railing, landing at the bottom of an escalator near the Best Buy store. He was killed.

The group was on a trip meant to get people with developmental disabilities out in the community, called “habilitation.” Police hadn’t yet announced the identity of the man or of the group home as of late last night, since his family had not yet been identified. “The safety of the individuals in our care is paramount and we are doing everything we can to help determine what led to this terrible accident,” a statement from the social services agency that runs the home, New York Foundling, said in part.

Police say that the man had been standing near a railing next to the escalator bank on the third floor, near Best Buy. Then he wasn’t. Shoppers made a flurry of calls to 911 to report the accident. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Police believe that he fell, rather than jumping or being pushed, but they will investigate.

Group home resident falls to death in Palisades Center mall [Journal News]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Marike79)

A deer’s lack of opposable thumbs led him to take a different route while trying to obtain a foot-long from a Pennsylvania Subway: jumping through the window. But things didn’t end there, the wild animal continued his rampage down the street at an auto repair shop.

Lancaster Online reports that the buck jumped through a window of a local Subway restaurant Wednesday morning, jumping over the counter while thrashing around the store.

The whole ordeal lasted about 10 minutes or so before the large, antlered deer knocked out yet another window trying to escape.

Eventually, the deer made its way through a back door and smashed through the restaurant’s fence, employees tell the newspaper. No customers were in the restaurant at the time of the deer’s visit, but several employees were present getting ready for the day.

A manager for the restaurant says a motorist told employees he had hit the deer shortly before the animal began its journey to Subway.

After leaving Subway, the deer reportedly visited a nearby Auto Center. The owner of the shop tells LancasterOnline that no one was injured in the incident but that more damage was caused.

Sadly, local police report the deer did not survive the day’s events.

This isn’t the first time a deer wreaked havoc on a place of business this week. On Monday, Consumerist reported on a deer going buck wild inside a furniture store in Cedar Falls, IA.

Deer jumps through Columbia restaurant window [LancasterOnline]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(John)

The number of vehicles recalled related to defective Takata airbags increased by more than 1,000 vehicles Friday, as Nissan issued a recall of luxury Infiniti vehicles.

According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notice [PDF], Nissan issued the recall after determining that 1,848 model year 2013 Infiniti QX56 and model year 2014 Infiniti QX80 vehicles may contain defective airbags made by the same company responsible for the recall of more than 8 million cars.

Officials with Nissan say the vehicles’ airbags may have been manufactured with an incorrect part that could cause excessive inflator internal pressure that can lead to rupture during deployment. In the event of a crash this could cause inflator components to separate and potentially be propelled toward the interior of the vehicle, increasing a risk of injury.

A defect report [PDF] from Nissan details that the manufacturer began looking into a potential issue back in June after General Motors recalled vehicles for a similar problem.

Nissan then contacted Takata and requested further investigation to determine if Nissan vehicles were affected.

In August, Nissan received a preliminary data set from Takata, detailing potentially misbuilt inflators. Nissan assessed its vehicles and in mid-October determined that select Infiniti models may contain the airbags.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the timing of production for the recently recalled Infiniti models – which occurred between September 1, 2012 and April 26, 2013 – likely means the airbags are not the same as those responsible for at least four deaths and 30 injuries. Takata airbags related to earlier recalls were produced in 2007.

Owners of affected vehicles will be notified of the issue next month and dealers will replace the front driver airbag inflator.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Patrick)

A wannabe shoplifter at a Dallas Walmart somehow thought it would be a good idea to threaten a store employee with HIV infection rather than get in trouble for trying to pilfer $11 worth of frozen food from the retailer.

Police say that when the employee confronted the 25-year-old shopper about her purloined goods, the woman said she is HIV-positive and told the worker, “I can infect whomever I please.”

The woman allegedly attacked the employee, who received some scratches on his face, but who is incredibly unlikely to have been infected during the confrontation.

However, because police believe that the shoplifter was deliberately attempting to draw blood and expose the employee to HIV, she was charged with attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Had the shopper merely fessed up to the attempted shoplifting and accepted a ban from the store, it’s possible the arrest may have been avoided, as Walmart rarely prosecutes small-time shoplifting offenses. However, the woman also had a pair of outstanding arrest warrants, so once police got involved she was likely heading to lock-up regardless of whether the store prosecuted her.

[via DallasNews.com]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(SOB Photography)

While children and parents around the country are sitting around, regretting the huge amount of sugar and chocolate consumed tonight, the folks at Walmart, Amazon and other stores are not only busting out the holiday decorations, but reducing prices and offering short-term large-scale sales for early holiday shoppers.

Four weeks in advance of Black Friday, Walmart says that it is discounting some 20,000 items starting tomorrow, including toys and electronics; items that make up a good chunk of consumers’ Christmas shopping lists.

This will be followed Monday by a 24-hour online sale on Walmart.com, offering free shipping on many orders of $50 or more.

Not to be beaten by bricks-and-mortar stores, Amazon is also planning to kick off its holiday lightning deals on Saturday, and will soon begin doubling up on its Deal of the Day offerings through Dec. 22.

Target is already promoting free shipping on all Target.com orders for the holidays, and starting Sunday users of Target’s Cartwheel coupon app will see deals for 50% off a different toy each day through Dec. 24.

And for folks looking for office supply deals these holidays, both Office Depot and OfficeMax will begin offering deals this Sunday, along with “Every Monday is Cyber Monday” each week through the rest of the season.

Retailers dangle holiday deals as soon as Halloween is over [StarTribune.com]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The FCC proposed their new, “fast lane” net neutrality rule back in May. Since then pretty much everyone — from Congress to 3 million regular people, to members of the FCC — has objected in one way or another. And now it looks like FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is going to revise the plan.

The Wall Street Journal reports that sources in the know say that Wheeler is close to settling on a “hybrid” proposal.

The new stab at net neutrality would not flat-out reclassify broadband service as a common carrier under Title II, as most consumer advocates have asked for.

Instead, the new plan would split broadband into two service categories. One would cover retail broadband, and be defined as the internet access services that consumers buy. The other would cover “back-end” broadband, as the WSJ puts it, “in which broadband providers serve as the conduit for websites to distribute content.”

That back-end service would then be classified as a common carrier, while retail broadband would not.

If that proposal were to be adopted, that would mean that internet traffic would be regulated in two different ways depending on how far away from you, the end user, it is. Traffic moving from its origination point on some server somewhere, through transit ISPs, would be treated under common carrier rules. Traffic coming through the last mile of cable, into your house, would not be.

That would theoretically mostly prevent broadband providers from engaging in fast lane/slow lane behavior and throttling or blocking content — but only in the back-end. It’s still a golden opportunity for retail ISPs (the Comcasts and Verizons of the world) to make things difficult for the consumers who actually receive that content.

As the WSJ puts it, the proposal would “leave the door open for broadband providers to offer specialized services for, say, videogamers or online video providers, which require a particularly large amount of bandwidth. The proposal would also allow the commission to explore usage-based pricing at some point, in which consumers are charged based on how much data they use and companies are able to subsidize traffic to their websites or applications.”

Want to spend all your evenings in League of Legends? You’ll want the Gamer High Score Plus package, which actually lets you connect to that without lag for only an extra $19.99 per month. Really into watching House of Cards in 4K on your shiny new ultra-HD TV every night? You’ll need the Feature Film Fan bundle for that.

The point of a hybrid plan is to try to appease all corners, but so far this seems likely to be a flop on that front. Consumer advocacy groups see all the potential pitfalls that remain for end users, and aren’t pleased.

Free Press president and CEO Craig Aaron, taking full advantage of today’s holiday, said in a statement, “This Frankenstein proposal is no treat for Internet users, and they shouldn’t be tricked. No matter how you dress it up, any rules that don’t clearly restore the agency’s authority and prevent specialized fast lanes and paid prioritization aren’t real Net Neutrality.”

Nor are big businesses enthralled with this approach. Verizon has strongly suggested that they will once again take the FCC to court over any attempt to reclassify broadband services, saying they do not think a reclassification approach would “withstand judicial review.” And an industry official told that WSJ that while hybrid plans might be seen as fractionally more tolerable, they would almost certainly meet the same legal challenges from ISPs as a full attempt at using Title II would.

Rumor has it the FCC wants net neutrality done with before the end of the year, which gives them two months to get through any new proposal. They are in an unenviable position; they absolutely cannot make everyone happy. But the more they try, the more they seem to fail to make anyone happy.

FCC ‘Net Neutrality’ Plan Calls for More Power Over Broadband [Wall Street Journal]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Ron G)

If you didn’t things could be more convenient than having the ability to order and pay-ahead of picking up your morning coffee then you’d be wrong. Starbucks is reportedly taking its push to be the most convenient form of morning java a step farther by launching delivery service next year.

CNBC reports that Starbucks plans to launch a food and beverage delivery service in select areas of the United States in the second half of 2015.

“Imagine the ability to create a standing order that Starbucks delivered hot or iced to your desk daily,” Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said in a conference call.

The service will only be available to Starbucks loyalty program members as part of its soon-to-launch mobile order and pay app.

Officials with the company say the delivery service is still in development.

Starbucks just announced big news about delivery [CNBC]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Here are six of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

(Spencer Hughes)

(Great Beyond)

(John Hanley)

(Derelict Compositions)

(Karen Chappell)

(Joachim Rayos)

(Tom Richardson)

Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Want to see your pictures on our site? Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Observant viewers of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” may have noticed that the Comedy Central program has a new advertiser. No, not a video game or even a new flavor of Bud Light: a family-owned outfit out of Kansas is buying ad time during the influential comedy-news program. That company: Koch Industries.

You may have heard of Koch Industries when they were nominated for the initial rounds of the 2014 Worst Company in America tournament, defeating student-loan megalith Sallie Mae, but ultimately losing in the second round to Time Warner Cable. Or you may have heard of them because of the generous political donations that the brothers who control the company have given in recent years. Their political activities are very controversial, for reasons that are outside the scope of this blog post.

It’s clear that Koch Industries wants to present itself as a cuddly, ethnically diverse company that wants to make Americans’ lives better. Yet they also don’t really offer any consumer-facing products, with the exception of some disposable paper items that their Georgia-Pacific division sells. Why advertise directly to consumers? Jon Stewart knows.

“Clearly the Koch brothers are trying to say to our audience of not-yet-dying-off voters, ‘even though you’ve heard certain things about the Koch brothers, how bad could they be? If they were evil, would a baby agree to appear in their advertisements?'” he pointed out in a segment intended to welcome the new advertiser to the Daily Show family.

Democalypse 2014 – South by South Mess: Ad of Brothers [Comedy Central]

“Wow, that’s the kind of ad that a company usually makes when it turns out a byproduct of their manufacturing process is giving young pubescent males talking nipples,” Stewart observed.

This clip raises many questions. Will Koch Industries fire back? Will they keep running their ad, even though it’s sure to give many regular viewers giggle fits now? Did Comedy Central and its corporate parent Viacom know ahead of time that one of its most popular programs was about to bite one of the many hands that fund it?

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Sure, Ebola containment suits are apparently a popular Halloween costume this year. We get it: the costume is easy to put together, timely, and some people find it amusing. Yet when they take off their fake hazmat suits (or their incredibly fake sexy hazmat suits) will any of the people wearing this costume think about the health care workers in western Africa whose lives depend on the real versions of these suits?

Doctors of the World, an aid organization founded by one of the founders of Doctors Without Borders, is taking advantage of this costume trend in the most helpful way possible. In a slick ad campaign produced by slick ad agency Publicis, the group makes the argument that “Here, it’s a costume. There, it saves lives.”

Don’t send your old costume to Liberia, since that’s a very inefficient way to send aid, even if your costume were a real hazmat suit. However, if you have $80 to spend on a containment suit costume, perhaps you can match that amount with a donation that would buy an apron, booties, and a mask for a real health-care worker. You can even spend an extra eleven bucks and get them gloves and a pair of goggles.

If you want to buy a real hazmat suit, that will set you back $250. A protective hood costs $500.

This was a great idea: instead of just complaining about the trend, the group is turning a silly current-events costume into a fundraising campaign. The donations won’t be used to literally buy the amount of each supply that donors pick out, but instead the e-commerce style site shows what items their donations could buy if and when it’s needed.

Wearing a Fake Ebola Hazmat Suit for Halloween? Donate a Real One Instead [AdWeek]

More Than a Costume [Doctors of the World]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(CrzysChick)

For the last six years, appliance-maker Whirlpool has fought the prospect of class action lawsuits filed by the owners of early front-loading high-efficiency washing machines. When the Supreme Court declined to hear Whirlpool’s case for the second time earlier this year, actual suits could go forward. The case on behalf of Whirlpool washer owners in Ohio went to trial this month, and a jury found the company not liable.

The trial lasted for three weeks, and the jury found that the appliance-maker wasn’t liable for defective product design or breach of implied warranty. If Whirlpool and other companies continue to fight the lawsuits instead of settling out of court, there will be dozens more trials like this in federal courts across the country.

One of the attorneys representing the Ohio plaintiffs says that they will not give in. “Until Whirlpool takes responsibility for selling defective washers, the fight will continue,” he told Reuters.

Whirlpool has fought these particular lawsuits for years. The legal question was whether these particular customers have the right to band together as a class and sue in a class action, or whether their cases are so different that they should be required to each file separate lawsuits against the appliance manufacturers. (These questions also affected similar class actions against Sears and Bosch.)

Whirlpool wins first trial over ‘moldy’ washers [Reuters]

Original complaint from 2008 [PDF]

Verdict Sheet [PDF]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Photos in the Sunset)

Just because you spent an hour searching the grocery store for the perfect bag of Wild Gulf Shrimp doesn’t mean you’re actually getting wild shrimp caught in the Gulf of Mexico.. In fact a new study released Thursday found that nearly a third of the shrimp products being sold in U.S. stores and restaurants aren’t what they seem to be.

The study from international environmental advocacy group, Oceana, analyzed 143 shrimp products from 111 grocery stores and restaurants in New York City, Washington, D.C., Portland, OR, and the Gulf of Mexico region.

DNA testing revealed that 30% of the products contained some kind of misrepresentation including products where one species was swapped for another; product sold as Gulf/wild shrimp were actually farmed; or bags included a mix of different species.

According to the report, the most common misrepresentation was the labeling of farmed whiteleg shrimp as “wild” or “Gulf” shrimp. However, none of the shrimp labeled as farmed were misrepresented.

And in one of the more disturbing findings, the group discovered that a frozen bag of salad-sized shrimp included an aquarium pet – a banded coral shrimp – not meant for consumption.

“Despite its popularity, U.S. consumers are routinely given little to no information about the shrimp they purchase,” Beth Lowell, senior campaign director at Oceana, says in a statement. “While shrimp is the most commonly consumed seafood in the U.S., and the most highly traded seafood in the world, its high demand has led to conservation concerns as well as a bait and switch on consumers.”

While Oceana found misrepresented shrimp in all regions that were tested, the most came from New York City where 43% of the products were mislabeled.

Products in Washington, D.C. didn’t fare much better, with 33% of products found to be mislabeled.

One might assume that shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico region would have the least amount of mislabeling, but you’d be wrong. The area was found to have about 30% of products mislabeled.

In fact, Portland had the fewest products mislabeled, with just 5% containing misrepresentations.

Overall, Oceana reports that 35% of the 111 vendors selling the tested products sold misrepresented shrimp.

While a majority of the 70 restaurants visited for the study did not include information about the types of scrimp, nearly 31% of those who did provide information sold misrepresented shrimp.

Of the 41 grocery stores included in the study, 41% sold misrepresented products.

“Until traceability is the status quo, consumers should ask more questions about the seafood they purchase, including what kind it is, if it is wild or farm-raised, and where and how it was caught,” Lowell says in the statement.

Oceana is urging the government task force responsible for combating seafood fraud to take a comprehensive approach to addressing issues of traceability to ensure that products sold in the U.S. are safe, legally caught, and properly labeled.

Oceana Study Reveals Misrepresentation of America’s Favorite Seafood [Oceana]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(frankieleon)

Various enormous corporations have this year been at each other’s throats over how well or how poorly internet traffic travels through their systems. A new report indicates that some of the mud-slinging this year is true: interconnection, or peering, between ISPs is why end-users are getting terrible internet traffic. But, they say, it’s business, and not technology, that’s making your Netflix buffer.

DSL Reports points the way to the study, from an internet research organization called M-Lab. M-Lab studied how traffic does (or doesn’t) make it to you through the peering connections it travels through.

Peering has come up a lot this year, most notably around Netflix. The streaming-video behemoth contended that major ISPs — particularly but not solely Comcast and Verizon — were deliberately letting Netflix traffic clog up.

The congestion was happening at interconnection points, the places where the transit ISPs Netflix partnered with — companies like Level 3 and Cogent — met up with the access ISPs (the “last mile” providers) that home users use. To alleviate the congestion and avoid hemorrhaging customers who couldn’t use the service they paid for, Netflix eventually paid Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable for direct access to their networks, bypassing those interconnection points entirely.

But even though Netflix moves a lot of data, they’re hardly the only internet traffic moving around out there. Massive amounts of information pass through transit ISPs and peering connections every moment of every day. So where are the problems in the system?

M-Lab sat down and did a long-term study measuring how internet traffic moves through all those different transit tributaries, so to speak. The full report (a href=”http://ift.tt/1wJRwge) delves into some of the technicalities of measuring and quantifying interconnection and is kind of a hefty read. There are, however, some clear key take-aways.

From a high level, you see some of the patterns you’d expect. For example, there’s a lot less network congestion at 3 o’clock in the morning then there is at prime-time, between 7 and 11 p.m.

But beyond that, one pattern began clearly to emerge. The network congestion M-Lab was seeing, they write, doesn’t appear to be connected to the technical limitations of ISPs or the connection points themselves. Instead, it seems, “business relationships between ISPs, and not major technical problems, are at the root of the problems we observed.”

M-Lab is very careful to remind readers that they have data proving correlations, but insufficient information to assign blame. “While we feel safe pinpointing the interconnection relationship … as a factor in performance degradation,” M-Lab writes, “it is important to not that we cannot determine which actors or actions are ‘responsible’ for observed degradation. We cannot tell whether any particular ISP between the user and a measurement point is ‘at fault,’ what the contractual agreement between ISPs did or did not dictate vis-a-vis interconnection, or whether specific network modification was done to alleviate or magnify a given incident.”

But the evidence does look worse for some companies than for others. M-Lab used New York City as one of their case studies. They found that in 2013, internet traffic delivered to Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast via Cogent took a dramatic hit before rebounding equally dramatically roughly 10 months later:

via the Measurement Lab Interconnection Study

Since all three ISPs took a hit at roughly the same time, it seems easy to look for a common link. In this case, that link would be Cogent. Perhaps the trouble was on their end, instead of at three different companies?

Not so, says M-Lab. The next graph demonstrates that during the same period of time, in the same city, Cablevision’s traffic through Cogent moved smoothly and quickly without taking the same precipitous plunge as the other three providers’.

So that says Cogent was up and running. So perhaps TWC, Comcast, and Verizon all suffered a freak simultaneous set of outages? M-Lab couldn’t rule that out, but they also measured the connections all four last-mile ISPs had to another transit provider, Internap, during the same time period. Those connections did not see any significant degradation.

Although they are once again careful not to assign blame, M-Lab points out that the data “strongly suggests that the issues seen are not isolated to the consumer-facing, edge networks of impacted Access ISPs, but rather relate to the interconnections traversed between Cogent and the three impacted Access ISPs – Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.”

Whether the last-mile providers are doing it to squeeze more money out of video companies or simply having contractual disagreements with Cogent doesn’t really matter to consumers who, once again, are stuck in the middle without the chance to flee to the competition.

M-Lab: Streaming Issues Were Conscious ISP Business Decision [DSL Reports]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

In the wake of HBO’s still-vague announcement that it will soon be launching a streaming video service that doesn’t require a pay-TV subscription, Starz — the nudity and violence-loving competitor to HBO — says it is also looking into the possibility.

Starz CEO Chris Albrecht — taking a break from ensuring that all of his original programming maintains the proper nipple-to-decaptitation ratio that its viewers have come to expect — recently told reporters that his company is already planning an on-demand streaming service for international markets.

The premium network already offers a streaming service to subscribers in the U.S., but just like HBO Go, you need to first pay for TV service through a cable or satellite provider.

But Albrecht indicated that Starz is looking at options for an online-only service here in the U.S., which he views as an inevitability.

“This is a tide that has to turn,” he explained, saying that the value of a paid premium channel is constrained by the current business model.

“I don’t think it cannibalizes the existing business,” says Albrecht of skeptics’ claims that you can’t succeed in offering both a pay-TV service and an over-the-top online-only service. “It is a way to innovate and create real value.”

He explains that it’s important to attract those consumers who have either given up on pay-TV or have never given it a chance because there are plenty of non-cable entertainment options available.

“Let’s get them in the tent,” says Albrecht. “Let’s give them what they want.”

One statement from the CEO seems to indicate that, as we suggested in a previous story about the impending HBO service, that cable companies could benefit by continuing to do the billing for over-the-top services.

“The distributors have to decide they want to not just sell [cord-cutters] broadband but they want them to be video customers as well,” he explained. “To us this is a no-brainer.”

[via Variety]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Louis Abate)

Earlier this year, Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion in cash and stock. Just three years ago, Google bought the company for $12.5 billion, but this isn’t as terrible a business deal as it might appear: while Lenovo gets the phone business, Google gets to keep the company’s valuable library of patents.

Google spent $12.5 billion on the company, maker of many well-respected handsets that run Google’s Android phone and tablet operating system. Motorola Mobility doesn’t turn a profit, but Lenovo now has a reputation for buying brands with a lot of potential and nurturing them into a bigger business. There are even rumors that the company may be looking to purchase Blackberry, an even more troubled smartphone maker. and has been focusing on lower-end smartphones for developing markets.

Lenovo is now the top computer manufacturer in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers want to buy a smartphone from them. The company plans to keep Motorola Mobility’s headquarters in Chicago, and keep the Motorola brand. That’s smart, since the brand has 8% of the market.

It’s official: Motorola Mobility now belongs to Lenovo [CNET]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist