Sprint just set up a landing page for its upcoming "Framily" plans (that is not a typo) that will allow anyone to set up a shared service plan together. Up to 10 lines can be shared and each new person on the line lowers everyone's bill a bit. Read more here.
    
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Mornings are rough, especially if you're not the type of person who jumps out of bed ready to take on the day. Still, the sun rises whether you care for the AM hours or not. So, if you're by no means a morning person and you have to get up anyway, here's a guide to making the most of those hours and getting a start on the day.
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When you have a lot of small items in a bag, it can be difficult to find what you're looking for and dig the right one out. The Lay-N-Go traveler solves that problem by opening up into a platform so you can take what you want and then quickly return it to pouch form.
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How much do you spend on food each month? Don't know? That's okay. For a long time I didn't have any idea how much I spent on food, until college graduation gave me a dose of reality. (Read: broke in a big city.)
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If you're struggling a bit learning a new skill on your own, coder Cory House shares his three basic steps that help him retain information.
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Have you ever wanted to buy a gas-station burrito, but without the separate steps of interacting with the cashier and placing the burrito in the microwave yourself? Good news! Burritobox is the burrito vending machine of your dreams.
It’s not quite as fresh and exciting as the French fry vending machine in Belgium that fries up your frites to order. There’s burrito-wrapping robot in there making fresh custom meals for you. Instead, there are frozen burritos (including Evol brand) made with hormone-free meat and cheese and cage-free eggs. The machine heats the burrito up for you in 60 seconds, keeping your attention span from wandering by playing a song or an advertisement on its touchscreen.
Want to try it? The one and only BurritoBox now operating is in Los Angeles. A second one will open in LA next week, which is unhelpful for Burrito lovers in other cities. We just like to keep you posted on advances in vending machine technology.
A Los Angeles Times reporter paid a visit to the lucky Mobil station, which doesn’t own the machine. Her verdict? The breakfast burrito she tried “needed hot sauce,” which the machine conveniently sells as an add-on for sixty-five cents.
Burrito Box [Official Site] (via Foodbeast)
You know that guy in the Overstock.com commercial who buys an engagement ring for a steal? He may want to double-check how great that deal really was after a California judge ruled the company’s price comparison techniques are a bit shady.
The tentative ruling charges the company of engaging in fraudulent comparative pricing practices and comes with a hefty $6.819 million civil penalty, reports Wired.
In 2010, California district attorneys sued Overstock for $15 million claiming false and misleading claims about prices for products.
The judge found that Overstock’s price comparison techniques violate California’s unfair competition and false advertising laws.
Currently, when a customer uses Overstock, the company compares the price of a particular product to a price recently offered by just one competitor.
As part of the ruling, Overstock will either have to explain its comparisons on the site, or use other methods to take into account prices from more competitors. Once the ruling is made final, Overstock will have 60 day to comply.
If Overstock complies with the ruling, the average discount shown will drop from 33 % to 26%, adds Wired, but it’s likely the company will appeal the judge’s decision.
This isn’t the first time Overstock has been in a bit of hot water for deceptive practices.
In 2011, Google penalized Overstock.com after finding the online retailer was artificially boosting its prominence in search results.
Court Decision Could Change Rules for Online Price Comparisons [Wired]
It surfaced on Twitter: a “romantic Valentine’s display” at a CVS store somewhere in southern New Jersey with a very pragmatic take on what customers might need for a special evening. On the shelf: cupcake-shaped bath bombs, roses, picture frames, condoms, a variety of personal lubricants, a dose of Plan B, some “male enhancement” supplements, and toy handcuffs. Hmm, some of those things don’t seem appropriate.
Indeed, the official CVS Twitter account weighed in to say that this was not a racy new company-wide Valentine’s Day promotion. The company was looking for the “inappropriate display” in order to take it down.
@miketoole Hi there, we are looking into this immediately in order to have this inappropriate display removed.—
CVS/pharmacy (@CVS_Extra) January 07, 2014
The whole thing could have been the work of a passing prankster, not store employees. The display offers too much one-stop shopping for most customers’ tastes.
The ever-helpful commenters over at our estranged ex-sister site Jezebel also point out that metal handcuffs are not appropriate for recreational use. So keep that in mind the next time you’re planning a night of light bondage armed only with supplies from the corner pharmacy.
CVS Selling Handcuffs With Plan B So You Can ‘Keep It Sweet’ [Jezebel]
Boss Meg witnessed the onesie in the wilds of CES.
While some of our Consumerist colleagues are out in the Wild West tackling the Consumer Electronics Show, we here at HQ are getting some exciting dispatches about and photos of what’s going on. No flying cars or maids named Rosie to speak of (yet) but it sounds like everyone is into baby stuff this year. Specifically, a smart onesie.
Now even though it would be super useful to have an article of clothing that acts kind of like one of those automatic litter boxes — you know, it could use its special computerness to sense when a diaper needs changing and then do the dirty work for you — it seems the onesie from Intel is a bit simpler.
As our pals at Engadget explain, the Internet-connected onesie made by Rest Devices and Intel doesn’t set up your child’s first Facebook account or fill Amazon orders when you’re low on wipes, but instead acts mostly like a baby monitor would.
The two green stripes you can see on the photo of the toy baby above are respiratory sensors. That green knob thing? It’s a removable sensor that monitors a baby’s body position, activity level and skin temperature.
It all connects to an app on parents’ phones where you can keep an eye on what you’re baby is doing. So, like a baby monitor. But it’s a onesie and uses the Internet! Fascinating. Now get to work on my automatic diaper changing idea, electronics people.
Previously in onesies: “Onesie” Is A Trademarked Term, Even Though No One Cares
The internet of toddlers: Intel shows off a smart baby onesie [Engadget]
Consumers these days want to know how their food will benefit their health. What the company wants is “to take advantage of the space between food and pharmaceuticals,” the head of Nestle’s research arm explained to the Wall Street Journal. Imagine Boost nutritional drinks fortified with nutrients that the company’s research shows are beneficial to neurons, for example. There’s a lot of money in food that companies can at least claim has medical benefits, and a growing global population of elderly people who might be interested.
The current market for “health and wellness” food and drink products is an estimated $772 billion, and that’s expected to grow in the future.
Where do those cells come from, though? They’re not harvested directly from dead people: the company makes cells from healthy human tissue that can become different types of cells, something like stem cells.
Nestle Finds a Reliable Supply of Brain Cells [Wall Street Journal]
Nestlé in Biotech Deal to Test Foods on Human Cells [WSJ] (subscription required)
Out of all of the store-bought guacamoles available, Consumer Reports liked the offering from Sabra best. They rank all of the varieties they tried in the ratings for subscribers, but found something wrong with all other brands. Too much bitterness here, an “off” texture there: none of the guacs were just right except for Sabra’s offering.
Taste test of store-bought brands of guacamole [Consumer Reports]
If you buy a prepaid debit card at Walmart as a gift and only receive a blank Starbucks card in return, who is responsible for getting you your money back? One family in California learned a very inconvenient lesson: customers who buy empty gift cards must go to the company that issued the gift card, not Walmart.
The family shared their story with the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles. (Warning: auto-play video.) The dad of this family purchased what appeared to be four sealed Vanilla MasterCards. Inside, they found Starbucks gift cards. Worse: Starbucks gift cards with a zero balance.
He took the cards back to Walmart, where the manager opened up the fourth card–still sealed–and found another empty Starbucks card. Walmart wouldn’t issue a refund or exchange, though. They sent the customer to the gift card distributor. After hours on the phone, they turned him around and sent him back to Walmart. Again, the store refused to issue a refund.
Time for some good old-fashioned action news! The customer brought his story to the NBC station, which sent an undercover person to buy four Vanilla MasterCard gift cards of their own. The good news: the packages didn’t contain blank Starbucks cards. The bad news: that’s because they had empty Walmart gift cards, an empty American Express card, and even a Vanilla MasterCard with a balance of three cents left. Walmart wouldn’t give the TV station a refund, either.
What should you do if this happens to you? Gather up the Vanilla card packaging, whatever card you actually received, and your original purchase receipt. If you experience this problem with a Vanilla prepaid card, call the company at 877-770-6406.
A company executive told the TV station that he believes the tampering occurs sometime after delivery: that is to say, that someone tampered with the card at Walmart.
An anonymous Walmart employee tells Consumerist that he had been warned that unknown baddies were tampering with his store’s gift cards before Christmas. He sent in this bit of advice:
When buying gift cards, check the back to see if the card’s number has been scratched off and revealed. If so, do not buy it, and you should turn the card over to the store’s customer service.
That wouldn’t help the customers in this case, though. Watch the NBC video: you’ll see that the packages appear to be factory-sealed. No scratching off numbers here.
Gift Card Tampering Alleged at Walmart [NBC4] (Warning: auto-play video.)
(RAWRS)
Want a mortgage? Go for it! But thanks to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the banks are going to need some proof first that you can actually, you know, pay it back.
Starting this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has new rules going into effect that are meant to protect homeowners from getting caught in “debt traps”: the Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage rule.
Basically, the Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage rule does what it says on the tin: lenders are now required to ascertain if borrowers stand a realistic chance of being able to repay a loan before one is issued.
If that sounds like something that should have been happening all along, your gut instinct is sound. However, part of what led to the massive meltdown of the housing market in 2008 was that many lenders stopped doing just that, instead handing out large and small mortgages to prime and sub-prime borrowers alike.
There are two parts to the rule, as the CFPB clarified in a fact sheet (PDF). The Ability-to-Repay rule requires lenders to “look at customers’ income, assets, savings, and debt, and weigh those against the monthly payments over the long term–not just a teaser or introductory rate period.” In other words, the potential homeowner has to be able to afford the actual mortgage even if it’s going to “balloon” later, not just the first year’s worth.
The other half of the rule is the “Qualified Mortgage” part. The CFPB explains that a Qualified Mortgage:
- Cannot have excessive upfront points and fees;
- Cannot be longer than 30 years;
- Cannot have certain risky features, such as paying only interest and not principal, or paying less than the full amount of interest so that the total debt grows each month; and
- Must be in one of three categories:
- The monthly loan payment, plus the borrower’s other debt payments, does not exceed 43 percent of the borrower’s monthly income; or
- The loan qualifies for purchase or guarantee by a government sponsored enterprise (Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac), or is insured or guaranteed by a federal housing agency; or
- The loan is made by a small lender that keeps the loan in portfolio
Not all mortgages are required to be Qualified Mortgages, as the fact sheet makes clear. Nor are lenders held to a firm threshold about borrowers’ debt-to-income ratios or down-payment amounts. Banks can continue to make any type of legal loan that they feel is appropriate, provided that they feel the borrowers are qualified to repay the debt. However, the CFPB estimates that 92% of all mortgages already fit into one of the three key categories.
The CFPB announced the new rules last January, almost exactly a year ago, and they go into effect this Friday, January 10. The rule is a response to an order from Congress in the wake of the financial crisis.
It’s back to basics for the mortgage market in 2014 [CFPB]
Fairfax County Animal Watch Washington Post FAIRFAX COUNTY. No incidents were reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. A Soviet-made plastic row boat covered in snow and hoarfrost lies on a snowy ... and more » |
PotomacLocal.com |
Updated: Electrical Generator Burns in Manassas PotomacLocal.com According to new information provided by Manassas City officials, one generator caught fire inside a power generation facility on Godwin Drive in Manassas on Tuesday. No one was injured. The power generators produce electricity during peak demand ... |
UPDATED: Firefighters Respond to Fire at Manassas Mall Store Patch.com Manassas fire units responded to one of Manassas Mall's anchor stores just before noon Tuesday to investigate reports of smoke and a possible fire, according to a Manassas Volunteer Fire Company Facebook post. A caller reported smoke in the electrical ... |
A snowy owl was caught after it was spotted on the airfield of the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport recently, according to airport officials. 
Fans of warm, cheesy dips are getting some curdling news: there's a shortage of Kraft (KRFT) Velveeta cheese.
Whether or not you're a believer in the Myers-Briggs personality index, it at least leads to some interesting discussion and hopefully even to some personal introspection. What type are you?
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In an ideal world, parents would always be patient and nurturing, and kids would always be cooperative and make smart choices. This is not an ideal world, so we parents need a few sneaky strategies to preserve our sanity when the days are much too long and our patience much too thin.
We've shown you all kinds of ways to sell your unwanted crap for real money, and many of them involve selling through Amazon, since it's a natural place people go to shop. Take it a step further and let Amazon store and ship that stuff. You'll sell faster and for more money, and you get rid it immediately.
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Following someone is generally a bad idea unless you're a licensed private investigator, but it doesn't hurt to be aware of how it's done so you can protect yourself where possible.
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In the midst of Evil Week, it's only natural to stop and think about the nature of evil. Is there some external or supernatural source or is it a purely human manifestation? Do the doers of dark deeds see themselves as evil? What do you think?
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Dear Lifehacker,
I don't really have a sweet tooth so I don't worry too much about my sugar intake, but I do like salty foods. Is salt just as bad? What health concerns should I have about the stuff?
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