I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I sure inhaled my fair share of my mom’s, dad’s and stepfather’s tobacco when I was a child. Surely one of my earliest developed motor skills was learning how to roll down the window in our Chevy Nova. Now a bill under consideration by the New York State Assembly seeks to put an end to such behavior by fining adults who light up with a child in the vehicle. [More]
Government Policy
Here We Go Again: This Time The Toyotas Have Defective Engines
By 7.1.10
Toyota says that 270,000 cars worldwide, including Lexus sedans, have potentially faulty engines. NHTSA says that the company has not formally notified the agency of a recall, but a supposedly reputable Japanese newspaper says that the company plans to inform government agencies of the issue on Monday. [More]
CSPI Calls For Ban On Red 40, Yellows 5 and 6
By 7.1.10
One week after threatening to take the happy out of Happy Meals, the Center for Science in the Public Interest now wants to remove a few colors from the food dye rainbow, calling for the FDA to issue a ban on three colors it believes are bad for your health. [More]
Feds Make 9 Movie Pirate Sites Walk The Plank
By 7.1.10
We’re guessing the government has quarterly quotas for number of sites pushing pirated movies it shuts down, because on the last day of June the feds swooped in and shivered the timbers of several sites that had been allowing cheapos to not spend $12 to see Jonah Hex and other fine Hollywood offerings. [More]
House Of Representatives Says "Okay" To Financial Reform
By 6.30.10
It doesn’t look like it’s going to make President Obama’s July 4 deadline, but the financial reform bill did manage to squeak through the House of Representatives on Wednesday with a final vote of 237-192. [More]
Court Docs Reveal Dell Sold Computers It Knew Would Fail
By 6.30.10
Seem Dell has a hell all of its own. Newly unsealed court documents show that Dell sold computers knowing they would go kaput. The documents reveal that Dell sold nearly 12 million Optiplex machines between 2003-2005 with leaky capacitors that caused problems in 97% of the cases in over three years. Leaky capacitors lead to device failure, and can even cause the computer to become ablaze with fire. [More]
Chicago Provides City Vehicle Stickers That Lack One Important Feature
By 6.30.10
First New York’s vehicle inspection stickers lacked enough stickiness to actually stay stuck and now the disease has infected Chicago. Yes, it’s the same company making the stickers. I know. We’re shocked too. Who could have predicted this? [More]
Sony Recalls 535,000 Vaio Laptops For Overheating
By 6.30.10
Generally speaking, laptops get hot, or at least very warm. You pack all that computing power into a slim case with minimal exhaust and it’s bound to happen. But Sony says that some of its popular Vaio Laptops were getting so hot they presented a potential burn hazard to users. [More]
Homebuyer Tax Credit Poised For 3-Month Extension
By 6.30.10
First-time homebuyers looking to snag the up to $8,000 income tax credit that expires today could get a reprieve. If you already signed the purchase contract by April 30th but haven’t closed yet, you will have 3-months to seal the deal, if a bill passed by Congress yesterday makes it through the Senate, which it seems it will. [More]
Burglars Take 34 Seconds To Swipe Nearly $10K From AZ Apple Store
By 6.30.10
Forget about the Nicolas Cage movie Gone in 60 Seconds. A pair of swift-moving Arizona bandits made off with $9,400 in Apple Store goods in the time it takes your iTunes to boot up. [More]
Work-At-Home Scams On The Rise; Here's How To Spot Them
By 6.29.10
With so many people out of work, questionable-sounding work-at-home jobs that would have once been looked at with a wary eye are now the last resort for many cash-strapped Americans. But as more people are finding out, many work-at-home jobs are not the income generators they promise, and some are downright scams. [More]
Homeland Security Slaps 6-Year-Old Girl On No Fly List
By 6.29.10
The Department of Homeland Security’s anti-terrorist airplane protection services are so ironclad that even a sneaky 6-year-old Ohio girl couldn’t make it through the dragnet. The feds were on to her and stuck her on the No Fly List. Possibly because she planned on asking for extra peanuts, getting up and going potty several times during a flight and maybe even kicking the seat in front of her. [More]
Do Broadband Providers Actually Do Any Real Innovation?
By 6.29.10
The kind of “innovation” your Internet service provider (ISP) is fighting so passionately to protect won’t lead to faster or better service, says Ryan Singel at Wired. To ISPs, innovation means finding ways to generate more profit without making further investments in infrastructure. Yeah, it’s a deliberately provocative statement, but take a look at the list he provides for what ISPs have done to innovate in recent years versus what other companies have done. [More]
White House Backs FCC Plan For Wireless Broadband
By 6.29.10
If you’re having trouble getting a signal on your smartphone, the White House feels your pain. The Obama administration has endorsed an FCC plan to nearly double the bandwidth available for wireless devices by freeing up additional wireless spectrum. But don’t expect blazing speeds or better signals overnight. The plan will take several years to implement, require congressional approval, and is tied to a bandwidth auction to get the carriers to pay for the right to use the spectrum. [More]
FDA To Farmers: Enough Already With All The Antibiotics
By 6.29.10
After coming to the conclusion that farmers have gone a little hog-wild with their use of antimicrobials — not to cure animals of disease, but to spur animal growth — the FDA has kindly asked them to cut it out because it’s just going to make the rest of us sicker. [More]
Should Online Dating Sites Be Required To Do Background Checks?
By 6.28.10
Almost anyone who has ever visited — let alone actually joined — an online dating site knows going in, or quickly learns, to take everything they read and see with a grain of salt. A really, really big grain of salt. But the recent case of a convicted killer, awaiting trial for yet another murder, who posted a profile on Match.com has gotten some people talking about adding regulations to these sites. [More]
Watch Out For Tiny Fraudulent Charges On Your Accounts
By 6.28.10
The new hot fraud these days involves something that kinda sounds like it belongs in Superman III, but is new and different. Scamsters make tiny charges to tons and tons of accounts, hoping that the account holders won’t notice a charge for less than $10. And often they don’t. [More]
Oil Now Washing Up In Biloxi; BP Sends Three People To Clean It Up
By 6.28.10
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to expand, despite BP’s boasting about the number of barrels they pull out of the water each day. Over the weekend, the crude washed up for the first time on the shores of mainland Mississippi, driving away the already scant number of tourists. [More]
