70428455
submission
mpicpp writes:
bout 800,000 taxpayers who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov received erroneous tax information from the government, and were urged on Friday to hold off on filing tax returns until the error could be corrected.
The Obama administration, under heavy pressure from congressional Democrats, also announced that it would give several million people more time to buy health insurance so they could comply with federal law and avoid tax penalties.
The incorrect insurance information is used in computing taxes. Consumers can expect to receive corrected data in the first week of March. With the new data, officials warned, some taxpayers will owe more and some will owe less.
Officials said they did not know why the error had occurred.
70388371
submission
mpicpp writes:
Samsung has promised that it would debut a mobile wallet service this year to compete with Apple AAPL +0.69% Pay, Google GOOGL -0.43% Wallet, and others. Now, it has made it apparent how it will do that: by acquiring the U.S. mobile payments service LoopPay.
The two companies had been rumored in December to be in talks to incorporate LoopPay’s payment technology, which works in far more stores than Apple Pay and Google Wallet, into some Samsung phones. No acquisition had been rumored at the time, but it’s apparent that Samsung is serious about making sure it has a presence in mobile payments–now seen by many companies as a key point of contact with consumers in the mobile age. Samsung’s mobile wallet service is expected to be introduced on the new Galaxy S6 smartphone to be introduced at the Mobile World Congress in early March.
Mobile wallets allow people with certain smartphones such as the last two iPhone generations as well as Android phones to pay for items in retail stores with a wave of their phones instead of having to swipe credit or debit cards. LoopPay’s offering, which includes magnetic induction devices such as a charging case for iPhones and a payment fob for Android phones, allows phones to use existing point-of-sale card readers that read magnetic stripe cards–by far the most common cards used in the U.S. LoopPay says its technology can work in up to 90% of retail stores.
That’s in stark contrast to Apple Pay and Google Wallet, which can be used in only about 220,000 retail outlets with devices able to read a different technology called Near Field Communication. That technology is considered more secure, but it requires merchants to buy new point-of-sale terminals. Those terminals are getting upgraded thanks to an edict from EuroPay, Visa V -0.65% and MasterCard MA +0.24% that requires stores to accept so-called chip-and-PIN cards that are already standard in Europe, or they will be liable for fraudulent card purchases. Although the vast majority of those terminals are expected to include NFC capability, payments experts say that despite the edict, the upgrade cycle could take years.
70368837
submission
mpicpp writes:
Apple has yet to officially enter the virtual reality space, but a new patent proves that Apple has been at least thinking about VR.
Apple was just awarded a patent titled "Head-Mounted Display Apparatus for Retaining a Portable Electronic Device with Display," which details a virtual reality headset powered by an iPhone or iPod, according to Apple Insider.
The headset would use the iPhone's screen as the headset's primary display, allowing users to slot their iPhone into the headset's frame when they want to use it for virtual reality. The patent, first filed in 2008, also includes images of a remote that could be used to interact with the device since the iPhone's multitouch display won't be accessible from within the headset.
70273955
submission
mpicpp writes:
Mattel’s new View-Master, which launched on Friday, will debut this fall for $29.99. The View-Master uses Google's virtual reality cardboard technology and it works with various smartphones; users must slide in their mobile device, and pair it with a corresponding app.
When it launches, kids will be able to explore various 3D scenes, including the streets of Paris and Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay and the solar system. While some scenes like the Golden Gate Bridge include actual images from the area, others like the dinosaur and solar system scene are enhanced with CGI technology to show, for example, what it's like to fly through the galaxy. There's also the option of buying additional reels (four for $15) for other immersive experiences.
Mattel added that the technology is safe for kids ages 7 and up, and shouldn't cause dizziness, as it often does with some virtual reality headsets on the market. It should be noted, however, that after a few minutes of testing I started to feel queasy myself. The company said the View-Master should only be used for a short period of time, and that it is conducting more testing.
Although the View-Master started off as a toy 75 years ago, it's also been used for other purposes throughout history — long before 3D technology was even in the mainstream. For example, Wadleigh said the View-Master was used during World War II to spot enemy aircraft before U.S. soldiers got onto a plane. The medical industry also used it to understand the intricacies of the body before people underwent surgery.
70253305
submission
mpicpp writes:
LinkedIn is restricting access to most of its application programming interfaces (APIs) to companies that have struck up partnerships with the social networking company.
“Over the past several years, we’ve seen some exciting applications from our developer community. While many delivered value back to our members and LinkedIn, not all have,” wrote Adam Trachtenberg, director of the LinkedIn developer network, explaining in a blog post the change in the company’s API policy.
Starting May 12, LinkedIn will only offer a handful of its APIs for general use, namely those that allow users and companies to post information about themselves on the service. After then, only companies that have enrolled in LinkedIn’s partner program will have API access. Samsung, WeChat, and Evernote have already struck such partnerships.
Currently, the social networking service offers a wide range of APIs, which allow third-party programs to draw content from, and place content into, LinkedIn.
APIs have been seen as an additional channel for businesses to interact with their users and partners. A few companies, however, have recently scaled back access to APIs, which provide the programmatic ability to access a company’s services and data.
Netflix shut its public API channel in November, preferring to channel its user information through a small number of partners. ESPN also disabled public access to its APIs in December.
LinkedIn’s move is evidence of how the business use of APIs are evolving, said John Musser, founder and CEO at API Science, which offers an API performance testing service.
70252925
submission
mpicpp writes:
The Attorney General told a House subcommittee they’re considering “gun-tracking bracelets” as a “common sense” way to reduce gun violence.
Eric Holder said the Obama Administration is looking at several technological innovations to reduce the number of stolen guns being used in crime.
“I think that one of the things that we learned when we were trying to get passed those common sense reforms last year, Vice President Biden and I had a meeting with a group of technology people and we talked about how guns can be made more safe,” he said.
“By making them either through finger print identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear, how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon.”
“It’s those kinds of things that I think we want to try to explore so that we can make sure that people have the ability to enjoy their Second Amendment rights, but at the same time decreasing the misuse of weapons that lead to the kinds of things that we see on a daily basis,” Holder said.
70197023
submission
mpicpp writes:
IBM has sued online travel company Priceline Group and three subsidiaries for refusing to negotiate a license to four of its patents.
The computing giant has in a complaint Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware asked that Priceline be barred from using the patents without authorization, besides paying damages for the patent infringement so far and reimbursement of costs and attorneys’ fees. It has also asked for a jury trial.
IBM has charged Priceline and subsidiaries such as Kayak and OpenTable of infringing its patents relating to methods for presenting applications and advertising in an interactive service, a method for preserving state information on previous interactions of a user on a website, and an improved way for signing-on .
In attempts to develop the Prodigy online service, launched by IBM with partners in the 1980s, the inventors of U.S. patents 5,796,967 and 7,072,849 developed new methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service that would take advantage of the computing power of each user’s PC and reduce demand on host servers, such as those used by Prodigy, IBM said in its filing.
70196919
submission
mpicpp writes:
Just days after its TV voice recognition software came under fire for invading privacy, Samsung users are reporting unwanted Pepsi ads appearing while they watch their Smart TVs.
Reports are emerging that Samsung smart TVs have begun inserting short advertisements directly into video streaming apps, with no influence from the third-party app providers.
The news comes just days after Samsung made headlines for another incursion into user's lounge rooms, when it was revealed that its TV voice recognition software is capable of capturing personal information and transmitting it to third parties. The issue was discovered in the fine print of Samsung's voice recognition privacy policy, but the company says it has since changed the policy to "better explain what actually occurs" during this voice capture process.
The latest complaints directed at the South Korean electronics giant relate to a Pepsi advertisement that has reportedly started to appear during content streamed through Smart TV apps from personal media libraries and video streaming services.
The issue has been reported on the Plex streaming service — a brand of media player that allows users to stream their own video from a personal library or hard drive and push it to a smart TV.
One Plex user took to the company's customer forum to complain about the constant intrusion of ads on his Samsung TV.
"I have recently upgraded my Plex Media Server to version 0.9.1101 and every 10-15 minutes whilst watching content on my Samsung TV I get a Pepsi advertisement showing!" user Mike wrote. "At first I thought I was seeing things but no it repeats. Sometimes I can get out of it and go back to my media, others it hangs the app and the TV restarts."
70160087
submission
mpicpp writes:
Woman sleeping on floor of her apartment awoken in pain by robotic vacuum cleaner attempting to suck up her hair.
A robotic vacuum cleaner "attacked" a South Korean woman while she slept by attempting to suck up the hair on her head.
The woman, a 52-year-old resident of Changwon who has not been named, was awoken by the pain and, unable to extricate herself from the robot, called the fire department for help.
She was eventually freed by paramedics, escaping serious injury but losing several strands of hair.
It required two paramedics to remove her hair from the machine's nozzle, Korea Biz Wire reported.
The incident, which took place on January 3, highlighted the potential risk of this type of accident in South Korea, where sitting and sleeping on the floor is common practice.
The vacuum only stopped running more than a minute after initially ingesting the woman's hair.
She was still unable to free herself from the vacuum and made a "desperate rescue request" call to 119, South Korea's emergency telephone number.
70160033
submission
mpicpp writes:
The astronaut had secretly kept equipment from the moon mission, including the camera used to film footage of the landing, for more than 40 years.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, secretly took home a bag of mementos from the mission including the camera used to film his "one small step" and the planting of the US flag on the lunar surface.
He kept the equipment in a cupboard at his home where it stayed for four decades, discovered by his widow Carol after Armstrong's death in 2012.
Allan Needell, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, said: "I received an email from Carol Armstrong that she had located, in one of Neil's closets, a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft.
"Needless to say, for a curator of a collection of space artefacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting."
Inside the bag were 17 objects from the Apollo 11 mission including Armstrong's waist tether, utility lights, and emergency wrench.
Most importantly, it contained the 16mm data acquisition camera (DAC) used to film footage of the final approach to the moon on July 20, 1969.
The camera was also used to record Armstrong going down the ladder and taking his famous "one small step," the planting of the flag and other footage of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface.
The cartridges from the camera, containing the iconic footage, were taken back separately so there was no film in the camera found in Armstrong's cupboard.
But Mr Needell told CollectSpace.com: "The 16mm DAC, given the images that it captured, ranks as enormously important,"
70056457
submission
mpicpp writes:
Intuit the parent company of TurboTax, has stopped e-filing all state tax returns due to increased suspicion of fraud.
The company says it is investigating criminal attempts to use stolen data to file fraudulent returns and claim refunds, after hearing concerns from a handful of states, Intuit spokeswoman Diane Carlini told MarketWatch. After a preliminary examination with security experts, Intuit believes its systems weren’t breached, but crooks may have used TurboTax software to file fraudulent returns after stealing identities, she said.
Intuit said in a release that “the information used to file fraudulent returns was obtained from other sources outside the tax preparation process.” The company called pausing e-filings to states a “precautionary step.”
Utah, the first state to reach out to Intuit, issued a notice Thursday saying the state tax commission has discovered 28 fraud attempts that “originate from data compromised through a third-party commercial tax preparation software process,” as well as 8,000 returns flagged as potentially fraudulent.
70055431
submission
mpicpp writes:
Yesterday Mary Bauer received her Comcast bill in the mail. But the 63-year-old Chicago area resident says she’s not going to open it. That’s because someone at Comcast switched her name on the bill, addressing it instead to “SuperB*tch Bauer.”
Bauer has been having problems with Comcast for months. As she related her story to Chicago’s WGN television station, she’s had a lot of service and billing issues. Technicians have been dispatched to her place a whopping 39 times, and she recently got into it with telephone support after her bills stopped arriving.
Whether that prompted the “SuperB*tch” name change, Comcast doesn’t know. Comcast spokesman Jack Segal, told us that the company is “investigating this thoroughly, and we have reached out to our customer.”
Meanwhile, Bauer is understandably angry. “This is a disgrace to me,” she told WGN. “Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”
Comcast employs about 130,000 people nationwide. This looks like the work of a lone smart-ass with little common sense, and not like it’s the result of corporate policy. But this isn’t the first time someone in the bowels of the company’s billing department has pulled such a stunt. Last month, the company changed another customer’s name to “*sshole” Brown, after he tried to cancel his cable package.
And a decade ago, another Chicago area customer found herself renamed “B*tch Dog” by the cable company.
70030353
submission
mpicpp writes:
Late last year, Uber announced plans for tighter safety measures in India following the rape of a passenger using its service in December. Now it has confirmed that two major features — an in-app panic button and journey/location sharing — will roll out to users in India on February 11
The company went public with the launch date after Times Of India reported that the Mumbai transportation department was considering a ban on its service over its apparent approach to safety. Authorities are reportedly “not happy with Uber representatives’ responses during various meetings held to consider measures for passengers’ safety.”
Uber cleared the air on its plans to settle “some misconceptions” around its safety policy — which already includes more stringent background checks and a dedicated emergency response team. That will be boosted when the in-app panic button, which alerts local police when triggered, and a ‘safety net’ feature, which goes beyond Uber’s existing ‘share my ETA’ feature to let customers share details of their location and trip with up to five other people, go live in India next week.
70029489
submission
mpicpp writes:
He's sitting casually on his macho bike. He's pointing his radar gun down the road toward you.
For all you know, the thing doesn't even work. For all you know, he's just stopped there to sing to himself.
Still, you know that cop may be checking your speed. Soon, however, he might be using that radar gun to check whether you're texting. A company called ComSonics is working on a radar gun that can pick up radio frequencies that identify texting drivers.
Some might fear, however, that, in this world of Googley snooping, such a radar gun might be able to pick up the content of your texts, as well as merely the fact that you're texting.
ComSonics Calibration Services Manager Malcolm McIntyre admitted to the Virginian-Pilot that there are certain legal obstacles to be overcome.
What's fascinating about this technology is that it can allegedly distinguish between texting and calling. In ComSonics' home state of Virginia, for example, texting and driving is illegal, whereas talking on the phone and driving is not (for adult drivers).
70017631
submission
mpicpp writes:
A team of researchers from Columbia University has come up with a new smartphone accessory that detects STDs in a matter of minutes. The accessory can detect the markers of two STDs by a simple prick of a finger.
STDs tests can take several days before the results gets back to the patients, but this new smartphone accessory that detects STDs can do so in around 15 minutes. With this accessory you can find out if you’ve got HIV or syphilis faster than with traditional STD tests.
Samuel K. Sia is a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University and he’s one of the researchers that was involved in this new study. He explained that detecting these two diseases with the help of this new smartphone accessory is going to help save money and it is more private and convenient for patients. He also added that this new smartphone accessory that detects STDs in under 15 minutes is going to be of real help in countries where STDs are a very serious problem.
