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US Product Safety Commission Warns That Some Fidget Spinners Explode (cnn.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the buyer-beware dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Fidget spinners are supposed to be calming and fun, especially for students struggling to focus. But after some dangerous incidents involving the popular gizmos, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued new fidget spinner safety guidance for consumers and businesses. There have been a handful of choking incidents reported with the toys, as well as two instances of battery-operated spinners catching on fire and another incident in which a fidget spinner melted, the agency said. No deaths have been reported. The agency also issued safety guidance on battery-operated fidget spinners. Consumers should always be present when the product is charging, never charge it overnight and always use the cable it came with, the statement said. Users should unplug their spinner immediately once it's fully charged and make sure they have working smoke detectors in their home.

"As the agency investigates some reported incidents associated with this popular product, fidget spinner users or potential buyers should take some precautions," Ann Marie Buerkle, acting chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement. "Keep them from small children; the plastic and metal spinners can break and release small pieces that can be a choking hazard; and older children should not put fidget spinners in their mouths." Fidget spinners should be kept away from children under the age of 3, the statement said.

Comment Re:I can see it now... (Score 1) 610

by IronOxen (#51528047) Attached to: Judge Tells Apple To Help FBI Access San Bernardino Shooters' iPhone
There is no way the US government doesn't have the most specialized computing power dedicated to cracking encryption that exists anywhere. If Apple has a chance of getting into that phone then they have left themselves a backdoor already at least in theory which means right now that Apple may actually not have the best change of developing an exploit for it. Others have been working on it for as long as they have had access to the latest IOS. The order is instructing Apple to use the firmware upgrade or recovery mode to load and run a specialized operating system in RAM to somehow tell the installed IOS to allow access to the stored data. If it is that easy, then the encryption was not implemented correctly. Missing the pass code should make it absolutely impossible to derive the needed decryption key.

Submission + - Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff's Use

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Cybersquatting is registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else's trademark. It generally refers to the practice of buying up domain names that use the names of existing businesses with the intent to sell the names for a profit to those businesses. Now Andrew Allmann writes at Domain Name Wire that New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit against Jason Kneen over the domain name WorkBetter.com that Kneen registered in 1999 although Office Space Solutions didn't use the term “Work Better” in commerce until 2015. "Workbetter.com is virtually identical to, and/or confusingly similar to the WORK BETTER Service Mark, which was distinctive at the time that the Defendant renewed and/or updated the registration of workbetter.com," says the lawsuit. But according to an Office Space Solutions’ filing with the USPTO, it didn’t use the term “Work Better” in commerce until 2015. Office Space Solutions is making the argument that the domain name was renewed in bad faith. According to Kneen, Office Space previously tried to purchase the domain name from him and after it failed to acquire the domain name, is now trying to take it via a lawsuit.

Submission + - SF Says AdWare Bundled with Gimp Is Intentional (google.com) 5

Submitted by tresf
tresf writes: In response to a Google+ post from the Gimp project claiming that "[Sourceforge] is now distributing an ads-enabled installer of GIMP", Sourceforge had this response:

In cases where a project is no longer actively being maintained, SourceForge has in some cases established a mirror of releases that are hosted elsewhere. This was done for GIMP-Win.

Editor's note: Gimp is actively being maintained and the definition of "mirror" is quite misleading here as a modified binary is no longer a verbatim copy. Download statistics for Gimp on Windows show SourceForge as offering over 1,000 downloads per day of the Gimp software. In an official response to this incident, the official Gimp project team reminds users to use official download methods. Slashdotters may remember the last time news like this surfaced (2013) when the Gimp team decided to move downloads from SourceForge to their own FTP service.

Therefore, we remind you again that GIMP only provides builds for Windows via its official Downloads page.

Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.

Submission + - This Handgun is 3D Printed and Powered by Condoms (3dprint.com)

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: Designer and maker James R. Patrick has tried his hand at developing a 3D printed gun. He was successful, but then the folks at FOSSCAD were intrigued by the idea and as part of testing it, substituted condoms for rubber bands. It appears to be equally effective and a whole heck of a lot more entertaining.

Submission + - Killing Freemium Services will Increase Music Piracy, Not Sales or Signups (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Killing freemium won’t make people magically pay $9.99 a month; it’ll make them seek out free music elsewhere. By blocking channels like YouTube and Soundcloud, the labels are sending a message that only music they approve of and want to monetize can be heard, and the door slams shut for many outsider artists. The last thing listeners want is a protectionist culture around the music they consume—every artist deserves a fair shot at being heard.

Submission + - Patriot Act Reform: Don't Crack Open the Champagne Yet (counterpunch.org)

Submitted by Nicola Hahn
Nicola Hahn writes: While congress considers the merits of the USA Freedom Act of 2015, a bill which revises the business records provisions of the Patriot Act, a panel of judges in a federal appeals court has just thrown a clump of sand into the gears of the global panopticon. Overturning an earlier ruling, where federal judges dismissed a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is illegal. Yet there are unnamed intelligence officials who would probably refer to this as “hardly a change” as there are other, more sweeping, surveillance mandates (e.g. Section 702 and Executive Order 12333) that are still legal.

Submission + - Subsurface Ocean Waves Can Be More Than 500 Meters High (mit.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New field studies out of MIT found that "internal waves" — massive waves below the surface of the ocean — can reach enormous sizes. The most powerful internal waves known to science are in the South China Sea, and they can be over 500 meters high. These waves mix disparate layers of ocean water, and contribute to evening temperatures between various bodies of water (abstract). The waves grow larger as they propagate, and carry on all year.

Submission + - Cybersecurity Company Extorted Its Clients, Says Whistlblower (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Richard Wallace used to be an investigator for Tiversa, a cybersecurity company that sells services like "breach protection" and "incident response." These days, Wallace is testifying in federal court that Tiversa faked breaches to encourage sales, and extorted clients that weren't interested. For example, Wallace said Tiversa targeted a cancer testing center called LabMD in 2010, tapping into their computers and downloading medical records. Tiversa then used those records as evidence to convince LabMD they had been hacked, offering its "incident response" service at the same time. LabMD didn't fall for it, so Tiversa told the FTC about the "hack." The FTC, none-the-wiser, went after LabMD in court, eventually destroying the business. Wallace has also cast suspicion on reports Tiversa has issued, including one saying President Obama's helicopter blueprints were found on Iranian computers.

Submission + - FBI director says Americans have not traded liberty for security since 9/11 (dailydot.com) 2

Submitted by Patrick O'Neill
Patrick O'Neill writes: “There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States," said James Comey, now the director of the FBI. Comey was the number two man in the Department of Justice during the Bush years when NSA and law enforcement surveillance of Americans grew to unprecedented heights. Now he's pushing to stop encryption by default on Apple and Android devices.

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