Facebook is clearly the dominant social network around today. It's the place where everybody goes in large part because it's the place where everybody is. That kind of thing is hard to change, but Google+ has been making a valiant attempt to do so over the last couple of years. Now, we want to hear your opinion. And make it count, because we'll be posting a follow-up article next week with the best arguments on both sides.
    
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As an entrepreneur, my work schedule tends to be much different than a standard 9-5 job. I'd like to think that my lifestyle is unique, but I know there are thousands of other people out there sharing in my late night hustle.
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A keyboard is a keyboard, right? Not quite. Mechanical keyboards—or keyboards with individual switches for each key—are incredibly popular, both among people who remember them from days of computing gone past, or who want a better typing experience today. We've discussed why you might want a mechanical keyboard—now we want to know which ones you think are the best.
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Don't you hate it when you buy something only to see the price drop a few days later? Well, the good news is Amazon will refund you the difference—if you ask within the right timeframe.
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It's not something you might think about often, but your pee can tell you a lot about your body. This graphic from Cleveland Clinic shows what different urine hues might say about your health.
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Today, Google announced a new feature that allows you to download all of your Gmail and Google Calendar data from the same place you can download all of your other data. This one's been a long time coming. Read more here.
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Everyone has the secrets they'd like to pretend never happened. However, when it comes to doing business with a person or company, it may be better to own up to them early, rather than wait for them to find out.
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Why?
Our sibling publication Consumer Reports rounded up several of these scary food-like substances for us all to marvel at.
It’s hard to figure out what the target market for Tropical Pizza Topping is. One would think that an imitation mozzarella cheese based on substances like partially hydrogenated soybean oil might appeal to vegans or people who are allergic to milk, but Tropical is out of the question for them: it contains the milk protein casein. That does mean that the cheesy shreds are okay for people who are lactose-intolerant, as we discussed in a recent post about non-dairy creamer.
How about breakfast? Kellogg’s Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats sounds tasty, but doesn’t contain any actual blueberries. Never mind those round blue fruit things that you see on the box. The little blue shreds are, as far as we can tell, grain and sugar nuggets dyed with blue and red food coloring and doused with “natural and artificial flavors.” They taste nice, but aren’t blueberries. At least the Mini-Wheats contain wheat and sugar and are quite mini, so three-quarters of the product name is accurate.
No one ever said that Mrs. Butterworth brand “pancake syrup” actually contains butter, but the word is right there in the name. Why? Manufacturer Pinnacle Foods told Consumer Reports that the product did once include 2% butter, back in the ’70s. However, it still contains no maple, which is why you should leave Mrs. Butterworth and her [high fructose] corn syrup concoction on the shelf. Unless you’re allergic to maple or have some other very, very good reason.
Wise Onion Rings aren’t a complete lie: there is onion in there. No, not in the rings themselves. Those are made from corn and tapioca starches and other ingredients that aren’t onions. The flavoring powder? That has some onion powder in it, but that means the rings are, at best, onion-flavored.
Know of any foods that shouldn’t exist that Consumer Reports missed? Let us know.
Food fake-out [Consumer Reports]
(mzamb03)
Whether you love Mariah Carey or not (and you’re probably at least humming her signature Christmas tune right now, aren’t you? Come on, give in) there are plenty of Americans ready to get their holiday on as soon as possible, reports Nielsen.
Radio stations that switch to the All Christmas, All The Time format near Thanksgiving in 2021 saw a 71% mdday surge in listeners compared to their average ratings.
At night when it’s time to get extra jolly, ratings more than doubled, points out Nielsen: “During the course of the holiday ratings season, nights saw a 129 percent lift and — hold onto your eggnog — a 582 percent lift on Christmas Eve.”
That’s compared ton an average nighttime average, when the number of listeners tuning into normal radio stations in any 15-minute period was about 291,700.
The whole thing peaks on Christmas Eve, naturally, with 28.4 million Americans tuning in to an All Christmas format station last year in the top 48 markets.
What are we listening to the most? We’re a nation of varied interests across many genres, according to the report, ranging from the most-played new release of “Let It Snow” by Rod Stewart to that treasured favorite, “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby.
It also varies by geography. For example in New York City, the most-played song last year was the aforementioned “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Ms. Carey (I probably am responsible for at least 143 of those plays). In Los Angeles, “Feliz Navidad” ruled the airwaves.
It’s worth reading Nielsen’s entire report, if only for phrases like “hold onto your eggnog.” And if you’re not humming a holiday tune by the end, I shall pronounce you positively Scroogean.
*Yes, I realize the Grinch did not say bah humbug. THAT WE KNOW OF.
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas [Nielsen]
Microsoft’s intelligent brassiere design.
On the one hand, who hasn’t wished someone could jump in and say “Stop, you don’t want to eat that” somewhere in the middle of the fifth bowl of [insert your own guilty pleasure]? On the other hand, we sincerely hope that if Microsoft ever does introduce its “smart bra” — designed to help women from overeating in times of stress — that there’s a garment for men, too. Because goodness knows, we all need comfort food at one point or another. And also don’t tell me what to eat.
Because everything these days has to be a “smart” something, a team of researchers at Microsoft have been working on a prototype of a smart bra embedded with sensors that track the wearer’s heart activity, so that it can monitor her emotional moods and essentially intervene when she’s stressed out and tempted to overeat, reports CNN.
Once those sensors detect a looming episode of overeating, they signal the woman’s smartphone which will then flash a warning telling her to back away from the fridge and make better diet decisions. Which, again, not sure it’s cool for a bra to be telling people how to live their lives, but then again, if people want that help, sure, give it.
At the base of this effort is research that many people — male and female! — go for calorie-laden foods when they’re stressed out, sad, discouraged or otherwise testy. Comfort food is comforting, after all.
So why aim for women and not men? Simply because at the moment, a bra works best with the research.
“First, we needed a form factor that would be comfortable when worn for long durations,” said scientists the research paper (PDF). “The bra form factor was ideal because it allowed us to collect (electrocardiogram data) near the heart.”
Participants in the research were women in the UK who said that having someone or something intervene helped them know what triggered their binge eating.
The bra seemed to work well when it came to detecting its wearers’ emotional highs and lows, but it’s not likely we’ll be seeing this on the market any time soon: The sensors need to be recharged every three or four hours, which makes it a pretty inconvenient garment for all-day wear.
That, and Microsoft has no plans for a smart bra, a spokesman told CNN.
“The bra sensing system is just one instance of a class of work from a group of Microsoft researchers that is focused on the broader topic of affective computing, or designing devices and services that are sensitive to people’s moods and react accordingly,” the spokesperson said. “While we will continue our research in affective computing, Microsoft has no plans to develop a bra with sensors.”
So what about say, smart boxers/briefs for men tempted to indulge too much? It could happen, at least in research terms.
“We will continue to explore how to build a robust, real-world system that stands up to everyday challenges with regards to battery life, comfortability, and being suitable for both men and women,” the researchers said in the paper.
Microsoft developed a ‘smart’ bra [CNN]
The receipt on the left is the version the waitress posted to Facebook, which shows no tip and a note saying the customers disapprove of the waitress’ “lifestyle.” On the right is a copy of the receipt provided by the customers to NBC News, which they claim shows they left a 18% tip.
After her story went public, but before the family accused of leaving that note released evidence demonstrating that they did indeed leave a tip, the waitress promised that she would donate the thousands of dollars she’d received in the wake of the supposed incident to Wounded Warrior.
Since then, not only have the maligned diners denied her allegations, but there have been multiple reports of the waitress having a history of making up rather large lies, like telling co-workers that her home had been severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy, or when she reportedly shaved her head and told friends she had brain cancer.
So a reporter for Bridgewater Patch decided to check with the folks at Wounded Warrior to see if the waitress had indeed made good on her promise to donate the money she’d received.
But a rep for the organization was unable to find any donations listed under the waitress’ name, or anything under the ZIP code for her home or the restaurant where she works (and from which she is reportedly suspended). It is possible that the donation could have been made under a different name or from a different address.
Neither Bridgewater Patch nor NJ.com were able to reach the waitress or media reps for Wounded Warrior to get a comment about the status of the promised donations.
This is probably not the last we’ve heard about this story…
Most of us have had the bright idea to use our smartphones as flashlights when searching underneath the couch or in the backseat of a dark car. And many millions of people have downloaded flashlight apps that maximize the light coming out of their devices. Most of those people probably never even considered that a flashlight app would be doing anything other than turning on the phone’s lights, and certainly not transmitting location data to third parties.
The Brightest Flashlight Free app for Android has been downloaded at least 50 million times since first becoming available in 2011, and has an impressive 4.8/5 star rating from more than 1 million users. But according to the Federal Trade Commission, the makers of the app deceived consumers by not fully disclosing how the app collected and shared geolocation data.
“While running… the application also transmits, or allows the transmission of, data from the mobile device to various third parties, including advertising networks,” reads the original FTC complaint [PDF]. “The types of data transmitted include, among other things, the device’s precise geolocation along with persistent device identifiers that can be used to track a user’s location
over time.”
And though the app’s permissions screen does say give it the ability to access the device’s precise location (when GPS is turned on) or approximate location (over the wireless network), the FTC alleges that nothing in the company’s privacy policy or End User License Agreement (EULA) made it clear that this information was being shared with third parties.
The privacy policy for the app states that the developer “may collect, maintain, process and use diagnostic, technical and related information, including but not limited to information about your computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you.”
This policy is restated in the EULA (to which the user must agree). According to the FTC, these statements fail to “adequately disclose to consumers that the Brightest Flashlight App transmits or allows the transmission of device data, including precise geolocation along with persistent device identifiers, to third parties, including advertising networks.”
What’s more, the FTC claims that whether or not the user accepted the terms of the EULA, the app transmitted location data for the device:
While the “Refuse” button, described in Paragraph 11, appears to give consumers the option to refuse the terms of the Brightest Flashlight EULA, including the terms relating to the collection and use of device data, that choice is illusory. Based upon the statements made in the EULA… consumers would not expect the application to operate on their mobile devices, including collecting and using their device data, until after they have accepted the terms of the EULA. In fact, while consumers are viewing the Brightest Flashlight EULA, the application transmits or causes the transmission of their device data, including the device’s precise geolocation and persistent identifier, even before they accept or refuse the terms of the EULA.
The FTC alleges that failing to disclose the sharing of location info with third parties and the app’s collection and sharing of data regardless of whether the user had agreed to the EULA is deceptive marketing, as this is information that consumers should have been made aware of before installing the app.
“When consumers are given a real, informed choice, they can decide for themselves whether the benefit of a service is worth the information they must share to use it,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “But this flashlight app left them in the dark about how their information was going to be used.”
The app developer has reached a settlement deal [PDF] with the FTC that prohibits them from misrepresenting how consumers’ information is collected and shared and how much control consumers have over the way their information is used. Any personal information collected from users up until this point must also be deleted.
The settlement requires the developer to provide a just-in-time disclosure that fully informs consumers when, how, and why their geolocation information is being collected, used and shared, and will not be able to do so without users’ affirmative express consent.
A D.C. man has been arrested after he was indicted on animal cruelty charges last month.
Several animals died in a fire on Wednesday night at a pet shop.
Witnesses say two cars may have been racing before one of the drivers died in a crash in Manassas on Wednesday night.
