Samsung officially recalls Note 7 with U.S. CPSC, 92 incidents reported thus far
It’s all very official now, but the recommendation hasn’t changed — return your Note 7.
Following its informal announcement last week, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced an official recall of the Galaxy Note 7. The official notice from the CPSC says that “about 1 million” Note 7s were sold prior to September 15, and claims there have been 92 official reports of Note 7 batteries overheating or exploding.
The official recall, stemming from cooperation between Samsung and the U.S. CPSC, comes weeks after Samsung voluntarily started recalling and replacing phones. Still, the recall up to this point hasn’t gone particularly smoothly thanks to the multitude of moving parts and retailers involved.
Samsung has voluntarily recalled phones for weeks, but it had to be official at some point
Now that it’s all official on a governmental level, it means there are now strict (though tough to enforce) restrictions on being able to bring recalled units onto planes in the U.S. Naturally there are also edicts against importing the phones until the problem is deemed to have been resolved. The same restriction will also get every branch of the retailers and carriers that sold the Note 7 to cooperate and get phones swapped out.
The rest of the CPSC’s official recall notice is a recap of things we already knew. It lists the various phone numbers to call in order to return your Note 7 to the carrier or retailer you purchased from, as well as how to contact Samsung directly for a replacement.
In a statement given to Android Central, Samsung claims “replacement devices will be available in the United States at most retail locations no later than September 21, 2016.”
Though many people have already turned in their Note 7 for a refund or an impending replacement, the hope here is that an official recall with the CPSC will get those hanging onto their phones to head into a store and get it replaced. The sooner we can all get our Note 7 turned in, the better.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
- Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
- The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
- Here are all four Note 7 colors
- Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
- Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!
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You can’t search ‘butt’ in iMessage now because it showed MLP porn
Porn and My Little Pony should never go together. Like, ever.
When Apple released iOS 10 to the public this week, it introduced a new iMessage app with the built-in ability to search GIFs. There were many third-party keyboards available previously that let you do the same thing, but now Apple itself has given users a feature within its updated messages app that allows them to seamlessly browse and share animated clips, among other things.
- iOS 10 Messages explained: What’s new and how to use it
But one thing Apple probably didn’t see coming is that users would be able to use the GIF-search feature to share My Little Pony porn. Yes, that’s a thing. Deadspin noticed on Wednesday that when you search the word “butt” in iMessage, the app instantly surfaced pornographic images, including a very sexual GIF of the female My Little Pony character Fluttershy.
Deadspin
My Little Pony is a Hasbro toy franchise that became popular during the 1980s, and it eventually inspired animated specials, as well as an animated feature-length film and multiple animated television series. It’s now inspiring porn GIFs, apparently. What’s primarily unusual about this situation, other than the obvious, is that Apple typically prohibits searches for most sexual terms.
Apple is also very strict about allowing porn in iOS apps. Still, this must’ve slipped through the cracks. Don’t worry about your children finding this stuff and becoming traumatised, however, as Apple finally censored the results around 10:30 am EST on Thursday. It pulled the ability to search for “butt” GIFs in iMessage, though misspellings of body parts can still result in similar GIFs.
- iMessage apps: Which should you download first?
One has to question whether Apple should censor GIFs at all, but it’s maintained keeping iOS a porn-free, family-friendly platform for nearly 10 years, so we doubt it will change stances anytime soon.
Mammoth UK nuclear plant receives final government thumbs-up
Eight years after it was first proposed, the UK government today gave the final go-ahead for Hinkley Point C, a new nuclear power plant to be built in Somerset. The two-reactor site is expected to become operational in 2025, at which point the majority of live nuclear power stations in the UK will be decommissioned, or only a few years away from the same fate. Point C is slated to generate 3,200 megawatts — roughly 7 percent of the UK’s total consumption and well over double the output of any currently operational site. The first new nuclear plant to be built in the UK in decades, it’ll also be one of the priciest projects the world has even seen, with conservative estimates putting construction costs alone at £18 billion.
Hinkley Point C will be funded primarily by France’s EDF Group and its Chinese partner CGN: An arrangement that’s been subject to several reviews by the UK government. In fact, today’s approval comes with some extra fine print, agreed to by EDF to get the project off the ground. One of the key criticisms of Point C is that this huge piece of energy infrastructure will be controlled by foreign investors. The new agreement with EDF means the government will have some weight to throw around, though.
The powers that be can prevent EDF from selling its stake prior to completion, for example, as well as intervene on any dealings after the site is up and running. The Office for Nuclear Regulation will have to be notified of any potential changes to ownership, and will work with the government to “protect national security,” should any need for that arise.
The nuclear plant has been controversial since its very inception, and it’s not just who owns the thing that people have taken issue with — the government guaranteeing EDF a price per megawatt hour (Mwh) that’s more than double the current cost of wholesale electricity, for instance.
Also, aside from the obvious safety concerns, organisations like Greenpeace have long criticised the Hinkley plan as a step backwards. Many argue such a huge amount of money would be better spent elsewhere, on renewable sources. In addition to this mammoth nuclear plant, the UK recently approved plans for the world’s largest wind farm, to be built off the coast of Grimsby.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: UK goverment
Apple says it won’t be buying Tidal anytime soon
A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was in acquisition talks with Tidal, a music streaming service helmed by Jay-Z as well as a number of prominent musicians. Yesterday, however, those rumors were shut down. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Jimmy Iovine, the head of Apple Music, said: “We’re not looking to acquire any streaming service.” He did not indicate that there weren’t any talks, but it does seem that a Tidal acquisition is off the cards, at least for now.
Some have said that a Tidal acquisition seemed like a good fit to not only increase Apple’s prominence in the streaming music industry, but to also remove competition when it comes to exclusives especially from the likes of Beyonce and Kanye West. Further, it seems as if Tidal is in need of at least some financial assistance, as it recently reported a $28 million loss in 2015. Tidal’s subscription numbers of 4.2 million also pales in comparison to Apple Music’s 17 million. Both have quite a ways to catch up to Spotify’s 40 million base, but a combined force could’ve helped.
Apple Music recently reported a 2 million user uptick in just the past three months. It also teased an Apple Music redesign and touted its own line of exclusives from artists such as Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean and Drake.
Source: BuzzFeed
Reykjavik would choose dystopia over climate change
Iceland’s capital city has announced a daring new plan to become carbon neutral by 2040, but to do it, it’ll embrace ideas from the big playbook of sci-fi dystopias. Mayor Dagur B Eggertsson has put forward a plan that’ll impose a restriction on building outside the city limits in order to reduce urban sprawl. Rather than build out and constantly expand the city, companies will be required to build up to create an ever-denser locale. At the same time, it’ll ensure that all vehicles, both public and private, will run on green energy by 2040.
This push towards densification is in order to reduce the wasteful effects of personal transport, which is wildly less efficient than its public alternative. Right now, only four percent of the city’s residents use the service, but there’ll be a push to get that figure up to 12 percent by 2030. That’s also the deadline for a dramatic increase in pedestrian and cycle traffic, up from 19 percent today to more than 30. Not only will that reduce air pollutants, it’ll also ensure a healthier population that gets more exercise in their daily routine.
Reykjavik is better placed than many to meet these targets, since it already survives on a healthy diet of renewable energy. The city’s electricity is generated at a series of hydroelectric plants while each home is heated by geothermal sources. Some sources peg Reykjavik’s non-sustainable energy uses at 25 percent, which is used for cars, aircraft and fishing boats.
When we talk about increasing density in cities, it can often send your mind firing straight for some of the worst examples in sci-fi. Blade Runner’s miles-high apartment blocks or Judge Dredd’s megacities in which a tower becomes a city in-and-of itself. If handled, well, density is nothing to be afraid of, although many of the best examples of high-density living are also some of the worst adverts for it.
For instance, architecture student Vincent Ocasla managed to “beat” the game SimCity by creating an ultra-dense city of six million. Magnasanti is a triumph of city design on the macro level, and a totalitarian disaster for its residents. City-dwellers never have to travel further than their city block, eliminating the need for motor vehicle transportation. But there’s also no green space, sickening air pollution, high unemployment and a life expectancy of just 50 — the sick population being used to prevent rebellion.
That was just a video game, and not the example that any sane city planner would want to adopt, of course. It’s not likely to become so hellish in an Icelandic city of just 120,000, but it’s worth bearing in mind should anyone propose a similar plan for New York. At least unless some of that leftover space is used for inner-city gardens.
Via: Reuters
Source: Reykjavik
Pluto’s moon Charon got its red toupée from the dwarf planet
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft showed us a part of Charon we’d never seen before: a rusty red section crowning its polar region. It’s an intriguing feature, something the mission’s ground team hadn’t seen before, so they spent the past year studying all the data and images the probe sent back. Now, they have their answer. The red cap is apparently the product of methane gas escaping the dwarf planet itself and freezing solid in the frigid pole. Team leader Will Grundy, likens Pluto to a “graffiti artist, spray-painting its companion with a reddish stain that covers an area the size of New Mexico.”
While NASA scientists already suspected that methane gas was behind the curious coloring, it’s only now that they’ve come up with the model to explain the process. See, Pluto has weak gravity that allows its atmosphere to escape, and the moon’s gravity is strong enough to capture methane gas. It just so happens that the temperatures in Charon’s pole can drop to as low as -430 Fahrenheit during wintertime, which can last for over a hundred years.
Methane itself has no color, but it transforms into a reddish organic material called “tholin” due to a process triggered by ultraviolet radiation. These tholins can stick to the pole even though it’s no longer winter, making that area permanently red. The team now believes it’s possible that other small planets in the Kuiper Belt with their own small moons could exhibit “atmospheric transfer features,” as well. Of course, we won’t know for sure until we see them, and if the New Horizons team is lucky, the spacecraft could find a similar moon in its exploration of the Kuiper Belt.
Source: NASA, Nature
‘South Park: The Fractured But Whole’ delayed to early 2017
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is set to hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in the first three months of 2017, a slight delay from its initial release date of December 6th. Ubisoft announced the date change in a two-sentence update on the Ubiblog.
“The development team wants to make sure the game experience meets the high expectations of fans and the additional time will help them achieve this goal,” the announcement reads.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole (man, that name never gets old) is a follow-up to the 2014 role-playing game South Park: The Stick of Truth. It was a solid first showing from show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but the duo say they’ve learned a lot from that initial release. Even PewDiePie’s playthrough gave them ideas on how to improve the new game, apparently.
When The Fractured But Whole (still not old) finally hits the market, don’t expect it to come with any ready-made DLC options. Stone and Parker have been vocal about their resistance to producing DLC as a way to generate cheap cash from content on the cutting-room floor, though they have some ideas about extra scenes they might add to the new game down the line.
Source: Ubiblog
Report: Apple is a sexist, toxic work environment
Apple made improving its employee diversity a focal point in recent years — but the company is still dominated by men. Women only make up 32 percent of its total workforce, and that imbalance has reportedly manifested itself in some very ugly ways. Mic has obtained a number of emails from female Apple employees and prospective employees, and their comments paint a picture of a sexist workplace in which women face discrimination, harassment and a “toxic” work environment.
Some of the complaints Mic reported on include a female engineer whose “male-dominated” team made jokes about an office intruder coming to “rape everyone.” The jokes caused that engineer to email CEO Tim Cook, who did not respond to her complaint. Another female employee said she was in a meeting with a dozen other men and no other women; the conversation turned to how all of their wives and significant others were nags, a conversation that the team’s manager let go on unchecked. This employee was also told to “smile more” by a male area manager.
Yet another employee said she feared retaliation from her co-workers for reporting their behavior. Someone eventually came to investigate her concerns and even admitted that she was in a hostile work environment. But the choices she was given amounted to staying in her current position or being demoted to a job that paid less on a different team. The employee took the demotion.
She also told Mic that a number of employees quit, citing a “white, male, Christian, misogynist, sexist environment” — and those employees were not given exit interviews because they company didn’t think their departure was a concern. “Their departure is being written up as a positive attrition,” she said.
These concerns weren’t confined to female employees, either. Mic spoke with a male former Apple employee who had complained about the toxic environment to multiple people at the company, including Cook. This employee said that his co-workers would say he was having his “man period” as a way of insinuating he was overly emotional and unreliable. I would consistently be referred to as an emotional man that resembled having the qualities of a woman,” he wrote in an email obtained by Mic. “Any male can tell you that being referred to as a woman is an insinuation that you are not strong enough or stable enough to handle the difficulties of life or work in the way a man can.”
Yet another female employee says that she was never given the opportunity to apply for two advanced positioned that she was “more than qualified for.” The positions were never posted externally; instead, her male boss selected two men to fill them. This employee filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing on August 4th to investigate how Apple treats women in leadership positions; she also emailed Cook about her concerns without a response.
An Apple spokesperson gave Mic a statement in which it said it takes these types of complaints “very seriously” and that it thoroughly investigates each situation, but that it doesn’t discuss specific incidents for the sake of privacy. If the problem is indeed as widespread as this report makes it appear, though, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear the company make a more declarative statement sooner than later.
Source: Mic
HBO Now will soon arrive on PlayStation 3 and 4
Cord cutters who own PlayStation consoles: Now is your time to shine. Sony has announced today that HBO Now, the channel’s standalone on-demand service, will soon be available on all PS3 and PS4 systems, (This includes the recently announced PlayStation 4 Pro). What’s more, both HBO and Cinemax are coming to PlayStation Vue, Sony’s streaming TV service, for $15 a month each. This is an especially big deal for cord cutters, as this marks the first time either network has offered live programming as a standalone service. That’s right: live programming, and not just the on-demand shows like you would get on HBO Now.
And here’s a nice bonus. If you do subscribe to HBO through PS Vue, you’ll be able to access the aforementioned HBO Now on Sony’s game consoles completely free of charge. Existing HBO subscribers could already access the channel’s content through HBO Go, which launched for the PS4 last year. The PS Vue service is available through not just the PS4, but also through Roku, iOS and Android apps.
These streaming offerings will launch prior to October 2nd, which coincides with the launch of a new HBO series called Westworld.
Searching GIFs in iOS 10’s iMessage briefly turned up porn
As happens occasionally in huge operating system overhauls, Apple’s iOS 10 caused some mayhem as phones and devices tried to update and ran into trouble — with some devices even getting bricked. Though they announced a quick fix to the issue, others have cropped up in the days since, including today’s snafu: porn GIFs surfacing in iMessage’s new search. News spread after Deadspin found a very adult one of a My Little Pony character while searching the word “huge,” while The Verge received reports of female-on-male fellatio appearing after a woman’s daughter looked using the word “huge.”
Both terms have since been added to some sort of blacklist that brings up no results when searched for, a collection that already included some obvious offenders. A few searches still produce some provocative GIFs, like “power” as noted in the screenshot above. The search was built on Bing, so at least we know who didn’t ensure that Apple’s bundled feature was as squeaky-clean as the company wanted it to be. But since a search for “sub” produces a non-sexual yet very graphic GIF of Mortal Kombat’s Sub-Zero ripping a man’s head and spine from his body, so it’s unclear what level of appropriate they’re going for. Animated gore in, naughty stuff out?
Via: The Verge
Source: Deadspin
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