जनता का आदमी

Before the nationwide solar eclipse earlier this month, experts, including some at NASA, warned that solar eclipse glasses on the market may not meet normal standards for eye protection that one should normally wear when staring at the sun. The decentralized nature of Amazon’s marketplace meant that the site was a popular source for potentially insufficient eclipse glasses, and now people who bought them have filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon.

A South Carolina couple accuses Amazon of selling “unfit” eclipse glasses that caused immediate headaches and made their eyes water, and later caused distorted and blurry vision in the days following the eclipse.

In their initial complaint [PDF], the couple argues that they only looked into the sky while wearing their glasses, and that their symptoms must have been caused by defective glasses.

“Defendant owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs and the proposed class to distribute and sell the Eclipse Glasses such that they were neither defective nor unreasonably dangerous when used as intended, to inspect and ensure the glasses that it provided were in fact safe, to warn of any post-sale defects discovered in its products, and recall dangerous products,” their attorneys argue in the case’s initial complaint.

About those eclipse glasses…

Warnings from astronomy experts about the possibility that some eclipse glasses on the market might be counterfeit or not offer enough protection began cicrulating more than a month before the solar event.

Amazon began to notify customers that it was recalling certain glasses sold on the site less than two weeks before the eclipse, with one message going out the weekend before, too late to order replacements online. Amazon has not stated how many vendors were involved in this recall, or how many pairs of unfit glasses were sold.

That left people who had planned ahead and ordered their glasses in advance scrambling at the last minute for protective eyewear made with certified lenses.

“Foreseeable and preventable harm”

The couple in South Carolina claims that they heard nothing at all from Amazon, the site where they bought the allegedly unfit glasses, before the event. The initial complaint in this class action acknowledges that Amazon sent a recall email two days before the eclipse, but doesn’t specify whether they received it.

“The inadequacy of Defendant’s efforts to recall the defective Eclipse Glasses resulted in foreseeable and preventable harm to customers including Plaintiffs,” they note in the initial complaint.

Depending on who officially sold allegedly defective glasses to the lead plaintiffs, Amazon may argue that the official merchant was one of its Marketplace sellers, and that responsibility for ensuring the safety of the glasses belonged with that seller, not with Amazon.

Consumerist contacted Amazon for comment, and will add what the company has to say when we hear back.

(via Reuters)

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The world is full of really horrible, lazy people looking to steal your money while putting in the least amount of effort. Take, for example, the scammers who are blasting out automated, pre-recorded robocalls that try to scare people into believing they have to pay up or lose their flood insurance.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says that people in Texas have reported receiving robocalls with false alerts that their flood insurance premiums are past due. The fraudulent call then tells the homeowner that they must make a payment immediately in order to keep their insurance from lapsing.

There are a number of problems with this, says FEMA. First, companies that sell flood insurance don’t blast out robocalls to homeowners who are behind on their premiums. Second, these companies would never demand immediate payment without prior warnings.

If a homeowner with flood insurance does miss payments, FEMA says the insurer will contact them in writing, not via automated phone calls. Additionally, policyholders get multiple warnings from their insurer — at 90, 60, and 30 days before a policy expires.

Regardless of whether you have this insurance or your account status, hang up on one of these robocalls. If you are concerned that your insurance might be at risk, contact your insurer directly.

In addition to hanging up on the robocall, it would really help if you took some additional steps to help the feds catch these scammers. If you receive a bogus flood insurance robocall, call the FEMA Disaster Fraud Hotline toll free at 1-866-720-5721. You should also report the robocall through the Federal Trade Commission’s online complaint portal.

Tracking down a robocall scammer is often a complex and drawn-out process; every bit of available information on these fraudsters helps in this hunt.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

In a move designed to lure shoppers back to brick-and-mortar stores, mall giant Westfield is patterning up with Uber to offer dedicated drop-off and pick-up spots in 33 shopping centers — and some will feature real live humans to help with customer service.

The new best friends announced a partnership today to create special areas for Uber customers to be dropped off or catch a ride home from their shopping trip. Starting this fall, these spots will appear on the map in the Uber app.

Each of the 33 U.S. shopping centers involved will get anywhere between one and 10 Uber stations, some of which will include kiosks with customer service employees available to help with any ride-hailing issues, as well as “brand ambassadors trained to engage with customers and facilitate their Uber experience.”

And at Westfield Century City shopping mall in Los Angeles, Uber will open a dedicated rider lounge so passengers can wait for their car while charging their phones, sipping a free beverage, or perusing free newspapers and magazines.

“The number one objective is that we need to be able to provide convenience,” Bill Hecht, Westfield’s COO in the U.S. told Business of Fashion. “We have a plethora of shops and restaurants in one location, we have technology in place for the search side of it, and now we are providing a way of being able to get to and from the shopping centre in a much easier, more ambient way.”

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Once again, as part of its ongoing efforts to crack down on unscrupulous debt collectors, the Federal Trade Commission has accused a North Carolina company of running a “phantom” debt collection scheme that went after people for money that they did not actually owe.

The FTC announced today that it had filed a complaint accusing the debt collection operation with using intimidation and deception to extract more than $2.1 million from consumers.

The operation used a variety of names, such as Lombardo, Daniels & Moss; Barron, Gibson & Phillips; and Cohen, Daniels & Moss, in its attempt to collect debts.

According to the complaint [PDF], since March 2013 the operation began to perpetrated a scheme to defraud individuals through the collection and process of payments for debts that were not actually owed, or which the companies had no authority to collect.

To do so, the FTC alleges that the operation contacted individuals by phone, claiming that individuals were delinquent on payday loans or other debts.

In an effort to appear legitimate, the collectors claimed to know individual’s personal information, such as Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, or names and contact information of relatives.

The collectors then threatened the individuals with arrest or other formal legal action if they did not pay, the complaint alleges.

For example, the operators allegedly told consumers that they would be sued, have their wages garnished, or have their bank accounts frozen if payment was not made.

In some cases when the individuals did not make payment, the FTC claims the operators allegedly called consumers repeatedly and regularly used profanity.

For instance, the FTC claims that one collector told a customer he was a “lying son of a b****,” “white trash,” and “not fit to hold a job.”

Additionally, the collectors allegedly disclosed purported debts to third parties, failed to disclose that they were debt collectors calling to collect a debt and that any information consumers provided could be used for that purpose, and failed to send consumers legally required written notices with the debt amount and the creditor’s name, giving consumers an opportunity to dispute the debt, according to the FTC.

Customers who questioned the debts and contacted creditors found that they never had any debts with those creditors or that their debts had already been paid, the complaint states.

In all, the FTC claims that the operations violated the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. A federal court temporarily halted the scheme and froze its assets at the request of the FTC, which seeks to end the practices.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The next time you’re even thinking about doing something you shouldn’t on an airplane, take a second and ask yourself: Is this worth tens of thousands of dollars? One Hawaiian Airlines passenger has learned not to mess with flight crew the hard way, and is now on the hook for almost $98,000.

A federal judge ordered a passenger whose disruptive behavior forced the pilot of a flight from Honolulu to New York to turn the plane around last November to pay Hawaiian Airlines $97,817, reports the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. He’d pleaded guilty in February to interfering with flight crew, and has also been sentenced to three years of probation.

RELATED: Could Badly-Behaved Airline Passengers Lead To A Better Flying Experience for Everyone?

His bad behavior started before the plane took off, officials said, and he then threatened his girlfriend, her kids, other passengers, and crew members once the flight as in the air. He was also accused of making contact with a flight attendant on her shoulder with the back of his hand.

U.S. District Senior Judge Susan Oki Mollway ordered the man to repay the airline for the extra costs of having to turn the plane around, including fuel, maintenance, ground crew, replacement crew, landing fee, other costs.

That $98,000 is also going to cover what Hawaiian paid to rebook passengers on other airlines, but it doesn’t include the $46,900 worth of meal vouchers the airline gave to delayed passengers heading to New York and those who were supposed to be on the return flight to Honolulu.

Every time an unruly passenger prompts a flight diversion or emergency landing, it hits airlines hard: It can cost up to $200,000 to cover all the expenses involved.

Not all airlines will go after passengers to recoup those costs, however, as doing so could hurt the airline in the long run.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

It’s been nearly a year since Wells Fargo was slapped with a $185 million fine for pushing their employees to increase their sales numbers by opening new accounts without proper authorization from the customer. Now the bank has revealed a new estimated number of so-called ‘fake accounts‘ that is 1.5 million higher than the bank had previously disclosed.  This brings the new total to 3.5 million.

Wells Fargo revealed the increase today following the completion of a third-party review of retail banking accounts opened as far back as 2009. These accounts are referred to as ‘fake,’ but are very real for the customers who didn’t authorize their creation.

Expanded Search

In all, from Jan. 2009 to Sept. 2016, employees opened approximately 3.5 million unauthorized consumer and small business accounts.

Originally, the bank said that about 2.55 million accounts were opened from May 2011 to mid-2015, following a review of 93.5 million accounts.

After expanding the investigation to include a review of 165 million accounts opened between Jan. 2009 and Sept. 2016, investigators uncovered that an additional 981,000 accounts had been opened without customers’ permission.

Read More: Will The Federal Reserve Fire Wells Fargo Board For Fake Account Fiasco?

Of the newly uncovered fake accounts, Wells Fargo estimates that 190,000 incurred fees and charges. This is an increase from the 130,000 accounts previously believed to have incurred fees and charges.

While Wells Fargo confirmed the additional accounts today, just three months ago, downplayed reports that 3.5 million accounts had been opened fraudulently, calling allegations “hypothetical.”

More Unauthorized Activity

Wells Fargo notes that the recently concluded analysis included a review of online bill pay services.

The review found employees completed about 528,000 potentially unauthorized online bill pay enrollments.

According to Wells, potentially unauthorized accounts were identified as those with only one minimal payment and no further use of the service.

The company cautioned that because some customers may have made an authorized introductory payment and then elected not to use the service, the review did not definitively determine if an enrollment was authorized by a customer or not. As a result, some authorized enrollments may be among the 528,000 accounts.

Wells says that it will refund $910,000 to customers who incurred fees or charges from the unauthorized bill pay enrollments.

More Refunds

Now that the company has completed the third-party review of accounts, executives say the bank is turning its focus toward making things right with customers.

To do this, Wells Fargo says it will provide another $2.8 million in refunds and credits. These refunds come in addition to the $3.3 million previously refunded after the initial investigation.

(The bank reports that it has already provided $3.7 million in refunds based on customer complaints and mediation claims between Sept. 8, 2016, and July 31, 2017.)

Read More: Wells Fargo Shareholders Say Bank Staff “Rounded Up” Undocumented Workers As Part Of Phony Account Scam

 

Additionally, the company says that customers may receive compensation under the recent $142 million class-action settlement for claims dating back to 2002. Wells Fargo said in a statement last month that over the next three months it will begin broad outreach to current and former customers, including providing information about the process for making claims.

“We want to ensure we make things right for each and every customer who may have concerns about the impact of unacceptable sales practices,” Mary Mack, head of Community Banking, said in a statement.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you need a gadget or cord on short notice and don’t have time to go to the store, same-day delivery from Amazon is probably the first option that you think of. Best Buy wants to change that, and is slashing the price for its own same-day delivery service while expanding the list of cities where it’s available.

Best Buy announced today that it will be expanding same-day order availability to Austin, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, and Tampa. Previously, the service was only in 13 cities.

The company is also cutting the price of each delivery from $14.99 per order to just $5.99 as of Sept. 6. The chain promises delivery by 9 P.M. of orders placed by 3 P.M.

By the end of the year, the service will reach another dozen or so markets, which haven’t yet been named. By “end of the year,” of course, we mean the holiday gifting season.

“We’re happy that by the holidays, many more customers will be able to choose same-day delivery and have it be an option on more items than ever before,” Allison Peterson, BestBuy.com president, said in a statement.

Best Buy’s online sales, whether they’re delivered to customer homes or picked up in stores, have been a major growth area for the company.

Best Buy uses outside gig economy firms to actually carry out the deliveries, including app-based delivery dispatching service Deliv and another outside firm that the company didn’t name.

For Best Buy, competing with Amazon is crucial, especially as Amazon expands its same-day and two-hour delivery options to more cities.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

You can fly over floods… but only if there’s a place to take off and a place to land. Houston’s airports, like the rest of the city, have been dealing with high water and torrential rain caused by Hurricane Harvey, and while the runways are dry, it’s going to take some time for air travel to and through the area to get anything like back to normal.

Houston is home to two major airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU). Many major carriers fly through one or both, including Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and a number of international carriers.

The Houston airports announced today that they have resumed “limited domestic airline passenger service.” The airports will be slowly ramping up operations, with full service expected to resume over Labor Day weekend.

Limited really does mean limited. As Bloomberg notes, IAH is a major hub for United, which usually operates 480 flights per day out of the airport (to say nothing of all the arrivals). For now, they’re starting with a total of six: three in, three out.

American Airlines, which operates out of both HOU and IAH, will be resuming limited flights today. Southwest will be waiting until Saturday, Sept. 2, to resume limited service from HOU.

One analyst and former airline executive told Bloomberg that with as much water still remains in Houston, “It’s not going to be a full operation without concerns probably for another five days” — a solid ten days since the airports first closed down.

Roads to both IAH and HOU are largely accessible at this point, the airports authority says — but that doesn’t mean you can get from the airport to where you want to be.

The airports authority also strongly urges anyone who doesn’t need to be at the airport to stay well away, saying, “only those with a ticket for a confirmed scheduled flight” should come to the airport. In other words, don’t go to the airport to see if your flight happens to be taking off; check with your airline first and stay away if your flight is cancelled.

The major domestic airlines all have dedicated alerts to help passengers on affected flights rebook or check flight status:

• Alaska
• American
• Delta
• JetBlue
• Southwest
• United

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Hurricane Harvey’s impact on fuel prices nationally might be more costly than first anticipated: The country’s largest fuel system, the Colonial Pipeline, shut down its main fuel lines.

Colonial Pipeline announced Wednesday evening that it would temporarily close two of its fuel lines that send an estimated 100 million gallons of gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel from Houston to the East Coast.

According to Colonial Pipeline, Line 2 — which transports diesel and aviation fuel — closed Wednesday, while Line 1 — which transports gasoline between Houston and the East Coast — stopped operations today.

The company noted that the shutdowns were made “due to supply constraints caused by storm-related refinery shutdowns.”

Once Colonial is able to ensure that its facilities are safe to operate and refiners have the ability to move product, the systems will resume operation.

What’s It Mean For Your Wallet?

While many drivers have seen an increase in gas prices in the days following Harvey’s landfall, the latest pipeline closure could drive up costs even more.

The shutdowns have led to an increase in gasoline futures — the wholesale prices charged to gas stations — that are eventually passed down to customers.

As of Wednesday evening, gasoline futures jumped 7% to more than $2/gallon, CNN reports.

Although it might take time for the latest jump in futures to reach customers — likely in days or weeks — prices have already seen a slight increase since Harvey struck.

GasBuddy, a fuel tracking system, notes that fuel prices are up nearly $0.02 from yesterday, while the average price has increased $0.11 since last week.

Compared to this time last year, however, the price is up $0.24.

GasBuddy executives warned of the impending price increases shortly before the hurricane hit Texas, noting that the storm could lead to long-term issues in terms of gasoline supply for large portions of the country.

The company estimates that gas price increases could linger for one or two weeks after the storm.

Past Trouble

Hurricane Harvey isn’t the first event to wreak havoc on nation’s pipelines.

In Sept. 2016, a spill of gasoline from the Colonial Pipeline in Alabama resulted in higher gas prices. Repairs of the issue, which was declared a state of emergency in Alabama and Georgia, were delayed, causing shortages and further price increases.

Three months later in Dec. 2016, the Colonial Pipeline shutdown again after an explosion and fire killed a worker.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, flood waters have wreaked havoc on much of southeastern Texas. So when a Pizza Hut manager heard there were families trapped in their homes without food, she decided that if she couldn’t get to them by land, she’d send pizza over the water — by kayak.

The manager of a Houston-area Pizza Hut says she acted after one of her shift managers told her there were people in a certain neighborhood who were hungry and running low on food.

“When I heard there were families in need, I knew we needed to act fast,” she told Click2Houston. “I called my husband and asked him to gather up kayaks and meet me at the restaurant.”

They then packed 120 pizzas into kayaks, and workers set out to deliver them.

“The people in the houses didn’t expect us to come,” the manager told Chron.com. “It was so nice to see their smiles after so much gloom.”

The franchisee said he was proud of the team “for seeing a need, stepping up, and helping the community in a time of devastation.”

Pizza Hut corporate also chimed in to applaud the workers’ efforts:

THANK YOU to our Oak Lake Pizza Hut team for their out-of-the-car response to deliver hot pizzas all day to the community they serve. http://pic.twitter.com/Xmkv9XhrKw

— Pizza Hut (@pizzahut) August 30, 2017

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Soap has one job. It’s supposed to help clean things. Instead, Dr. Brown’s soap, which is marketed as “natural” and sold for use on dishes and baby bottles, has been recalled because it may be contaminated with bacteria.

What to do

The bottles of dish soap are contaminated with what’s described as just “harmful bacteria,” and the company will replace them with new, reformulated soap. Call 877-962-2525 or visit the company’s recall page for information about getting a replacement bottle.

The company asks that customers stop using the product immediately. If you’ve used the soap to wash bottles or dishes, you should boil them or run them through a sanitizer cycle on your dishwasher if it has that option.

What to look for

Products included in this recall were sold from September 2016 to June 2017. You might have purchased them from Amazon.com, or 4 Our Little Ones, Babies R’ Us, Bebeang, Buy Buy Baby, Drugland Pharmacy, Family First Pharmacy, Global Nutrition Trading, Macro, or Turquoise.

 

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

As the FCC winds down its lip-service commenting period on Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to roll back net neutrality rules that stop internet service providers from interfering with the things you do and see online, we wanted to remind you of that time we challenged more than a dozen cable companies — all of whom publicly claimed to love the core ideas of neutrality — if they would put those rules into a legally binding contract; not one of them said yes.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

PepsiCo, the snack corporation that has brought us simple culinary delights such as Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Doritos Locos Tacos flavored Doritos, has a new product line geared to current consumers’ tastes. The Simply line is organic versions of 11 of the company’s main chip brands, including Lay’s, Cheetos, Doritos, and Tostitos.

Bloomberg News reports that the products are now in stores, including the grocery section of Amazon.com. That leads to an interesting question: Now that Amazon owns Whole Foods, a company with famously strict rules about what products it will carry, would Frito-Lay products from the organic line ever appear on the shelves of Whole Foods?

Better-for-you brands from Big Food

The new products meet all of the requirements that Whole Foods has for its food suppliers, and are made from certified organic ingredients. Unless the chain has some kind of philosophical opposition to PepsiCo itself, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be for sale there.

“Amazon’s acquisition makes it much more likely that Whole Foods will carry these better-for-you brands, even if they’re made by large incumbent [consumer packaged goods] players,” a research analyst who follows snack companies told Bloomberg News. “The smaller brands just can’t keep up with the spending and velocity required from Amazon anymore.”

Either smaller brands and the companies that make private label items for Whole Foods will have to keep up, or the big players will start to appear on the store and virtual shelves.

Who would even buy that?

Are there customers out there who want both the Doritos brand and a guarantee that their food was grown without synthetic pesticides and genetic modification? Sure, the chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay says.

“The notion of clean and simple is very important to a segment of consumers,” she told Bloomberg in an interview. There are customers who want “simple” ingredients but who also like a salty, flavored corn chip made from non-GMO corn.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you’ve ever looked at the list of ingredients on a can of air freshener and wondered what, exactly, is involved in that “sea breeze” scent, you’ll have some more answers soon: Procter & Gamble is joining other companies in the push for transparency with a promise that eventually all of its smelliest home and personal care offerings will detail exactly what substances make up “fragrance.”

Fragrance is… fragrance

For example, if you check out the current ingredient page for Febreze products, things like “Alcohol” and “Citric Acid” are included along with “fragrance*.”

Follow that asterisk and P&G says that Febreze perfumes are “formulated taking into account our stringent internal safety standards for every ingredient, as well as the safety standards set by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA).”

If you dig a little further on P&G’s site, you can find a list of ingredients in its “fragrance palette,” as well as those it does not use at all. However, there are no explanations as to what any of these things are, so if you want to know what “β-Farnesene” is, you’re on your own — at least for now.

Coming soon

P&G announced today that its new plan is to share all fragrance ingredients — for any substance present in concentrations of greater than 0.01% — online for its entire product portfolio in the U.S. and Canada by 2019. The company will start by focusing on fabric, home, and beauty care categories, listing what’s in certain Tide, Febreze, Herbal Essences, and Olay products.

Pointing out that it already lists all fragrance ingredients online, P&G says this move is an “additional level of detail” that will “offer consumers more reliable information to help choose what’s best for them and their families.”

Beyond simply saying what’s in these products, P&G says it will also add information like where else the ingredients can be found, “such as everyday fruits, foods, and other products.”

Of course, just because your face wash is made with the same thing that’s in grapefruit rinds doesn’t mean you should go rubbing it all over your face. If an ingredient and its possible side effects are unfamiliar to you, you’ll still have to do a bit of research on your own.

“While we applaud P&G’s actions today, we will also urge them to go further in protecting public health,” says U.S. PIRG Toxics Advocate Dev Gowda. “P&G should also provide full fragrance disclosure to consumers on product packages, regardless of the product category and whether the product contains fragrance ingredients over 100 parts per million.”

Transparency is trendy

P&G seems to be taking a page out of the playbook other companies are using to woo shoppers who want to know exactly what they’re putting on their skin or spraying in their kitchen.

In February, P&G competitor Unilever promised it would list its fragrance ingredients for its home and personal care goods online, which you can see in the wild over on the Seventh Generation website.

Brands like skincare company Beauty Counter as well as household names like SJC-owned Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day also feature online ingredient glossaries, explaining things like what’s in each product — whether it’s synthetic or from a plant-based source — and what they do.

Retailers are jumping on the transparency bandwagon as well: After encouraging suppliers to remove eight controversial chemicals from products last year, Walmart is the latest company to join The Chemical Footprint Project, which rates companies on their use of chemicals.

Also this year, Target unveiled new guidelines for manufacturers that will require them them to remove certain chemicals from products and list all ingredients on products over the next five years.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

It was a big day in news for connected-home devices, with Google announcing plans to put its Home technology on a slew of new appliances, while two competing digital assistants — Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana — began to make nice with each other.

Google Gadgets

Maybe your notion of a voice-activated appliance is you screaming at your dishwasher to just please work properly for once. It’s becoming increasingly likely that your next washer will be able to listen and talk back to you.

The Google Assistant launched with the Google Home smart speaker in 2016 and works on both the company’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS.

This morning, Google announced a major expansion in platforms where Assistant can live. In addition to third-party connected speakers from Anker, Panasonic, and Mobvoi, the company is planning to integrate Assistant into a wide variety of appliances.

Forgot to turn the dishwasher on before you went to bed? Tell your Assistant-enabled phone or speaker, “OK Google, run the dishwasher,” and it should work. At least, if your dishwasher is one of the appliances coming from “manufacturers like LG” that has Assistant integration.

Google promises to keep updating its list of participating manufacturers as the week goes on.

Robots Make Friends

Meanwhile, some of the other voice assistants out there appear to be teaming up. As Reuters reports, Alexa and Cortana appear to be making friends.

Amazon and Microsoft have announced a bit of a partnership for their respective AI assistants, Reuters explains. The two will be able to talk to each other for a more seamless consumer experience.

Basically, you’ll be able to run one through the other. If you’re not near your Amazon device, but you’re using a laptop with Cortana enabled, you’ll be able to say, “Cortana, open Alexa,” and you’ll have access to your Amazon service, or vice versa.

Analysts told Reuters they were surprised the companies were working so closely together, since usually these services — and the massive troves of data and code used to drive them — are kept closely proprietary.

But, analysts also note, what Amazon has just gained is one more edge on Google. By beating Google to the smart-speaker market, Amazon managed to become the “accidental winner” of the home AI race, and Google — which only released Home in late 2016 — has been scrambling to catch up.

Google, meanwhile, recently teamed up with Walmart to try and gain on the Amazon behemoth.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Most of us can walk into any big box or warehouse store and buy a case of bottled water for less than $10. But one Best Buy store in hurricane-devastated Texas was caught charging between $30 to $43 just for cases of water, leading to claims of price-gouging. Amid the blowback for its egregiously overpriced water, Best Buy is apologizing and claims it was all a mistake.

Skyrocketing prices

A reader submitted a photo of the Best Buy display to a reporter at news site Grit Post, who shared it on Twitter and on the site. The image went viral, because even the least price-conscious shopper knows that $43 for a case of Dasani is several times what one should expect to pay.

One Houston resident sent me a pic of water he saw being sold for *$42* at a nearby Best Buy. They were kind enough to offer $29 bottles too http://pic.twitter.com/8dKz3sJJM1

— ken klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 29, 2017

Best Buy apologized for selling this item, telling Grit Post in an emailed statement: “This was a big mistake on the part of a few employees at one store on Friday. As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people. We’re sorry and it won’t happen again.”

The company’s spokesman explained the pricing, noting that it was “not as an excuse, but as an explanation.”

It’s actually an understandable error: The chain doesn’t normally sell water by the case, but it does sell some bottled water in coolers near its checkouts. That meant that the retailer had no price set up in the system for when it’s selling cases of water, and employees simply multiplied the normal single-bottle price by 24.

Others Accused Of Gouging

Intentional price-gouging, however, is a problem during any natural disaster, and has been reported around the region affected by Hurricane Harvey. Some Wingstop customers in Corpus Christi (warning: auto-play video at that link) were charged a mysterious “catering tray” fee for their meals, which one cashier called a “convenience fee.” Customers who complained to the chain received refunds.

KXAN kicked off an investigation when the Best Western where their crew stayed charged $289 before taxes for a room that normally cost $120. The Attorney General investigated, and was able to get refunds for dozens of families who stayed at the hotel during the storm.

That location has already lost its Best Western franchise as a result of the hurricane-related price hikes.

“We are deeply offended and saddened by the actions taken by this hotel,” the chain’s public relations manager told KXAN in a statement. “As a result, we are immediately severing any affiliation with the hotel. This hotel’s actions are contrary to the values of Best Western. We do not tolerate this type of egregious and unethical behavior.”

What to do when you’re price-gouged

Price-gouging happens because customers really do have no other choice — so if you find yourself in this situation, document the price, whether it’s a doubled hotel room rate, $20 for a gallon of gas, or $5 for a liter of water. Then take that documentation to your state’s attorney general as well as to the retailer’s corporate office if it’s a chain.

“If you see [price-gouging] happening, take a photograph,” Texas Deputy Attorney General Jim Davis told KXAN-TV out of Austin in an interview. “Use your cell phone. That’s one of the things of this storm that’s different, is the social media effect and the information we get.”

While the AG’s office is searching social media for complaints of price-gouging, don’t assume that posting to Facebook is sufficient. Make sure to submit your complaint to the Attorney General’s office.

Ken Paxton, Texas AG and hero to people who found RadioShack gift cards in their sock drawer long after the retailer’s bankruptcy, has reminded people in Texas that the state fines merchants $20,000 for price-gouging, and the fine multiplies to $250,000 when the person overcharged is over 65.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Repeat after me: Map apps can be useful, but you should not follow their advice blindly. For example, if you’re on your bike and it tells you to cycle through a tunnel meant only for cars. Don’t do that.

Port Authority police intercepted a delivery worker on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel after he biked through it on his way to drop off food for a customer, NJ.com reports.

While it’s perfectly okay to cycle across many of the area’s bridges, bikes — and other “velocipedes” — are barred from entering the Lincoln Tunnel, according to Port Authority regulations [PDF].

The cyclist says he was simply following the directions on a mapping app. He showed the police his phone, “which supported his claim,” a Port Authority spokesman told NJ.com.

In the end, traffic wasn’t majorly disrupted, and police issued a traffic summons for trespass.

He’s not the only one who has blamed technology for leading them astray:

• A lost truck driver once landed a big rig on a public park’s footbridge and blamed his GPS.

• Then there was the driver who followed her map app and ended up crossing an airport taxiway.

• Back in 2013, a woman in Europe drove 900 miles instead of 90 due to a GPS error.

• And a year before that, a GPS failure led to an arrest after a woman drove onto a golf course.

• Of course, we can never forget when Australian police warned people against using Apple maps, lest they end up lost in the wilderness.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you need more evidence that we are living in an increasingly internet-connected world, look no further than a recent software update aimed at making sure 465,000 people with pacemakers don’t have hearts that are vulnerable to hackers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this week that medical device company Abbott has issued a corrective action for implantable cardiac pacemakers made under the St. Jude’s Medical brand. According to the company there is a “risk of patient harm due to potential exploitation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.”

To address this heart-hacking vulnerability, Abbott is issuing a firmware update to the pacemakers.

While this update is being treated as a recall, the devices will continue to function as intended “and replacement of implanted pacemaker devices is not recommended.”

To that end, there are no known reports of patient harm related to the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the 465,000 radio-frequency-enabled implanted Abbott devices impacted in the U.S.; the company says this firmware update is part of a plan announced in January, and will “provide an additional layer of security against unauthorized access to these devices.”

Which devices are involved?

Included in the update:
• Accent
• Anthem
• Accent MRI
• Accent ST
• Assurity
• Allure

Not included: Any implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) or cardiac resynchronization ICDs (CRT-Ds)

Going forward, any pacemaker manufactured as of Aug. 28, 2017 will have the update pre-loaded in the device.

How to get the update

If you have an impacted pacemaker, you should talk with your physician about when you should receive the update — which requires an in-person patient visit — as well as address any questions or concerns you might have.

The process will take about three minutes to complete, during which time the device will operate in backup mode “and essential, life-sustaining features will remain available.”

If you have any questions or want additional information, check out http://ift.tt/2wT7Bti, or contact Abbott’s hotline at 1-800-722-3774.

“As medical devices become increasingly interconnected via the Internet, hospital networks, other medical devices, and smartphones, there is an increased risk of exploitation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, some of which could affect how a medical device operates,” the FDA notes.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Key cards may be a convenient way for hotels to issue room keys, but a bug in one popular model made it convenient to electronically pick the locks. An override code to open doors was programmed into the locks, making them easy to open after a quick shopping trip to RadioShack. One man took advantage of this bug and used it to gain access to rooms across the country, stealing stuff from hotels and guests alike.

In an excellent feature story in Wired, you can learn the slightly horrifying story of how tens of millions of electronic locks in hotels have an easily exploitable flaw, but the manufacturer has no way to push an update out to all of them. Years after the flaw was discovered, many of them still haven’t been fixed.

“Like a ghost”

A man in Arizona had learned about the exploit from a TV news item just as he was about to be sent back to prison on charges that he thought had been dismissed. His crimes until then were minor forgeries and driving under the influence, and he decided that if he was going to prison for six years, he should do something that (to him) really merited that kind of sentence.

The first time he gained access to a room using his door-opening gadget, he just stole a pile of towels and pillows, not ready to risk stealing televisions yet. Eventually, he moved on to stealing multiple room TVs as well as guests’ stuff. Police and hotels were mystified.

He began entering empty hotel rooms during the day, at first un-bolting and removing hotel-owned TVs, but eventually making off with customers’ electronics, jewelry, and entire suitcases. Who looks twice at a person wheeling a suitcase down a hotel hallway?

“Everything’s gone. No prints. No forced entry,” a detective in Tempe, AZ, one of the cities that the hotel hacker first hit, told Wired. “It was like a ghost had slipped in and slipped out.”

He grew bolder, eventually stealing a guest’s luggage while the man napped in his bed during the day. Meanwhile, the maker of the popular door lock model, Onity, began to take the threat seriously and realized that it needed to pay for some kind of fix, and began sending plugs for the data ports on each door. The hotel hacker figured out how to remove the lock’s cover and get rid of the plastic piece blocking his access.

The hotel hacker was eventually caught, pleading guilty to three of what he claims are at least a hundred hotel burglaries. He was sentenced to nine years in state prison in Arizona.

Watch your bags

Five years after his spree began, though, there are still exploitable Onity locks around. If you see an open port that looks like it could take a DC power plug on your hotel room door, maybe take anything irreplaceable in your room with you, or lock it in a safe.

Normally, when a security researcher shares this kind of exploit with the world, as the man who discovered this issue did at a hacker conference and even a mainstream media article, the company responsible rushes to fix the problem before anyone can begin a nationwide crime spree.

Onity, the lock-maker, put that expense on the hotels that use its lock instead. Replacing the relevant part in each of its locks cost around $25 per lock, with tens of millions of locks installed.

As a result, there are still plenty of exploitable locks around. Watch your back. Or, we should say, your bags.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Dedicated and effective government employees can come from many prior walks of life, it’s true; the path through any career can be winding and complex. But choosing someone with major ties to a for-profit college that engaged in questionable behaviors to head up a division tasked with investigating for-profit colleges that engage in questionable behaviors seems like a bad sign.

There’s a new hire coming to the Department of Education, Politico reports: Julian Schmoke, currently a high-ranking director at a community college in Georgia, will be taking over as head of the Department’s Student Aid Enforcement Office.

What’s the job?

The Student Aid Enforcement Office was formed in early 2016, “as part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive action to protect students and taxpayers.”

The Enforcement Office basically works with other divisions within the Department of Education to investigate instutitions’ shady actions around student lending. Basically, it’s the gorup that handles alleged fraud on the part of for-profit colleges and universities.

What’s the problem?

The first head of the Enforcement division came from the FTC, where he had previously worked on consumer protection issues; that follows. But the same cannot be said of the new nominee: Prior to his current role as a college administrator, Schmoke spent several years working for DeVry University.

Yes, the same for-profit DeVry University you’ve probably seen commercials for — and the same DeVry University that just finished paying out $49 million in refunds to more than 17,3000 students after it reached a $100 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over those ads in late 2016.

In short, the Department of Education has now hired a guy who spent much of a career at a for-profit school busted for fraud… to head the department that helps determine which for-profit schools need to be busted for fraud.

Part of a pattern

The new hire is just one of many recent signals from the Trump Administration that the Department of Education is making a 180 on issues related to for-profit education.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos herself has financial ties to a student loan refinancer.

In June, DeVos named the head of a private, for-profit student lending company to run the Department’s Office of Financial Aid. That same month she also promised to “reset” rules that regulated for-profit colleges and held them more accountable.

And in July, it came out that the Education Department had not approved a single loan forgiveness claim since the start of the new Administration on Jan. 20.

So while it is theoretically possible that Schmoke’s ties to DeVry don’t mean he will be anything other than a stalward defender of students’ rights… probably best not to hold your breath.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Don’t select your plastic surgeon based solely on their Instagram posts. That feels like something we shouldn’t have to tell people, but the “bad idea”-ness of it all is being highlighted by a new report which found that fewer than 20% of cosmetic surgery posts on Instagram are from board-certified plastic surgeons.

The report, published today in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal by researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, looked at the most popular posts related to an array of common plastic surgery-related hashtags and found a variety of people — some doctors, some not — pushing cosmetic surgery services without certification from medical boards in either the U.S. or Canada.

Becoming a board-certified plastic surgeon requires years of post-medical school training specifically in this field, in addition to several more years of surgical training and experience.

In some cases, these surgeries are indeed being marketed by physicians, but ones who aren’t specifically trained in this field, like gynecologists, dermatologists, emergency medicine physicians, and doctors specializing in family medicine — though all reportedly marketed themselves as “cosmetic surgeons,” a designation that many physicians can use but which is not an indication of any specific training or experience in the field.

“A cosmetic surgeon is not necessarily the same thing as a board certified plastic surgeon, and patients need to be made aware of this,” explains Robert Dorfman, lead author of the study.

Perhaps more alarming were the plastic surgery-related ads placed by non-physicians: dentists, hair salons, and spas with no affiliated doctor.

“This is a very scary finding,” says Dorfman. “Providers — ranging from physicians who are not licensed in plastic surgery to dentists, hair salon employees and barbers — are doing procedures for which they do not have formal or extensive training. That’s extremely dangerous for the patient.”

The majority of the most popular cosmetic surgery marketing posts were from doctors based in other countries, with Turkey, Russia, Brazil, and Colombia leading the way.

Of all the top posts related to plastic surgery hashtags on Instagram, the report says that fewer than 18% were published by actual board-certified plastic surgeons.

What’s more, the study found that the posts published by the board-certified surgeons were significantly more likely to contain educational information for prospective patients, as opposed to purely promotional content.

“It is critical that board-certified plastic surgeons use social media like Instagram as a platform to educate patients about the risks of surgery and dangers of having plastic surgery performed by those with improper training,” concludes the study.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

What’s that old saying, again? “When you love someone, say it with meat”? That’s how employees at one Los Angeles Whole Foods welcomed their new e-commerce overlords, sculpting Amazon and Prime logos out of ground beef in the display case.

A few observant shoppers browsing the meat department at an L.A.-area Whole Foods spotted beef sculptures devoted to Amazon branding this week, apparently in celebration of Amazon and Whole Foods officially becoming one on Monday:

More Amazon meat at another LA-based Whole Foods http://pic.twitter.com/kl9HYKnCbN

— Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) August 28, 2017

.@amazon logo made out of ground beef at an LA-area @WholeFoods. #AmazonWholeFoods h/t @ChrisWoodyard http://pic.twitter.com/Jv0zLG4LMB

— Zlati Meyer (@Zlatimeyer) August 28, 2017

But these were not displays commissioned by Jeff Bezos, as meat guys working at the store in question confirmed to Recode that they decided to get creative on their own: “One of the managers” apparently thought it would be fun to make the Amazon logo out of meat, so a worker used a paper cutout of the Amazon logo as a guide to shape the beef.

We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment on this culinary ode to the company, and will update this post if we hear back.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Uber’s brand new CEO already has a lot to deal with: The U.S. Justice Department is in the first stages of investigating whether managers at the company ran afoul of a federal law that prohibits companies and their employees from bribing foreign officials in the course of doing business.

Probing matters

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it unlawful for “certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business.”

The DOJ is now looking into whether Uber managers violated that law, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Uber confirmed to the WSJ that the company is working with the DOJ on the preliminary investigation, while the agency said that as a matter of policy, it doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Depending on what the DOJ finds, if anything, officials will then decide whether or not to pursue a full investigation.

New CEO on the block

The news of this investigation comes just as Uber’s board confirmed earlier reports that ex-Expedia head honcho Dara Khosrowshahi has accepted the job of CEO.

In a letter Tuesday night to employees announcing their unanimous vote for Khosrowshahi, Uber’s board of directors notes that the new CEO will answer questions at a companywide meeting on Wednesday.

“The Board and the Executive Leadership Team are confident that Dara is the best person to lead Uber into the future building world-class products, transforming cities, and adding value to the lives of drivers and riders around the world while continuously improving our culture and making Uber the best place to work,”

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

जनता का आदमी

Sure, it might be convenient to do your own income tax preparation online, but it could be risky: Scammers all over the globe have exploited these risks, slurping billions of dollars’ worth of ill-gotten tax refunds into their bank accounts. In order to prevent even more of this, federal regulators have settled charges TaxSlayer violated federal rules on financial privacy and security.

Tax returns include sensitive financial information, after all, including Social Security numbers, employment information, and the amount each person is really due in taxes. Access to a tax return gives the person filing them the ability to change addresses and bank accounts and receive someone else’s tax refund.

While the Internal Revenue Service has taken steps to protect taxpayers against having their refunds shipped to scammers or even shipped out of the country, the Federal Trade Commission says that TaxSlayer’s lax security and privacy practices hurt their customers [FTC].

The FTC notes that the company failed at some pretty basic security safeguards [PDF], including protecting users against having their credentials from other sites re-purposed on the TaxSlayer site, or notifying customers when the mailing address, password, security question, or banking information associated with their accounts had changed.

It also didn’t require customers to choose complex passwords, an important safeguard against hackers gaining access to accounts.

Even though it holds financial information, the company didn’t develop a written comprehensive security program until Nov. 2015. The company also didn’t issue a written privacy policy to customers, which it was required to do.

The company is now required to get third-party assessments of its security practices every two years for the next ten years, and will face harsher penalties if it is caught violating the Safeguards Rule or the Financial Privacy Rule in the next 20 years.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Google pulled nearly 300 malicious apps from the Google Play Store this week, after a team of researchers from several internet companies discovered that they were all hijacking phones’ power into a massive international botnet spanning more than 100 countries.

The problem

The issue is a botnet called WireX.

Several different internet companies — Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, Oracle Dyn, RiskIQ, Team Cymru, and others — worked together to identify WireX after it first appeared on Aug. 17.
Researchers from all these organizations were able to identify that WireX was being powered by roughly hundreds of different, seemingly innocuous Android apps: video players, storage management tools, or ringtones, for example.

After the researchers worked out the scope and details of the attack, they notified Google of their findings, and more than 300 apps were pulled from the Google Play Store. Several of the organizations jointly published a blog post explaining the technical details of their findings.

A whatnet?

A computer is powerful; loads of computers working together are enormously powerful. That’s the general principle behind a botnet: Hackers put some kind of malicious code on as many systems as possible, then use them all to do something.

Increasingly, that “something” is to launch a Distributed Denial of Service attack, or DDOS, against some entity. In a DDoS attack, hijacked devices basically pound some server with such a ludicrous number or access requests that it can’t keep up, and either crashes or, at the very least, is unable to serve legitimate traffic.

For example, a DDoS attack against a hosting provider in 2016 left millions of users unable to access major platforms like Reddit, Spotify, and Twitter for several hours.

Anything that can connect to the internet can be taken over and turned into part of a botnet. That 2016 attack was perpetuated in part by hackable webcams made by a Chinese firm. Millions of other devices worldwide also get pulled into botnets regularly, in part because a huge percentage of the “things” in the internet of things are ridiculously hackable and poorly secured.

Phones aren’t usually included

Desktop and laptop computers have been vulnerable to being swept up in botnets since roughly the dawn of the internet, and it’s common to see processing power borrowed from any available IoT device. But despite mobile phones overwhelming pervasiveness in the modern world, they are not commonly a part of botnet-driven DDoS attacks.

It is, unfortunately, fairly common for nasty things to be hiding in Android software; for example, more than 500 apps were recently found to be holding a significant vulnerability that let third parties access your data.

Android is more vulnerable to attack than iOS largely because of its decentralized nature. No matter what carrier you use an iPhone on, Apple solely controls the operating system and updates to it. But Android phones are made by dozens of manufacturers and run on dozens of different wireless carriers — and the device-makers and wireless carriers, not Google, are primarily responsible for keeping those hundreds of millions of phones up to date.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

When the flood waters left behind by Hurricane Harvey eventually recede, they will leave behind billions of dollars in property damage. However, a large majority of homeowners will likely have to spend their own money to make their homes livable again.

The Consumer Federation of America estimates that — because of the limited availability of flood insurance and damage limitations placed on most homeowners’ policies — eight out of ten homeowners with flood damage from Harvey don’t have insurance that will cover their claims.

Robert Hunter, CFA’s Director of Insurance and former Texas Insurance Commissioner and Federal Insurance Administrator, tells the Associated Press that the lack of insurance could result in Texas homeowners paying as much as $28 billion out-of-pocket for Harvey-inflicted repairs.

Limitations On Coverage

The CFA notes that insurance companies have gradually increased the deductibles associated with hurricane coverage while generally limiting the types of damage they will pay to repair in the wake of a natural disaster.

Most homeowner insurance policies only cover wind damage, not flood damage. In fact, to repair water damage, most homeowners insurance policies require that the damage be the result of water entering the home through a window that is blown out from wind.

Flood Insurance

For actual flood insurance, individuals must purchase coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program. This insurance is generally only available to — and is frequently required of — homeowners with federally backed mortgages livings in areas vulnerable to flooding.

The AP notes that while there are around 1.2 million properties in Houston deemed to be at moderate to high risk for flooding, these buildings are not situated in designated flood zones where the flood insurance is required.

According to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency data, only 17% of homeowners in the counties most affected by Harvey have flood insurance.

Still, CFA estimates that insurance companies will pay about $7 billion for more than 150,000 anticipated flood and wind damage claims submitted after the storm.

However, the agency cautions that claims, insurance payments, and out-of-pocket costs could increase depending on how much rainfall occurs in certain areas of Houston.

If You Don’t Have Insurance

While the wind damage to properties in Texas was significant during Harvey, the 12-50 inches of rain that have fallen in the area so far may prove even more damaging.

Hunter tells the AP that homeowners without flood insurance could try to apply for federal disaster relief benefits.

However, these benefits aren’t the same as insurance coverage. Instead, they are similar to low-interest loans, that must be repaid.

For those who don’t have federal flood insurance, advocates urge them to contact their homeowners’ insurance company anyway.

“Don’t assume you won’t [receive money from an insurer] if you don’t see problems with the naked eye,” Kristin Sullivan, a financial planner, tells MarketWatch.

Filing A Claim

Consumers suffering home damage as a result of Hurricane Harvey are urged to contact their insurance companies as soon as possible.

CFA notes that while the federal government underwrites flood insurance coverage, actual insurance companies service claims.

As a result, homeowners should follow the same procedures as they would with a traditional claim.

CFA offers several tips for individuals filing, including to keep clear records of the damage and their interactions with the insurance company.

“Because so many consumers experienced severe claims problems in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, we urge homeowners dealing with losses caused by Hurricane Harvey to be vigilant with their insurance companies, including the insurers settling National Flood Insurance claims, to ensure that they receive a full and fair settlement,” Hunter said in a statement.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Flooding in the Houston area continues today, as remnants of Hurricane Harvey continue to unleash unfathomable torrents of rain on the Gulf Coast. In addition to the destruction facing local homes and businesses, all travel into or out of the nation’s fourth-largest city — both for people and for things — has been hampered, and will likely continue to be for some time.

Air Travel

Houston is home to two major airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU). Several major airlines fly through Hobby Airport, including American, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest. Several more national and international carriers fly through Bush Intercontinental, including Air Canada, Air France, Alaska, British Airways, United, and others.

Botth IAH and HOU have been completely closed since Sunday, Aug. 27, and it’s unclear how much longer they might stay that way.

More: Southwest Airlines flies 500 stranded passengers out of closed Houston airport

The airport authority website says for both that they are closed until further notice; the FAA indicates that HOU may reopen at noon on Wednesday (Aug. 30), with IAH to follow on Thursday (Aug. 31). That is, of course, weather-dependent; continued rain is forecast to last during the rest of the week, to say nothing of how long it may take for flood waters to ebb and damage to be assessed.

In the meantime, approximately 1,400 flights into or out of those airports have been cancelled each day this week, including Wednesday, and several hundred pre-emptive cancellations marked for as late as Thursday as well, according to FlightAware.

If you were supposed to be on any of those flights — or are supposed to travel to or through basically any airport in the region — airlines are waiving change and cancellation fees for those flights. We’ve gathered up direct links to information on rebooking and travel waivers for the following airlines below:

• Alaska
• American
• Delta
• JetBlue
• Southwest
• United

Because the Houston airports serve as hubs for many airlines, particularly Southwest, the widespread cancellations are likely to have a lingering domino effect on other flights around the country, too. As always, check with your airline before heading to the airport if your travel plans may be affected.

Shipping

Shuttered airports don’t only affect passenger travel, of course; they also affect cargo planes, and so any packages or goods that have to go that way are probably not going anywhere any time soon.

But Houston is also one of the nation’s biggest, busiest port cities — and widespread flooding is no better for sea lanes than it is for airplanes.

Port Houston closed most of its facilities by noon local time on Friday, Aug. 25; all facilities are still closed as of today and it’s not clear when they may reopen. Ship pilots tell industry publication S&P Global Platts that the last outbound ships left the port on Thursday (Aug. 24).

That means anything that needs to go into or out of the U.S. via Houston isn’t going right now: Everything from petroleum to grain to cars to containers full of consumer goods is on hold, which will also likely have ripple effects in the days and weeks to come.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The Trump administration has not been shy about its desire to cut regulations, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the Food and Drug Administration could be pulling back on its efforts to hold companies accountable. The FDA has sent out fewer warning letters to date this year than in any year since 2008. If warning letters and enforcement actions are down, does that mean we’re all less safe?

What warning letters are for

The FDA sends letters of warning to companies for all kinds of reasons. They might receive warnings as a follow-up to an inspection, when they’re caught selling tobacco products to minors, or when the FDA learns about problematic labeling or marketing. Fewer letters going out could mean cutbacks in inspections, or cutbacks in enforcement actions.

Compared to this point during the first year of the Obama administration, research by Bloomberg Politics shows, the FDA has sent 8% fewer warning letters. So far this year, the agency has sent 30% fewer letters than it had on average by this point of the year during all eight years of the Obama administration. Yet the agency says that there’s been no deliberate slowdown in enforcement under the Trump administration.

Companies probably aren’t suddenly behaving better

It would be great to hear that this is that because food and drug manufacturing facilities worldwide are suddenly cleaner and safer, but that seems unlikely. It’s especially unlikely because the agency’s new Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, has been critical of the FDA’s actions toward drug manufacturers in the past. He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed accusing regulations of making certain generic drugs scarce by over-regulating their production.

“Instead of calling for targeted fixes of troubled plants, the agency has often taken a very costly shotgun approach that requires upgrades virtually everywhere,” he wrote.

That’s not to say that the FDA hasn’t taken some dramatic enforcement actions under the new administration. Since Gottlieb was confirmed in May, the agency has asked a drugmaker to take Opana, a prescription opioid painkiller linked to abuse and to an HIV outbreak, off the market, and the company complied. His FDA is also considering lowering nicotine levels allowed in cigarettes to reduce their addictive power.

You can keep an eye on warning letters going out for yourself, since they’re all public documents. They can be both tedious and fascinating reading.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

It’s fairly difficult to get from point A to point B when the engine in your car suddenly stalls. For that reason, Volkswagen recalled nearly 281,000 vehicles that could contain a fuel pump issue. 

Volkswagen announced recently the recall of 280,915 model year 2009 to 2016 CC and model year 2006 to 2010 Passat and Passat Wagon vehicles.

According to a notice [PDF] with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an interruption of electrical power to the fuel pump control module may occur, causing the fuel pump to fail.

If this occurs, the vehicle can lose power while driving and stall unexpectedly, increasing the risk of a crash.

Conversely, the issue could also cause the fuel pump to run continuously, resulting in a drained vehicle battery.

The carmaker says it is unaware of any injuries or crashes related to the issue.

Volkswagen notes that parts to repair the vehicles are currently unavailable. However, the company mail interim notices to customers starting Oct. 13.

Owners may contact Volkswagen customer service at 1-800-893-5298.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Getting fired from a job is rarely something you want to declare publicly. But what if it gets you a free Whopper at Burger King?

The fast food chain launched its “own your fire” giveaway promotion today, offering free Whoppers to customers who admit to having been dismissed from their job.

And it’s not a matter of just walking up to the counter at BK and saying “I’ve been fired. Whopper me.” You actually have to go on LinkedIn and publicly share that you were fired.

As “severance” for their admission, and their out-of-work status, Burger King will provide 2,500 of these customers with free Whoppers. Sure, it’s not a job, but it’s lunch.

To take part in the promotion, customers must log into LinkedIn and post the public message, “I got fired. I want a free Whopper. #whopperseverance.”

Once the message is received, Burger King will send the individuals a personalized link to register and receive a Whopper severance package, including a Burger King gift card, in the mail.

It’s unclear if Burger King will vet the admissions to determine if customers were actually fired, or why they were fired. We’ve reached out to the company for additional details.

“It has been said, that when one door closes another one opens – in this case, a door for a delicious flame grilled Whopper sandwich,” the chain declares in a statement.

In addition to handing out free sandwiches, Burger King partnered with The Muse, an online career advice company, to offer 30-minute one-on-one question and answer sessions to the first 100 participants.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Two fast food chains with dedicated fanbases are set to square off in a courtroom over Smashburger’s new Triple Double cheeseburger, which In-N-Out Burger claims is illegally trying to copy its famous Double-Double and Triple-Triple sandwiches.

California-based In-N-Out has been serving up the Double-Double (two beef patties; two slices of cheese) cheeseburger since before many of us were born, and the chain has state and federal trademark registrations on the phrase going back more than four decades. In 1990, the company added trademark registrations for sandwiches on its “not-so-secret” menu, like the Triple-Triple (three patties; three cheese slices) and Quad-Quad (if you haven’t figured this pattern out yet, oh well).

Earlier this summer, Denver-based Smashburger — which operates around 350 locations in 38 states — launched a new Triple Double burger, which is two beef patties with three slices of cheese. Even though In-N-Out does not have a trademark on the “Triple Double” name, the company claims in a new lawsuit that Smashburger is nonetheless deliberately trying to copy In-N-Out’s existing registered marks.

“Smashburger chose to use the TRIPLE DOUBLE and SMASHBURGER TRIPLE DOUBLE marks because Smashburger knew, prior to its use such marks, that each of In-N-Out’s Registered Marks is famous and connotes a high standard of quality,” argues In-N-Out in a complaint [PDF] filed Monday in a federal court in California.

The complaint contends that the similarity between In-N-Out’s existing marks and the Smashburger Triple Double are likely to confuse consumers who might be led to “believe that In-N-Out has approved or licensed Smashburger’s use of its marks, or that In-N-Out is somehow affiliated or connected with Smashburger or its services.”

Smashburger has also applied to register the Triple Double trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and In-N-Out is currently arguing before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board that these applications should be denied.

In-N-Out filed its opposition to those applications in early June — about a month before Smashburger launched the Triple Double marketing. This, says In-N-Out, is proof that the other chain was well aware of the In-N-Out trademarks in advance of releasing its new burger.

The In-N-Out complaint alleges state and federal claims of trademark infringement and dilution, and unfair competition. The company is seeking an injunction preventing Smashburger from continuing to use the Triple Double name.

We’ve reached out to Smashburger for comment on the lawsuit and will update if we receive a response.

This isn’t In-N-Out’s first legal battle over its trademarks. In 2007, it sued a Utah restaurant called Chadder’s [PDF], alleging that the eatery had copied its look and its menu items off of In-N-Out.

In that case, In-N-Out said in a court filing [PDF] that it learned of Chadder’s through Utah customers who contacted the chain because they believed that this new Chadder’s restaurant was somehow connected to the bigger, older burger chain.

Customers also claimed they could order In-N-Out menu items — like “Animal” fries and a Double Double — at Chadder’s, and employees knew exactly what to make. In-N-Out’s general counsel actually traveled out to Utah to see for himself, and told the court he confirmed these customers’ assertions.

In June 2007, a judge granted a temporary restraining order [PDF] against Chadder’s, barring the restaurant from selling items that may infringe on the In-N-Out trademarks. The case was subsequently settled and dismissed [PDF] in Nov. 2007, and Chadder’s continued to exist — and even expanded to a handful of locations — before apparently going out of business in 2010, perhaps not coincidentally after In-N-Out opened its first restaurants in the area.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

For the better part of 2017, Best Buy has attempted to dig itself out of a long running sales slump by appealing to customers through revamped, high-tech store displays, and pilot programs, such as try-before-you-buy. These strategies just might be working as the electronics retailer reported higher than expected sales for the second quarter of the year. But will that last? 

Sales at Best Buy increased 5.4% compared to the same time last year, the retailer announced today, attributing the gains to an increase in sales of wearable devices, smart home systems, newly launched mobile phones, and appliances. In all, revenue rose 5% to $8.9 billion, while online sales rose 31% to $1.1 billion.

Don’t Expect A Repeat

Despite the gains — the highest the company has seen in nearly seven years, according to The Star Tribune — Best Buy executives don’t seem to have much confidence the turnaround will stick.

In fact, CEO Hubert Joly cautioned during the company’s earnings call that the higher sales aren’t the “new normal” for the retailer.

He cautioned that while the company has a unique position in the electronics industry, the mid-single-digit rise in comparable sales likely isn’t sustainable.

Best Buy’s second quarter sales were likely buoyed by the bankruptcy and store closures of several competitors, including hhgregg and RadioShack.

Reps for Best Buy previously declared that the retailer would do everything in its power to impress customers of the now-defunct retailer as they wandered into stores. At the time of hhgregg’s bankruptcy, analysts estimated that Best Buy could pick up about 20% of hhgregg’s sales after its liquidation ended, for a total of $335 million.

Keeping Up With The Competition

Because the rate of new customers from hhgregg and RadioShack are finite, Joly told investors that the company has a plan to remain competitive with competitors like Amazon and Walmart.

For instance, the executive pointed out that the retailer is currently undergoing a national rollout of its in-home consultation service.

The in-home advisor program sends professional sales consultants to customers’ homes to cover all their tech needs from all vendors. The reps can help design full-house sound systems, hookup electronic devices, and perform other tasks.

The service will be available in all stores by the end of September, Joly said.

Additionally, the company is continuing to revamp stores with new displays and products. Joly noted that by the end of September, 700 stores will have Amazon and Google Home showrooms.

The mini-stores, located near the smart home department, are intended to allow customers to explore “what’s possible with voice technology” with the help of specially trained Geek Squad agents and other employees.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you want future developers of technology to create new things for your product, try giving it to engineering students for free. Amazon is experimenting with that at one college, giving away an Echo Dot (list price $49.99) to every student in a new dorm at Arizona State University.

An “Emerging Field”

The university partnered with Amazon to put 1,600 of the smart speaker devices in the dorm rooms of engineering students. We can only imagine what the speakers might overhear in that environment, but it’s also exciting to think about what kinds of new skills they might develop for the Alexa voice assistant or uses the speakers could be put to in that environment. Some of the new skills might even not involve burrito delivery.

“ASU’s main motivation was to develop an opportunity for its engineering students to gain skills in voice technology,” a university spokesman told EdSurge, noting that voice-activated devices are an “emerging field.”

Amazon wants the next generation of students to start thinking about this “emerging field” while they’re still in school, offering a $2.5 million Alexa Prize to university teams developing conversational artificial intelligence, and funding Alexa Fellowships at major engineering schools where fellows receive “funding, access to Alexa devices, and mentoring” from the Alexa team at Amazon.

Gimmick or essential skill?

Sometimes it’s the faculty and staff who drive development of new uses for devices, not students. Utah State University developed its own voice-controlled classroom for the use of a visually impaired instructor. Teachers using that room can control the projector, screen, and other electronic elements of a modern classroom using voice commands instead of switches.

Is this all a gimmick, though, or is it the future of technology? Faculty members who spoke to EdSurge had varying viewpoints. One professor at Rice University sees the use of voice technology to control things at home as gimmicky, but sees the potential for them in vehicles. Others have started using voice technology in the curriculum more, but remain wary of the privacy issues possible when always-on speakers are everywhere.

“What if a faculty member has [an Echo device] in their office they end up using, and a student comes in to talk to them, but the student doesn’t know that there’s an Alexa device listening?” one educational technology consultant speculated.

Elsewhere on campus

Amazon is also working to sell the devices to students outside of engineering and computer science programs, expanding its campus pickup points that are also Amazon product showrooms. According to Amazon’s job site, on-campus pickup points are now available at 31 colleges and universities, with new ones opening all the time. Students can try smart speakers at these counters, which have Amazon Lockers and demonstration products, and are meant to ease the Amazon shipping load on campus mail services.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist