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Sure, this sounds convenient, but is it worth the radiation? https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/the-surprising-dangers-of-ct-sans-and-x-rays/index.htm

If you're worried about radiation exposure you wouldn't get on a plane in the first place.

Flying above the bulk of the atmosphere exposes you to significantly higher doses of ionizing radiation.

Sure, this sounds convenient, but is it worth the radiation? https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/the-surprising-dangers-of-ct-sans-and-x-rays/index.htm

If the TSA agent asks you to lay down on the conveyor belt, you can inform him that Federal law gives you the right to refuse to be sent through the baggage scanner.

Sure, this sounds convenient, but is it worth the radiation? https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/the-surprising-dangers-of-ct-sans-and-x-rays/index.htm

We are not to full self driving, but Automatic Emergency Braking falls under the category of useful "the moment something hairy happens," you may not even realize it is taking over- you get a chime or notification, but you're way too busy processing everything else. It is really about the difficulty of proving the absence of something- in this case, the absence of a collision.

From Consumer Reports:

IIHS data show rear-end collisions are cut by 50 percent on vehicles with AEB and FCW.

ABS was a technology many thought was lacking- and initially, it probably was. But today- I'm pretty sure the most experienced driver can not beat the most recent ABS, considering the ability to monitor/control the speed of each wheel separately.

I can't help but think this is just spitting into the wind. There are lots of chemicals which potentially harm reefs. Oxybenzone and octinoxate just get picked on because there was already a large conspiracy theory-ish movement to get those two banned, which quickly latched on to any alternative reason to ban them.

if you look at all chemicals we add to the water which potentially harms coral, fertilizer would seem to be the biggest culprit. And we dump probably a trillion times more fertilizer into the oceans (via agricultural runoff) than sunscreen. These sunscreen bans are like making a fuss over a tiny crack in the road, while ignoring the smoking mile-wide crater.

Cassettes more portable? I guess you never experienced the glory of a turntable in your dash...

Is it [Samsung smart TV] indeed listening?

Indeed it is (and it doesn't even need AirPlay for this). I posted this before, but here's how you can disable some spyware - until they change this in the next mandatory update (for your own good, of course).

Note that even the most restrictive settings won't disable all snooping - if your TV is connected to the Internet it will report on you.

"It was GM's ... poor designs for 15 years that killed it." -- from the parent comment.

The poor designs were at least partially deliberate, apparently. Most car buyers weren't knowledgeable about cars. The bad designs made more money for GM car dealers. The dealers wanted more work, so they wanted more failures. The dealers would make huge amounts of money and would pay for expensive local advertising.

A friend of mine who was also 14 years old then, and who had a father who was an excellent mechanic, suggested we ride our bikes to the places where GM and Ford stored their cars when they arrived in the local area. My friend demonstrated sloppy GM design. Then we went and looked at Ford cars. They were much better designed and built.

Back when car buying became very popular in the U.S., and many years later, it was See the USA, in your Chevrolet".

My understanding is that now the best car manufacturer is Toyota. My understanding is that cars designed in the U.S. are far more likely to fail.

10 Least Reliable Cars -- Consumer Reports' annual survey exposes the models with the greatest risks of problems. (Oct. 24, 2018 )

The U.S. has laws that prevent car manufacturers from selling directly!!! One story: Tesla US dealership disputes. Amazing!!! Laws that help car dealers make more money. Quoting that Wikipedia article:

"48 states have laws that limit or ban manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers, and although Tesla has no independent dealerships, dealership associations in multiple states have filed numerous lawsuits against Tesla, to prevent the company from selling cars."

I believe Samsung smart TVs both snoop on you and force ads on the menu screen. There'll be a cold day in hell before I buy a Samsung TV - even though they look ok from other points of view. [...]

Certain low-end Samsung "dumb" TVs are sold in the USA with remotely-accessible cellular modems installed, for the delivery of 'custom' programming produced by the state.

I believe Samsung smart TVs both snoop on you and force ads on the menu screen. There'll be a cold day in hell before I buy a Samsung TV - even though they look ok from other points of view.

It's annoying that you can't find any large screen dumb TVs at a reasonable price point anymore.

You're joking, right?

How about the Takata airbag recall?

Should I Expect to Pay Any Money to Get the Recall Fix?
Repairs conducted under the recall are free, but unrelated problems discovered during the service may not be.

And that's just the first one I thought of right off the top of my head. Free repairs for recalls on automobiles are the norm, not the exception.

I got got irritated and wanted to waste their time too.

Careful with going through those prompts, you could only be confirming a valid number, and get even more calls.

I've also heard you might trigger a call to a 'premium' pay to call if you press buttons or try to call back and you get a huge hit on your bill (think a 976 number for instance).

This crap should be shut down by now.

Good luck with that. Many of these calls have been shown to originate from the exact same call centre as legit companies outsource their crap to.

As long as the industry can convince the lawmakers that they need to be allowed to do caller ID spoofing for their supposedly legitimate calls, the companies who use these call centres in India (or wherever) have created a condition where they insist their 'real' calls outweighs our ability to not receive calls with fake caller ID. Literally industry demands that this bullshit be possible so they can save money, and lawmakers have agreed.

The now entrenched of outsourcing customer support to idiots in call centres where there is cheap labour is precisely why this crap hasn't been shut down.

If you see a number you don't recognize don't answer, and don't be so sure that wasting their time won't cause you even more grief.

You know the one that keeps your battery safe and stops it from exploding ?

The copper contacts ?

I suppose that I should just chalk this up to pandering infotainment, but really how hard is it to understand that if you are going to make a significant amount of anything you need to use techniques geared to making significant amounts.

If you are talking about short-circuit which causes Li-ion batteries to explode, then you should at least read this site.

My point is, the 3D printing is nice to create a custom-size batteries, but I hope that those who create their own battery size know what they are doing. The design is the key and that they need to know how a Li-ion battery works in the first place, or there is a high risk of making an easily explode custom-sized battery.

NCTA: “An open internet means that we do not block, throttle or otherwise impair your online activity. We firmly stand by that commitment because it is good for our customers and good for our business.”

https://www.consumerreports.or...

You may be thinking of commercial publications that choose names to try to sound like Consumer Reports, such as "Consumers Digest". Consumer Reports is very strict about not accepting any money from any company whose products they review and not having even the appearance of a conflic of interest. In fact, even creating the appearance of such a conflict of interest is grounds to remove a director from their board of directors, and to terminate any employee, as laid out in their bylaws and Conflict of Interest policy.

Here are their full audited financial statements so you can see exactly where they get their money from.
https://www.consumerreports.or...

Until removal, all products were top-sellers, with thousands of positive reviews that averaged their ratings between 4.6 and 4.9.

This is why so many product reviews by both users and well-published reviewers are essentially worthless. They might be decent UI and basic functionality reviews, but practically no reviewing source includes a security review. At least Consumer Reports claims they are going to start, though it's long since time that they or others should have started doing so.

I should expand, since due to some activity in my office this one got cut off:

Having observed the Obama years, the purchasing power of our currency fell off quite a bit. You might look along these lines:

* https://www.consumerreports.or...
* https://www.bostonglobe.com/li...
* https://montrealgazette.com/op...

It may have avoided the official indexes, but the loss of real-world value to our currency was a thing, which is about what one would expect from fast money policies.

Generic of course.

I'm just curious, why are Epi Pens not already generic?

Then observe the value of competition... The market works, if you let it.

There is already a generic epinephrine injector that's been around for about 13 years called Adrenaclick. I bought mine from Walmart for about $160, I think.
There's also the Auvi-Q since 2012. https://www.drugs.com/history/...

https://www.consumerreports.or...
https://www.usatoday.com/story...

Tesla has the highest consumer satisfaction rating in the industry. 90% satisfaction rate. By contrast, Chevy and GMC are ranked 72%, Buick is 66%, and Cadillac is 64%. The only brand close to Tesla is Porsche, at 85% satisfaction.

But, glad to know that you have short positions :) Are you really sure you don't want to buy more? You only have a couple more days before the Q2 report, don't get in too late! Come on, how much interest is the money in your bank account earning? How much interest would a home equity line of credit cost?

" Trust, but verify " as the saying goes.

Did you read the article? According to that, about 90% of people agree to allow data collection. That's partly due to misleading agreement terms during TV setup that make the spyware seem like free extras. But there's also coercion. See here:

https://www.consumerreports.or...

"....if you decline permissions, you can lose a surprising amount of functionality. In fact, one TV requires that you accept a broad privacy policy during setup before you can use the most basic, internet-free functions, such as watching TV using an antenna."

The NYT didn't bother to mention that detail. Yes, one can disconnect from the Internet. I don't have my TV connected to the Internet. But I also don't have any interest in streaming TV shows. I get DVDs from Netflix and the local library. Most people do want streaming options.

In other words, most people want functionality in their TV that is specifically blocked if they don't agree to data collection *by the device*. They're not even being asked to let Netflix monitor their activity. The TV set itself refuses to work unless they allow the data collection! I don't remember signing any EULA last time I bought a TV at Best Buy. Yet according to these reports, I might
buy a TV today that would refuse to work with my antenna.

Didn't we already put "BendGate" to bed? The iPhone 6 Plus wasn't even the least likely to bend of the tested phones.

I don't remmeber Apple "shouting to the high heavens" about "KeyboardGate" (I assume the current keyboard problem?) or "BatteryGate" (not sure what this is? The performance throttling to stop the phone from shutting off?). AntennaGate I'm assuming is the "you're holding it wrong" and I'm with you on that one, my recollection of that was a huge PR mess for Apple with lots of blaming the user.

Honest question - do you have examples of this happening? I'd be interested in reading about it.

List of lost trademarks

Most of the trademarks on this list were lost through dilution or genericization. But some, such as "Asprin" and "Heroin" were confiscated from German companies in the aftermath of WW1.

https://www.consumerreports.or...

The test is based on an industry-standard procedure designed by SAE International, a global engineering association. Our testers get a car up to 60 mph, then slam on the brakes until the car comes to a stop. They repeat this multiple times to ensure consistent results. Between each test, the vehicle is driven approximately a mile to cool the brakes and make sure they don’t overheat.

However, CR said that even after an overnight cooldown, all braking distances on the next day were still long (even the first!):

In our testing of the Model 3, the first stop we recorded was significantly shorter (around 130 feet, similar to Tesla’s findings), but that distance was not repeated, even after we let the brakes cool overnight.

In other words, prior to the firmware update, you only get one hard brake with optimal stopping distance before you have inconsistent braking performance. It is possible that had they only done fewer hard brakes on day 1, the first brake on day 2 would have been optimal. I have no way of knowing. However, an overnight cooldown should reset the count as the brakes would have fully cooled. The original braking performance was a serious problem and certainly something that would impact "actual drivers".

Sources of the above quotes:
[1] https://www.consumerreports.or...

You get the FUD award of the day.

1. Literally nobody thinks Tesla is going bankrupt. There are pleny that think they will need to do a capital raise, but literally nobody thinks they will be unable to do so.
2. Should Tesla's liquidity falter, there is no shortage of deep pocketed buyers out there who would love to own the motor and battery tech.
3. No lawyer in their right mind settles a class action for so little, unless their case is weak shit. If their shit is weak, they take what they can get and move on - This is Tesla acknowledging that there is something there, but only just, and they are going to let the lawyers get out of this shit without piling up hundreds of hours of billing and court fees to arrive at the same sum amount for their owners, now 100% going to lawyers, and Tesla being found "guilty"
4. Even with this class action, Tesla still has The highest customer satisfaction rating of all car badges, by a long way. And this survey isn't the first time either, which means that the affected class also voted extremely satisfied.

Fuck off with your FUD.

It's a non-issue.

That Consumer Reports test was flawed, because they tested pressure in the middle when the phones were clearly being bent at a particular point higher up.

It was a design flaw: "under a particular type of flexing, the phone is prone to bend mainly because a metal insert meant to reinforce instead spins in an axis too close to the critical point"

But that must be Fake News, since Snopes still cites the Consumer Reports test, right? https://www.snopes.com/news/20...

It's a non-issue. Yes, their internal reports said it was more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s. So? Can you only make a new phone if it's less likely to bend? What's acceptable levels of manufacturing? If the 5s had a 1:1,000 chance to bend and the 6 Plus had a 1:950 chance, but got a thinner, lighter device ... so? Who cares?

According to Consumer Reports, they used an industry standard test which they have used on more than 500 other vehicles. When the results came up weird they borrowed another Tesla Model 3 and got nearly identical results.

Car and Driver also reported abnormal braking in their Tesla Model 3.

taking every single case they can find of a fit and finish error and blowing it all out of proportion

Are you including Consumer Reports in that as well?

https://www.consumerreports.or...

In short, this is a known characteristic of this type of system.

The situation is where you are following another vehicle going about your same speed. It moves out of the way and there is a fire truck (or some other stationary object) direct ahead and stopped. The system doesn't recognize the stopped object and in fact will accelerate back to the programmed cruise speed instead of stopping.

So this is one (of many!) reasons the Autopilot & similar systems say that the driver must remain continually aware ready to re-take control of the vehicle at any moment.

The problem with this scenario is--as nearly every autopilot crash so far has demonstrated--that this goes 100% counter to human nature.

Once the autopilot has driving a few hundred or a few thousand miles successfully, the human driver starts to trust it more and more, and tune out more and more. Monitoring a very good autopilot system is b-o-r-i-n-g and, interestingly, the better the system the more boring it becomes.

Any human in this situation is going to tune out for lengthy periods of time.

Instead of human plus automated driving adding together to achieve a system that is safer than either alone (which seems to be the case for currently available collision avoidance systems which never take control of the vehicle except in rare collision situations) you end up with a system that combines the worst characteristics of human and automated driving.

The human zones out way too often (again, a predictable outcome of this type of system) while the Level 2 automated system has many, many blind spots.

It's risen back up there, from below average. Model X is "Least Reliable". Model 3 is predicted "Average" so far, but who knows? Consumer reports puts TSLA at #21 of 27 car brands in reliability, and that doesn't really weight cost-to-repair which is expected to be pretty bad. https://www.consumerreports.or...

I expect high reliability from something at TSLA's selling point (unless it's a supercar or something). Of course, this isn't a dealbreaker for everyone-- Cadillac does OK.

The thing is, this particular criticism is kinda unfair. TSLA is increasing production rapidly, which is bad for quality, and has relatively few design cycles on things, so I expect them to kind of suck-- there's a lot of chance for improvement.

Considering that they are topping the table for car-ownership satisfaction rates, I don't think it's such a big issue. https://www.consumerreports.or...

This is an old story now. Tesla repeatedly creates shit storms with regulators and critics. Tesla expects to be the special, exempted exception to every rule and requires every outcome and finding to be in Tesla's favor, lest the offender be subjected to the mud slinging we see here. This scene in particular smacks of desperation; Tesla is finding it difficult to maintain the reality distortion field where it's ok for their "autopilot" operating in broad daylight to bury its passengers into a highway divider and erupt into a toxic lithium battery fire that takes most of a day to fully contain.

Windows ME, Vista, Version 8 - Microsoft has been having problems here and there with Windows for some time. In 2015, Nadella combined their hardware efforts with the Windows Universal Platform, allowing for cross platform applications [1]. Things didn't go as hoped. While Windows 10 is popular, overtaking Win 7 by February 2018, overall PC sales has been declining. In fact, they have been losing ground for the last 6 years, with a 2.8% drop in 2017 [2].

Consumer Reports stopped recommending the entire line of Surface PCs in 2017 due to hardware concerns. These days CR rates the Surface Pro 4 positively, but they still claim Microsoft is less reliable than most brands, and Apple is the most reliable laptop brand [3]. BTW, if you're interested, Windows can be installed on a Mac with OS X's dual booting Boot Camp. Best of both worlds.

Now, Terry Myerson, the leader of the Windows and Devices Group, is leaving Microsoft. With his departure, Microsoft is creating 2 new teams that will prioritize Microsoft's cloud and artificial intelligence products. Perhaps this is an effort to appease investors [4]. With Myerson's departure and this re-prioritization, it's no surprise Windows applications like Mail are having problems. I expect more trouble across the Windows spectrum. Microsoft's head is in the clouds, and their application platform is in the sunset, rear window.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-182823659.html

[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-vs-windows-7-has-microsofts-newest-os-just-reached-a-turning-point/

https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/632157/2017-saw-pc-shipments-decline-six-years-straight/

[3] {May be Paywalled} https://www.consumerreports.org/products/laptop/microsoft-surface-pro-4-384902/overview/

[4] http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/news/companies/microsoft-restructuring-windows/index.html

I don't see private ownership of autonomous vehicles happening for precisely the reason stated above.

Most of the car manufacturer's have very disappointing miles driven and the only non-car company working on self-driving vehicles as a platform is Drive.AI.

Takata's bankrupty was caused by airbags being faulty. I can only image what happens when a consumer blames $AICompany for faulty sensors and has a recall.

The Apple HomePod sounds good, but other smart speakers sound better.

I cant figure that part out.

My packages will get here when they get here.

And usually they arrive much sooner than the estimate.

I will never pay for Prime.

I find a lot of value in it.

I do a LOT of shopping on Amazon, I rarely go to brick and mortar stores, and I like the 2x day shipping. I have patience for 2 days.

I like the options I find on Amazon Prime that comes with it.

I like that I get free eBooks monthly.

You get some free storage on amazon cloud.

I enjoy the Amazon Music, I use that to stream in my car off my cell phone.

There's other stuff I've not tried yet, something called Twitch.tv you get free.

I believe there are some other things, but I find these all to be a big value to me....

Here are some links here and here....

And all that for a mere $99/yr?

Hell, I've had single night bar tabs that much....

https://www.consumerreports.or... tht's 700-1200 for a charger (installed). make that double that for a public accessible one. https://www.profitableventure.... make that a 2.5 million. voila, 1000 times more expensive. that's 3 orders.

oh why is this story on Slashdot? Lets be concerned about this hypothetical scenario (triggered by something in 2015, talk about behind the times) instead of what TV manufacturers are actually doing today - actively spying on what you watch.

Unless it's using something like Android TV or an embedded Chromecast, which some recent TV offerings do, the answer is a definitive no.
If it's a Samsung TV, then it's an pretty blatant and obvious NO, all caps. Samsung, LG and Vizio were already caught red handed with active spying practices, and some of them are facing or faced lawsuits because of it.
Just unplug it. Without smart TV features, it's just a plain TV, which is the safest option as it always was.

https://www.pcworld.com/articl...
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
http://bgr.com/2014/10/31/smar...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...
https://www.consumerreports.or...
https://www.cnet.com/news/sams...
http://bgr.com/2013/11/20/lg-s...

And no, it's not illogical to prevent some devices from connecting to the Internet. The reality of it is that the less stuff you have connected, the less chance you have of getting spied upon and your data being collected. This also applies to IoT devices and other Internet connected devices. If it does not make sense for a service to be connected to the Internet, it shouldn't be. You already have a proper dedicated device for all the "smart" needs, you don't need the often poorly updated with crappy hardware duplicate that came with the TV.

Basic principle of privacy and security standards, limit the stuff you have connected, always measure the convenience of devices versus the privacy risks they can bring. Something that it just seems that lots of people don't realize these days, which is why we'll soon miss the days we didn't have all details of our lives exposed to hackers, advertisers and big corporations.

A single smartphone and a computer is bad enough as is, adding security cameras, TVs, refrigerators, thermostats, smart bulbs, automated blinds, always listening assistants, and whatever more is out there is not simply wrong, it's just plain stupid. People barely have any knowledge or control of simple routers and their desktop computers, let alone all these smart home crap that most don't even really need. People and the tech industry in general are just marching towards a path of no return, we already have growing evidence on how damaging the move is, but people are usually blind to it because they still didn't face their first identity theft case, or something of the like. By the time most people realize the problem it'll already be too late. Data is out there, either publicly exposed or being sold in huge packages of information to be exploited on the dark web, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Meh, I'll just peel apples from now on.

That may not work.

And no matter how thoroughly you clean your apples, you may not be able to remove all the chemicals, because some may penetrate more deeply into the fruit, depending on which pesticides they are and when they were applied.

This method is effective at removing the pesticides that penetrate through the fruit. However, further reading shows the pesticide tested only penetrates 80 micrometers. So peeling may help. However, there may be other pesticides that penetrate deeper into the fruit.

Here's what Consumer Reports actually said: https://www.consumerreports.or...

They never said they "dislike" it. But based on their annual subscriber survey data, they find that Microsoft laptops and tablets have a failure rate exceeding 25% over a two year period. This rate, they say, is significantly higher than other brands, and based on this difference, they cannot recommend Microsoft Surface products, for now.

No.

As with all test programs at Consumer Reports, the Electronics program buys virtually all products at retail, like any consumer. That enables us to remain completely impartial and unbiased. Our secret shoppers visit stores across the country to make their purchases, without revealing that the products are destined for the Consumer Reports labs.

https://www.consumerreports.or...

Microcrosoft Surface Laptops and Tablets not recommended by CR ::

To get at reliability, the Consumer Reports National Research Center surveys our subscribers regularly. There are millions of these folks, and many of them supply us with information on hundreds of thousands of individual products, including everything from pickup trucks to washing machines.

A number of survey respondents said they experienced problems with their devices during startup. A few commented that their machines froze or shut down unexpectedly, and several others told CR that the touch screens weren’t responsive enough.

Science!

https://www.consumerreports.or... They're basically crowdsourcing reviews by surveying product owners. It's tougher for Microsoft to pay for good reviews or Microsoft's competition to pay for bad Microsoft reviews this way. On the other hand, you're left with people who actually bought the stuff. Whether you're getting Microsoft fanboys giving reviews(and it still ended up negative), or they managed to get a sample with a negative Microsoft bias that willingly bought Microsoft gear to use in hopes of being surveyed, or some combination thereof would be a study in and of itself.

Fuck, that's bad info and conclusion. Alternatives have been discussed ON /. the previous times they jacked up pricing. LMGTFY https://www.consumerreports.or... The government needs to make sure they make SAFE products. Having more, cheaper, unregulated devices is about the stupidest thing I've read today. This is purely ignoring manufacturing quality due to fuck face management. I don't make life saving devices and we put more QA into our products. Fuck these no QA assholes.

Smith presents Yi with a new Surface Laptop

Microsoft Surface Laptops and Tablets Not Recommended by Consumer Reports

The four laptops losing their previous recommended status are the Microsoft Surface Laptop (128GB and 256GB versions) and Microsoft Surface Book (128GB and 512GB versions). Microsoft is relatively new to the hardware business, and this is the first year CR had enough data to estimate predicted reliability for the company’s laptops.

Microsoft’s estimated breakage rate for its laptops and tablets was higher than most other brands’. The differences were statistically significant, which is why Microsoft doesn’t meet CR’s standards for recommended products. The surveys are conducted annually.

Also worth noting that Tesla has the highest owner satisfaction rating in the industry, with 91% saying would buy again (the next closest being Porsche at 84%)

Tesla only makes electric cars. So, read into that what you will.

Here's an actual compiled report with data to back it up, vs your nothing:

https://www.consumerreports.or...

Toyota isn't what it once was, Ford isn't either... give Consumer Reports try, they talk about this in recent auto reviews, that the gap has closed and the old issues are largely gone...

I'll just leave this here.

https://www.consumerreports.or...