Barack Obama is really pumped about getting humans to Mars.
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YouTube stomped TV in the second presidential debate
Did you choose to watch coverage of the second US presidential debate on your computer or phone instead of your TV? You’re not alone… in fact, you might be in the majority. YouTube reports that round two of Clinton versus Trump racked up 124 million worldwide views across live streams and on-demand videos, compared to ‘just’ 63 million TV viewers. That’s a roughly 40 percent jump over what YouTube saw in the last debate, although it’s notable that there were fewer concurrent viewers — the town hall debate saw a peak of 1.5 million versus 2 million the last time.
YouTube hasn’t explained what prompted the surge, although it’s easy to point to a few factors. For a start, the incendiary nature of the debate helped — people around the planet wanted to catch more of those outrageous statements, especially knowing what happened in the first debate. The 9PM Eastern timing also likely drove some viewers to YouTube recaps instead of watching live TV. The rise of cord-cutting may have played a part as well, although that would be difficult to quantify.
It’s important to add that this is only YouTube’s data, for that matter. Twitter says that the second debate saw over 17 million tweets, the most it had ever seen for a debate — and you know that some of those users watched the showdown on Twitter itself or other internet services, such as Facebook and news websites. TV is still a force to be reckoned with in debate coverage, and might still have an overall edge in contiguous viewing (the average YouTube viewer tuned in for nearly 25 minutes, or less than a third of the debate). Still, it’s doubtful that there’s any going back.
Via: Wired
Source: YouTube Official Blog
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FCC fines Comcast $2.3 million for shady billing practices (updated)
Comcast is no stranger to customer complaints, but today the service provider’s practices cost it $2.3 million. That fine will settle an FCC investigation into whether the company was charging its customers for services and equipment that they didn’t authorize. The practice of so-called "negative option billing" charges subscribers for items that they don’t explicitly turn down. The FCC explains that the practice forces customers to spend the time and effort to contact the cable company to dispute the charges and seek a refund.
The FCC says that it received "numerous complaints" from Comcast customers stating that the company was adding charges for services and gear like premium channels, set-top boxes and DVRs they didn’t order. Some customers said they were billed for those items even after they declined them. Others stated they weren’t aware of the charges until they received the unordered equipment in the mail or took a look at their monthly statements. As you might expect, the FCC notes those consumers were "expending significant time and energy" to get the charges removed and request refunds.
In addition to the fine, Comcast will also adopt new policies requiring it to get proper authorization from customers before billing for new services or equipment. More specifically, the company will send out clearly labeled order confirmations separate from bills that explain any new items. Comcast will also allow subscribers to block the addition of anything new to their accounts. The company must also revise how it handles billing disputes and refunds "in a standardized and expedient fashion" and adopt a method that "limits adverse action" (late fees, collections, etc.) while a charge is being investigated.
Comcast says those changes were updates the company had already committed to make and they are either "well underway" or will be implemented "in the near future." The company says that after two years the FCC "found no problematic policy of intentional wrongdoing." Instead, the complaints stemmed from "isolated errors and customer confusion."
Here’s Comcast’s official statement on the matter:
"We have been working very hard on improving the experience of our customers in all respects and are laser-focused on this. We acknowledge that, in the past, our customer service should have been better and our bills clearer, and that customers have at times been unnecessarily frustrated or confused. That’s why we had already put in place many improvements to do better for our customers even before the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau started this investigation almost two years ago. The changes the Bureau asked us to make were in most cases changes we had already committed to make, and many were already well underway or in our work plan to implement in the near future.
We do not agree with the Bureau’s legal theory here, and in our view, after two years, it is telling that it found no problematic policy or intentional wrongdoing, but just isolated errors or customer confusion. We agree those issues should be fixed and are pleased to put this behind us and proceed with these customer service-enhancing changes."
Update: We’ve updated with a statement from Comcast that was sent to Engadget shortly after this post was published.
Source: FCC
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Boeing delays Starliner again, casting doubt on commercial flights in 2018
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is facing more delays.
Boeing
After an initial delay from late 2017 into early 2018, Boeing has acknowledged a second slippage of its schedule for the first commercial crew flights of its Starliner spacecraft. According to a report in Aviation Week, the company now says it will not be ready to begin operational flights until December 2018, a full year after NASA had originally hoped its commercial crew providers would be ready.
The admission by Boeing confirms a report by NASA’s Inspector General, which found significant delays with both the Boeing and SpaceX efforts to develop private spacecraft to ferry US astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The delay also explains why, as Ars has previously reported, that senior managers with the International Space Station program are likely to press ahead with the politically painful decision to purchase Soyuz seats for the calendar year 2019.
Boeing’s second delay appears to have been caused by supply chain issues and other factors, which John Mulholland, the program manager for commercial crew at Boeing, said have been largely resolved. “When we were faced with these issues it was time for us to step back and say: ‘Hey listen, we have to readdress [this] and say what’s real and lay in where we are going forward’,†he told Aviation Week.
With the revised schedule, Boeing now anticipates completing an initial, test crew flight in August 2018. Under this plan, the company could still receive certification from NASA in late 2018 and fly its first operational mission to the station by the end of the year.
NASA’s other commercial crew provider, SpaceX, has had two issues with its Falcon 9 rocket, which will launch its crewed Dragon spacecraft into orbit. Despite this the company has not acknowledged that its first crewed flights will slip into 2018. Nevertheless, the inspector general’s report said SpaceX, too, had experienced issues with its spacecraft, particularly adjusting to water-based landings upon returning to Earth. Sources familiar with the commercial crew program have indicated to Ars that the race between SpaceX and Boeing to launch the first NASA astronauts from US soil remains too close to call.
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RIP Galaxy Note 7: Samsung permanently ends production
Ron Amadeo
The Galaxy Note 7 is officially dead. Samsung has told multiple outlets (CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg) that it is permanently stopping production of the troubled device.
The Galaxy Note 7 was originally released mid-August, and by September, devices were being pulled off the market to due numerous reports of explosions and injuries. After recalling 2.5 million devices worldwide, Samsung spent a few weeks retooling the devices, and on October 1st, resumed sales of the Galaxy Note 7. Once sales and exchanged devices were out there, reports of explosions resumed too—Samsung didn’t actually stop the phones from blowing up. Just yesterday, Samsung announced a second recall for the devices, and instead of just a recalling specific units in certain territories, now it called on “all carrier and retail partners globally” to accept returns and stop sales.
Killing the Note 7 is definitely going to be expensive. Earlier this morning Reuters ran an article that said “If Samsung stops selling the Note 7s, that will translate into lost sales of up to 19 million phones, or nearly $17 billion.” It would not surprise us to hear the entire “Note” brand is dead after this, too.
If you have a Note 7, please, please return it. The device is dangerous and will probably soon be banned from airplanes and other places. A production stoppage means Samsung won’t support it with updates, and, after limiting the battery capacity during the first recall, Samsung will probably be looking at other drastic steps to contact every last Note 7 customers and encourage returns. Samsung has information on the recall process here.
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