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17 Dec 2011 10:14

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Tech: Sprint, amid controversy, plans to shut off Carrier IQ software

  • 26 million number of phones Sprint had sold that used Carrier IQ’s software, the company revealed Thursday
  • zero number of phones that will have the feature enabled from here on out, the company said Friday source
  • » Killing a major headache: With public scrutiny going against them, Sprint, the largest user of Carrier IQ, has decided that the public relations cost was too much, according to a statement released Friday: “We have weighed customer concerns and we have disabled use of the tool so that diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected. At Sprint, we work hard to earn the trust of our customers and believe this course of action is in the best interest of our business and customers.” Really, though, the problem is that they enabled it in the first place.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Dec 2011 01:29

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Politics: Unlikely pensioner of the week: Rick Perry is “retired” … kinda

  • $150k the amount in salary Rick Perry has made from being governor in 2011
  • $7,698 the amount perry has made monthly since his pension kicked in
  • $240kthe amount he bumped his income to with the maneuver source
  • » All the benefits of retirement and working! Rick Perry is 61 years old, and for most people, that’s closing in on retirement age. However, Perry is running for president, and could still be the guy to beat (you never know). But with his military and government service, he was able to score his pension now, according to the state’s Employee Retirement System. He has no regrets: “That’s been in place for decades. … I don’t find that to be out of the ordinary,” Perry said. “ERS called me and said, ‘Listen, you’re eligible to access your retirement now with your military time and your time and service, and I think you would be rather foolish to not access what you’ve earned.’” Is the move off-key considering the fact that he’s a noted critic of entitlement programs?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2011 00:29

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U.S.: Storytelling through acronyms: A top bureaucrat’s bad weekend

  • FAA the head of this agency received a …
  • DUI while driving in the area nicknamed the …
  • DMV D.C., Maryland and Virginia corridor source
  • » At least he wasn’t flying while drunk, right? After being a pilot for Eastern Airlines for 25 years, Randy Babbitt became the Federal Aviation Administration’s head in 2009. This weekend, he was arrested for driving on the wrong side of the road in Fairfax, Va. He has since asked for a leave of absence from his office.
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Dec 2011 20:23

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Tech: Electronic Arts attempts to nickel-and-dime die-hard Tetris fans

  • $30 per year to subscribe to a special Tetris club (?!?) source
  • » Wait, what?!? If you’re like us, you’re a huge fan of Tetris, one of the simplest, best video games ever created. However, Electronic Arts couldn’t leave well enough alone with its iOS edition, and rebooted it as a version of Farmville, essentially. Now, just to play the game (which you have to pay 99 cents for, by the way), you have to register for a special social network run by EA. And for the biggest fans, they’ve created a “T-Club” component, in which you pay $2.99 per month — or $30 per year for the die-hards — just for the right to get some extra power-ups. And the final kicker: The original iOS game, which was perfectly fine as-is, no longer exists on the App Store. For shame.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Dec 2011 20:04

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Tech: Apple admits they used Carrier IQ too, but only if it was enabled

  • We stopped supporting CarrierIQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.
  • A statement from Apple • Discussing the quickly-becoming-a-big-deal Carrier IQ situation, in which an obscure diagnostic company allegedly had its data-tracking app on a millions of phones — without consumers knowing. At first, was unclear if the software was on Apple’s tightly-locked phones, but last night, it became clear that it was — although, unlike in the case of many Android phones, it wasn’t enabled by default and otherwise difficult to enable. And with the next iOS update, it’ll be gone entirely. Still, though. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Nov 2011 10:51

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U.S.: Guy watches child porn on plane, story ends as you’d expect

  • cause A University of Utah professor took a ride on a plane over the weekend; during said flight, he watched child porn on his laptop, in view of other passengers. Sickening. And a bad idea, because said passengers told officials about it.
  • reaction Now, Grant D. Smith is stuck in a Massachusetts jail after he was arrested after the plane landed. The school placed Smith on administrative leave. And many are confused as to why someone would do something like this. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Oct 2011 10:42

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U.S.: Father of the year: Drunk dad used 9-year-old as designated driver

  • Not the best move, dude: Shawn Weimer’s early-morning October 8 outing wouldn’t have drawn quite so many eyebrows … had his daughter been a decade older. She wasn’t, and as a result, he’s been getting negative national attention for the incident. But is it a momentary sign of bad judgment on the Michigan dad’s part … or a sign of something worse? With Weimer’s trial delayed for now, the father has some time to contemplate — as does the public. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

18 Oct 2011 00:33

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U.S.: CDC: America goes big or goes home when it comes to vices

  • $150B the yearly burden to society caused by lazy people who don’t exercise
  • $193B the yearly burden to society caused by smokers; *cough* *cough*
  • $224B the yearly burden to society caused by  “binge drinking,” our nation’s pasttime source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Oct 2011 20:02

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Politics: Oops: Hank Williams Jr. isn’t “ready for some football” after comments

  • He compared Obama to Hitler. Now his iconic song is off “Monday Night Football” tonight. Hank Williams Jr. has been the voice of Monday Night Football for over 20 years, but a comment in this “Fox & Friends” segment, where he suggests that John Boehner playing golf with Obama “would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu,” has cost Williams a spot on ESPN’s long-running franchise this week. (The “Fox & Friends” anchors immediately had a not-so-lovely look on their faces after Williams said that line — with not a little bit of anger, mind you.) Williams, despite being an on-air personality for ESPN and therefore banned from running for political office, has nonetheless expressed interest in running for the U.S. Senate in 2012. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Sep 2011 16:55

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Politics: “Muffingate”: Quick on the rage, slow on the follow-through (even um, us.)

  • Muffingate still provides a telling illustration of how relatively minor revelations can be turned into blood-curdling controversies. It also shows how the political and media communities move much faster to trumpet an outrage-inducing story than to set the record straight.
  • The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein • Offering a sobering take on the issue of $16 muffins from a story from a couple of weeks ago. Stein’s point: Despite the early coverage of the initial story, based on an infuriating Justice Department report, the follow-up coverage (where Hilton pointed out that the $16 wasn’t for “muffins” but a continental breakfast, written as shorthand on receipts), was a bit lacking. As a site, we admit that we didn’t even see the follow-ups ourselves (Editor’s note: I intended to do more with the story, but never got to it. Total fail on my part. — ES), but as this was a key fact, it throws the whole study into question. In retrospect, it feels more like a political hit piece — one that might have some truth to it, but blew its most important factoid. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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