Category: Uh Oh…

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From Ars Technica: More evidence links a family of insecticides to bee colony collapse


For nearly six years, a mysterious condition called colony collapse disorder (CCD) has been wreaking havoc with the honey bee population in the US and Europe. The cause of CCD remains elusive, with various fingers being pointed at mites, fungi, viruses, pesticides, and even cell phone emissions. Today, a pair of studies were published in Science that suggest that sublethal exposure to a family of common pesticides called neonicotinoids might play a contributing role in the great bee die-off.

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from Ars Technica

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From Engadget: Apple offers refund over Australian 4G iPad confusion

Confused over Apple’s liberal use of the 4G moniker? The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reckons you have a point and took those concerns to Apple Australia. The company has now responded to the country’s federal court, offering to contact — by email — everyone who bought the retina-screened slab and promise a refund if they felt misled over its connectivity capabilities. Apple will also amend its point of sale details to explain that while it can connect to 4G (LTE) networks in the US and Canada, it won’t connect to Australia’s own next-generation network offered by Telstra. Apple also thinks that the existence of HPSA capability — and its nebulous definition as either a third-generation or fourth generation network — in the Land Down Under meant it could still hold onto those 4G credentials.

 

from Engadget

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From The UberReview: Adam Savage Describes How Credit Card Companies Shot Down RFID Episode

Uh oh… man, I don’t wanna carry around my credit cards anymore!  At least not the ones with RFID!

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Here is something that you might not know. Mythbusters had planned to air an episode on how “hackable and trackable” RFID chips are – it never saw the light of day. What happened was this: calls were made to arrange a meeting with someone at Texas Instruments and when the meeting was scheduled to happen a bunch of legal heavies from Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover explained that showing the episode would be a really, really bad idea.

So the episode never happened and Mythbusters won’t be examining any RFID-related myths anytime soon.

I’ve got to admit that I am finding myself curious. It isn’t like the Mythbusters episode was going to show people how to defraud their credit card company – so the card companies’ objections more likely stemmed from other aspects of RFID that they might be uncomfortable with customers finding out about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Source]

from The UberReview

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From Ars Technica: Facebook says it may sue employers who demand job applicants’ passwords


Facebook has taken a stand against what it calls a “distressing increase” in reports of employers demanding the Facebook passwords of employees and job applicants.

One such report came from the Associated Press this week, which detailed cases of interviewers asking applicants for Facebook usernames and passwords, a clear invasion of privacy if we’ve ever heard of one. Employers examining applicants’ and employees’ activity on social media networks isn’t new—but typically it is restricted to what information users have made publicly available to everyone. Facebook said it could seek policy changes or file lawsuits to prevent employers from demanding passwords.

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from Ars Technica

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From Ars Technica: Witnesses warn Verizon-Comcast deal will damage competition


The antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee heard a wide range of views on the merits of a plan for Verizon Wireless to buy $3.6 billion of spectrum from a consortium of cable companies. Representatives for the firms argued that the transaction would not reduce competition between them, but opponents portrayed the deal as another step in the slow death of telecommunications competition.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Verizon’s Randal Milch emphasized that Verizon Wireless was facing a “spectrum crunch.” He wants to buy spectrum currently held by a consortium of three cable companies. Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House bought the spectrum in the 2006 Advanced Wireless Services auction, but after careful analysis they concluded that they couldn’t afford to launch an independent wireless company. So they started looking for a buyer for the spectrum, and eventually inked a deal with Verizon.

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from Ars Technica

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From Engadget: Visualized: new iPad burns 10 degrees hotter than its predecessor

We wouldn’t exactly be going out on a limb by suggesting that the new iPad is Apple’s hottest tablet to date — even before Tim Cook confirmed as much earlier today. But while Apple has plenty of reason to brag about the device’s sales figures, it’s slightly less motivated to be forthcoming about its tendencies to create more heat. 10 degrees more, in fact, according to infrared camera confirmation obtained by Tweakers.net. After five minutes of running GLBenchmark, the site used its infrared cam to confirm what many of you have already suggested: the new iPad runs a little hot. According to the site’s measurements, Cupertino’s flagship slab reached 33.6 degrees centigrade (92.5 Fahrenheit), compared to 28.3 centigrade (82.9 Fahrenheit) with the iPad 2. That’s certainly not enough heat to cause a tablet to spontaneously combust, but if you happen to be one of those new iPad owners that noticed a difference, you can now rest assured that your internal thermometer hasn’t missed a beat.

 

from Engadget