When a slew of automakers announced last fall that they would no longer use airbag inflators from Takata, at least one cited concerns that the company had “misrepresented or manipulated test data.” Recently unearthed emails from engineers and others within the Japanese auto parts maker suggest those alleged deceptions were blatant and widely known. [More]
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Microsoft Investigates Indie Games Ratings Abuse
By 3.31.11
When most people think of downloadable Xbox 360 games, they think of Xbox Live Arcade, which boasts the work of major publishers. But there’s also an indie games economy, in which “garage developers” compete with one another for attention and royalties. The indie games section doesn’t get much play on the Xbox dashboard, and the odds appear further stacked against some indie games in light of charges that a group of online users manipulated the Xbox.com ratings system to elevate certain games while burying others. [More]
Loud Restaurants Make You Eat And Drink More
By 4.19.10
It turns out that, at least for smart restaurateurs, making the dining experience ridiculously noisy is good for business: people buy more drinks per hour, and they finish eating and leave sooner. [More]
Super Bowl Ads Are Designed To Fuel Mindless Buying
By 2.3.08
Companies are paying $90,000 per second tonight to get their products before our recession-fearing eyes, and they plan to get their money’s worth. Tonight’s advertisers will use an array of tactics designed with one purpose: motivating us to buy their products.
Comcast Impersonates Users' Computers To Meddle With Internet Traffic
By 10.22.07
Comcast uses its own computers to masquerade as those of its users in order to disrupt and throttle internet traffic—specifically the peer-to-peer kind—whenever it chooses, according to nationwide independent tests carried out by the Associated Press. A Comcast rep dances around the charge by saying that the company doesn’t “block” access to anything—but he makes no mention of throttling or disrupting connections to shape traffic, probably because if he did, he’d have to admit to it or blatantly lie.
