Amazon faces criticism for being ‘complicit’ with counterfeiters

Amazon pledged to tackle counterfeiting in 2017, but its lax policies are still hurting inventors and small companies, one supplier says. In a blog post, Elevation Lab founder Casey Hopkins wrote that a Chinese manufacturer ripped off its popular under-desk headphone stand, “The Anchor” and is selling it cheap on Amazon and taking all its sales. Worse, he claims that Amazon is effectively abetting such counterfeiters and could do away with it via a simple change.

According to Hopkins, the counterfeit seller “literally reverse engineered it, made steel compression molds, made the logo wrong, used fake 3M adhesive that’s very thin and was die-cut smaller than the top, they used a lower durometer silicone so it flexes more, it has huge mold parting lines, and the packaging is literally photocopied then reprinted (you can tell by the lack of image contrast).”

The result, he says, is that “customers are unknowingly buying crap versions of the product, while both Amazon and the scammers are profiting, and the reputation you’ve built goes down the toilet.” It’s particularly onerous for small businesses, because new sellers pop up constantly and it can take Amazon precious days to remove them.

Customers are unknowingly buying crap versions of the product, while both Amazon and the scammers are profiting, and the reputation you’ve built goes down the toilet.

And yet the fix is simple, Hopkins says. To stop counterfeiting, Amazon established a registry of approved sellers in 2016, aka the “Brand Registry.” All it has to do to help small inventors is add a check box for suppliers that only sell directly to Amazon and don’t use wholesalers. “Anyone else would have have to get approval or high vetting to sell the product,” Hopkins said. On top of that, Amazon needs to increase its Brand Registry team so it can swat away counterfeit scammers more quickly, he believes.

Amazon has been regularly criticized for being too lax on counterfeiters, a problem that has kept the fashion world well away from the site, for instance. Chanel recently won a judgement against counterfeiters, but only after it persisted following a court setback. Smaller companies, though, are ill-equipped to take on expensive lawsuits.

The feds might soon wade into the fray, however. The US Government Accountability Office recently completed an investigation and was able to purchase 47 counterfeit products from Amazon, Walmart and other companies. Senator Orrin Hatch plans to convene a Senate hearing on the issue.

Source: Elevation Lab

Average Apple Device Lifespan Estimated at Just Over Four Years by Analyst

Asymco analyst Horace Dediu this week shared new research that focuses on determining the average lifespan of Apple devices. Dediu’s research doesn’t break down data on a specific product level, but instead encompasses Apple’s entire stable of products in one general lifespan average. According to Dediu’s proposal, if you use the number of active devices and cumulative devices sold, you can get to the average lifespan (via The Next Web).

Dediu’s research on this topic was propelled forward when Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the total number of active Apple devices — 1.3 billion worldwide — during the company’s most recent earnings call. Now, the analyst proposed that to determine the average lifespan, you can subtract the known active devices number from cumulative devices sold to determine “cumulative retired devices.”

Dediu then said that to estimate the average lifespan, you calculate the time between “cumulative devices sold” at the beginning of a product’s lifespan, and the current “cumulative retired devices.” He ultimately determined that the average Apple device lifespan is about 4 years and three months, when looking at the data of Apple products sold in Q2 2013 and retired in Q4 2017, a time when the 2013 devices died or otherwise stopped working and their owners sought to purchase new versions.

Dediu gave a detailed breakdown of his calculations:

Here’s how to compute this yourself: Visually, the lifespan is the distance horizontally between the two vertical bars such that the bars are the same length. The top vertical bar measures the gap between the area (cumulative devices) and the curve (active devices) and the lower bar is the gap between the area and the x-axis, i.e. the cumulative devices. When those two bars are the same size the distance between them is the lifespan (at the time of the top bar.)

Arithmetically, the average lifespan at a given time t is the duration between t and the moment when the cumulative devices sold reached the cumulative retired devices at time t.

For example today–as the visual above represents–the lifespan is the time since cumulative devices sold reached the current total retired devices. The cumulative retired devices can be calculated as 2.05 billion cumulative sold minus 1.3 billion active or 750 million. The time when cumulative devices sold reached 750 million was the third quarter 2013. The lifespan is thus estimated at the time between now and Q3 2013 or 17 quarters or about 4 years and three months.

He noted that cumulative devices sold for Apple includes Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and the iPod touch, although of course the lifespan average number is just that — an average — and doesn’t perfectly apply to each individual product. Just over four years is likely in the ballpark for how long Mac users keep around their computers, but if looked at on a product-by-product basis that statistic would likely be different for iPhone and Apple Watch owners.

For more details on the topic, check out Dediu’s full post on Asymco.com.

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Companies, lawyers probed for selling cryptocurrency initial coin offerings

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now investigating companies and individuals for possibly violating securities laws through initial coin offerings (ICO), or token sales, of cryptocurrency. The SEC reportedly issued “dozens” of subpoenas and information requests to determine how sales and pre-sales of ICOs work given they don’t follow the same rules that regulate initial public offerings (IPOs) to protect investors. 

An IPO, or Initial Public Offering, is when a privately held company goes public with its stock. Companies take this route to become publicly traded on the stock market, or to generate funds to expand their footprint. Meanwhile, companies use an ICO to raise funds for a new cryptocurrency business or platform. Investors use legal tender or digital coins to purchase a percentage of the new cryptocurrency in return for digital tokens, financially fueling the platform. 

Yet it’s the procedure ICOs use that may be generating government involvement. It’s similar to how developers raise money to create games by selling an “early access” token on digital platforms, like Steam, to fund the project. ICOs are listed as “software presale tokens,” and use descriptors such as “crowdsale” or “donation” instead of the ICO term to escape federal regulation. 

But the SEC is catching on, and is now grilling companies that sold digital coins to raise funds, and the lawyers and advisory firms that help with sales. The SEC began demanding information last year, and then rolled out around 80 subpoenas over the last three months to companies and what the SEC calls gatekeepers: individuals who help the sale of ICOs. 

According to the SEC, virtual currencies should be listed as securities and registered with regulators. Jay Clayton, chairman of the SEC, believes many “promoters” of ICOs and cryptocurrencies simply aren’t complying with securities laws. He asked the agency in January to change that. 

“Market professionals, especially gatekeepers, need to act responsibly and hold themselves to high standards,” Clayton said. “To be blunt, from what I have seen recently, particularly in the initial coin offering space, they can do better.” 

The subpoenas request information about sold cryptocurrencies, how companies market token sales, and the identities of individuals who purchased those tokens. The subpoenas were distributed across multiple cities including Boston, New York, and San Francisco. Unnamed sources who viewed the subpoenas didn’t indicate if an additional wave of subpoenas is on the way to digital coin investors. 

“Generally, subpoenas are the guided missiles of SEC enforcement actions,” says Aaron Kaplan, a securities attorney and co-founder of Prometheum. “There’s going to be a big reckoning for those who have operated outside the federal securities laws, with more SEC enforcement actions and criminal prosecutions in the near future.” 

Online retailer Overstock took a nosedive on the stock market Thursday after disclosing in a regulatory filing that it’s currently under investigation by the SEC over its cryptocurrency exchange subsidiary tZero. The company raised $100 million from its ICO alone, and another $150 million to expand its blockchain-based trading system. Overstock must now provide documents related to the ICO and its tokens. 

Editors’ Recommendations

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Equifax could make money from its own breach; 2.4 million more are exposed

Atlanta-based Equifax disclosed in September that a “cybersecurity incident” exposed the data of approximately 143 million U.S.-based customers. Six months later, the credit-rating agency added another 2.4 million U.S.-based customers to that number as part of an ongoing analysis. But while the company appears to be apologetic and embarrassed over the hack on the outside, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, believes the company could actually generate cash from the breach. 

How? Because it sells credit protection “devices,” or services. Even if customers swear they will never do business with Equifax again after the 2017 breach, third-party credit protection services may still use Equifax. That means the company is reeling in the big bucks from its own breach no matter where customers land. But Senator Warren and Senator Mark Warner, D-VA, want to change that. 

According to their proposal called “strict liability,” every customer gets $100 for the theft of the first piece of data, and $50 for every piece of data stolen thereafter up to half the value of the company. They believe this will push credit-rating agencies to get serious about investing in what is needed to protect Americans and their personal information. If not, we can count on another massive Equifax-style breach in the near future. 

“It’s hard. It’s flat. It’s easy to read,” she said. “And the point is to get the credit-rating agencies to take the right level of security. They take the right level of security, they invest enough in security, then the American people will be protected.” 

After a five-month investigation, Warren released a report detailing Equifax’s shortcomings regarding data protection. She details how security researchers warned of a vulnerability in the website, and how the company never confirmed that administrators actually patched the security hole. The Department of Homeland Security and external experts even warned Equifax of various vulnerabilities before the breach. Smaller break-ins took place prior to 2017. 

What’s interesting is Equifax’s fight with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to the report, Equifax essentially coerced the IRS into signing a new $7.2 million contract by using “federal contracting loopholes” knowing full well it had security issues. But the IRS eventually canceled the contract after discovering the additional security weaknesses that could expose the sensitive information of taxpayers. 

“We found out that Equifax failed to follow its own internal requirements for notifying consumers following the breach of sensitive data,” she said. “And we found that Equifax’s entire cybersecurity apparatus was inadequate to protect American consumers.” 

The 2017 hack exposed credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, names, birth dates, addresses, and partial driver’s license numbers. Equifax discovered the network breach on July 29 but didn’t make the data leak known until the following September. The hack took place sometime between May and July of that year. 

“We put [our investigation] together from a lot of different places and found out that Equifax, quite simply, had not told the whole story to the American people,” Warren said. “What they did was worse, a whole lot worse, than they originally admitted.” 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Federal investigation into Equifax hack said to wither, even with more data exposed
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What if Apple replaced the MacBook keyboard with a giant screen?

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Just yesterday, Apple patented the idea of a dual-screen MacBook. No keyboard. No trackpad. Just two screens that either fold together like a laptop or detach like a 2-in-1. While the patent doesn’t mean Apple is actually developing such a product, the idea of a future MacBook without a keyboard got us thinking about why this would or wouldn’t work.

What if Apple really did make a MacBook without a keyboard? What would it be like? Could it actually be done — and more importantly, is that what people would actually want?

People are very attached to physical keyboards — us included. When we need to get real work done, we depend on physical keyboards that we can type quickly on. There’s something about the tactile feedback of physical switches and buttons that makes that kind of speed possible. How many times have you been doing something on your smartphone and wished you were doing it on a laptop instead? The idea of taking that away on a machine that’s supposed to be a productivity computer seems counter-intuitive.

On the other hand, those were very similar arguments made about physical keyboards before the iPhone came out. Digital keyboards sucked, so people preferred physical ones. But once the engineers at Apple nailed the feeling of consistent accuracy on a touchscreen, we all said goodbye to physical keyboards and haven’t looked back since.

But would that work on a laptop? It’s not the first time such a device has been developed. We’ve seen concepts like Lenovo’s Yoga Book (pictured above), as well as all the rumors and patents surrounding Microsoft’s Andromeda project (or even Microsoft’s abandoned Courier project from the late 2000s).

Two relevant examples of Apple engineering are worth mentioning: One makes me excited about the possibility of a dual-screen MacBook, and one makes me nervous about it.

The first is the MacBook’s current touchpad and keyboard inputs. In 2015, Apple introduced a redesigned touchpad on the MacBook called the “Force Touch Trackpad,” which didn’t actually click at all. Instead, it uses a set of electromagnets to simulate the feeling of tactile feedback. The feeling of “clicking” the trackpad is so smooth on MacBooks today that most people don’t even realize it’s fake.

Meanwhile, the new MacBook keyboards use “butterfly switches” to reproduce the feeling of key presses where there is almost no travel. Success in that department has been a bit less unanimous — especially for those who prefer a deeper key travel and analog switches. However, there’s no question that the keyboard works and can be used to type efficiently and quickly. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple took it a step further on its next MacBook update and removed key travel entirely, replacing it with the same motorized simulation of the trackpad. It’d only be one more step to removing the physical keys and moving to an entirely digital surface.

All of that is proof that Apple can and will pay careful attention to replicating the feeling of physical stimulation on laptop inputs. The example that worries me is the Touch Bar.

The OLED touchscreen that replaced the function row on the most recent MacBook Pros was supposed to be a way of making laptops more like smartphones — more adaptable and context-sensitive. The idea was interesting conceptually, but not all that useful in practice. Again, it’s the reliability of tactile feedback that made the actual row of function keys useful. Having to use a touchscreen to quickly change brightness or audio volume is something I still haven’t gotten comfortable after all this time. Lacking any tactile feedback, I have to look down at my hands each time. It’s a total inconvenience.

With both of those examples intact, a dual-screen MacBook simultaneously makes me cringe and dream about the possibilities. What if the keyboard deck was more contextual? What if it could handle a mix of inputs — touch, type, and stylus? What if a keyboard was there when you needed it and disappeared when you didn’t? The potential is endless.

If Apple can do what it did with the trackpad on a larger scale, it just might be the future of computing. But if the Touch Bar is glimpse of the future, we’d rather stick with what we’ve got.

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Why am I the only one that loves Samsung’s AR Emojis?

The first time I created my own AR Emoji, I was on Facebook Live. Judging by the mostly negative reactions from the media, I braced myself for the horror of the ugly animated character ready to appear on the 6.2-inch display of Samsung’s new Galaxy S9 Plus – with an audience watching along. To my surprise, I loved the way it turned out.

With Samsung’s AR Emoji, you’re able to create Jimmy Neutron-esque emojis of yourself that capture and mirror your facial movements, similar to the motion-capture capabilities of Apple’s Animojis on the iPhone X. The new feature is available on the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, directly in the camera app by swiping to the “AR Emoji” tab. Once it makes an emoji out of you, you can either make a video as the emoji character, or use it as an animated sticker pack in various messaging apps.

AR Emoji is stripped down to only the essentials.

Samsung’s clearly following Apple here, and I think AR Emojis look like a cross between Animoji and Snap’s Bitmojis, I was hesitant to create mine — ever since the release of Bitmoji Deluxe, I’ve slowly been stepping away from my Bitmojis and cartoon avatars in general. After the updated Snap app started offering an influx of customization options to choose from, I realized it made me start to over analyze how I looked. I obsessed about whether or not it looked realistic enough to send to other people.

Before trying Samsung’s method out, I assumed it was yet another feature that would force us to sit on our phones and try to pinpoint precise facial features. But I was pleasantly surprised. AR Emoji is stripped down to only the essentials – skin tone, hairstyle and hair color, outfits, and the option to add in glasses.

Even though I can’t make in-depth edits to the size of my eyes or the shape of my chin, I was able to make minor improvements – and that’s the best part. By simplifying the process, I got to have fun again. All it took was a photo, a few adjustments, and I had a 3D version of myself that I could send out in the form of regular emojis and GIFs, all integrated right into my keyboard. I wasn’t obsessed with tweaking it.

While some of my co-workers said their animations looked nothing like them, I did notice mine captured some distinguishing features. The natural dark circles under my eyes and the shape of my eyebrows were accurate. Yes, my head was three times the size and my eyeballs were slightly larger than normal, but it made me look the way a cartoon version of me should – quirky.

Even in a virtual world where the imagination has no boundaries, users are encouraged to represent themselves realistically.

To add to the list of apps that encourage us to depict ourselves realistically, Sony launched its Xperia XZ2 with an app that allows us to take 3D portraits with the front-facing camera. That means you’ll be able to snap 3D models of your face and post them to Facebook or use it as an avatar in a video game (or maybe even 3D print it). Even in a virtual world where the imagination has no boundaries, users are encouraged to represent themselves realistically.

I’m happy with Samsung’s AR Emoji, especially because it reminds me not to take everything so seriously. Regardless of the whether the emojis are accurate or not, it’s all good, lighthearted fun.

Samsung will most likely tweak AR Emojis in a future software update, but I hope it’ll still keep the option to stick with the cartoonish caricature. It’s ironic that in a social media culture where we edit and curate our content, our AR Emojis have to look exactly like us. With tons of filters at our disposal on Instagram and Snapchat, it’s rare we post anything without one. It’s tough to criticize tools like AR Emoji for not portraying us accurately when our own photographs don’t either.

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Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 patch will address Spectre Variant 2 CPU flaw

Microsoft now provides a new manual update for Windows 10 devices based on sixth-generation Intel processors. It addresses the Spectre Variant 2 flaw in these CPUs, which could give hackers access to sensitive information if they have direct contact with the device. The fix is specifically for Windows 10 version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) and Windows Server version 1709 (Server Core). 

The update applies to most Intel sixth-generation processors in the mainstream market: High-performance desktop chips (S), high-performance mobile chips (H), low-power mobile CPUs (U), ultra-low-power chips in tablets (Y), and those that fall under Intel’s Skylake-U32e umbrella. You can determine the generation of your CPU by the number following the hyphen in its name, such as the “6” in the Core i7-6820HK laptop CPU. 

The manual Windows 10 update arrives after Intel issued revised updates addressing the Meltdown and Spectre exploits uncovered by Google Project Zero. The company began rolling out fixes in December 2017 just before the exploits when live, but Intel soon pulled the distributions based on reports of incompatibility and frequent system reboots. 

In addition to addressing security issues in sixth-generation CPUs, Intel newest update also attacks Meltdown and Spectre on seventh-generation (Kaby Lake) and eighth-generation (Coffee Lake) chips. That includes the company’s Core-branded processors, the massive Core-X chips, Xeon Scalable CPUs, and the Xeon D processors. But Microsoft’s manual update only applies to sixth-generation chips. 

“This update is a standalone update available through the Microsoft Update Catalog,” the company says. “This update also includes Intel microcode updates that were already released for these Operating Systems at the time of Release To Manufacturing (RTM). We will offer additional microcode updates from Intel thru this KB Article for these Operating Systems as they become available to Microsoft.” 

Typically, device owners can grab the Meltdown and Spectra updates in three ways: through motherboard manufacturers and device manufacturers like Dell and HP, and through Microsoft via Windows Update. For the former two, refreshed firmware updates the processor with new microcode. Meanwhile, Windows does something similar as it boots the device. 

But in this case, Microsoft makes the Spectre patch available through the Microsoft Update Catalog for a wide, manual distribution across multiple Windows 10 devices. There are two patches provided by Microsoft, one of which is designed for x64-based systems. After installation, you may be required to start your PC. 

Previously, Microsoft issued an update for Spectre Variant 2 for Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10, but issued another update to reverse the mitigation due to performance issues and unexpected reboots. On January 22, Intel requested that all device manufacturers and operating system developers cease distributing updates until Intel addressed the issues. Now the company appears to be quite confident that it squashed all the microcode bugs. 

“This effort has included extensive testing by customers and industry partners to ensure the updated versions are ready for production,” Navin Shenoy, Intel’s executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group, said in a statement. “On behalf of all of Intel, I thank each and every one of our customers and partners for their hard work and partnership throughout this process.” 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Updates addressing Meltdown security issue are causing a number of PC reboots
• Apple protects MacOS Sierra, El Capitan from Meltdown, lists Google bugs
• Intel starts rolling out new Spectre firmware fixes, Skylake goes first
• Intel’s 9th-generation ‘Ice Lake’ CPUs will have fixes for Meltdown, Spectre
• Microsoft Surface Book 2 13-inch Review

Notch it off! Why are Android phones copying the worst part of the the iPhone X?

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

Smartphone design has been slowly but surely moving towards the point where everything but the screen melts away.

Bezels are fast becoming an endangered species as manufacturers try to find ways to shift elements from the front face of our phones. Navigation buttons have crept onto the screen, the fingerprint sensor has moved around the back, and speakers have slipped onto the bottom edge or been shrunk down.

A handful of hurdles remain for any phone maker seeking bezel-less perfection: Chief among them, the front-facing camera, or cameras. Most manufacturers have followed Samsung’s lead and shaved the bezels down as far as they can, but when Apple finally overhauled its iPhone design with the iPhone X, the company chose to create a distinctive notch that cut into a portion at the top of the display.

The initial reaction to the iPhone X’s notch was disbelief and derision. How could Apple’s designers compromise like this? Why not just square off the screen and have a small top bezel? But it soon became clear that the notch was a necessary evil that allowed Apple to ditch the home button and fingerprint sensor, and welcome in face-unlocking technology with depth sensing and the ability to work in low light. Though, we must admit that we do still miss the fingerprint sensor sometimes.

Cloning the notch

Living with the iPhone X, the notch is something you get used to very quickly. It also gives the iPhone X a distinctive look that differentiates it, but it still feels more like an inelegant solution to accommodate Face ID than an iconic design decision. If you doubt that it’s a compromise, then consider this – would Apple have included a notch at all if it could have had the same functionality with an all-screen front?

As we descended on Barcelona for MWC 2018 it quickly became clear that Apple’s notch had caught the eye of other manufacturers. Before we go on – yes, we’re aware that Apple didn’t invent the notch. The first device in pursuit of an all-screen front that adopted a notch was the Essential Phone, but it was shrunk down as small as possible to accommodate the front-facing camera. The iPhone X looks very different.

“Some people will say it’s copying Apple, but we cannot get away from what users want”

We were not surprised to see some cash-in clones on the show floor from little-known manufacturers like Leagoo, Noa, Vinci, and Ulephone. But when Asus unveiled the Zenfone 5, it became clear that the notch was going to climb higher up the Android food chain. When we went hands-on with the Asus Zenfone 5, we saw some promise, but found the idea that the design is anything other than a cynical copy of the iPhone X hard to swallow.

“Some people will say it’s copying Apple, but we cannot get away from what users want,” Marcel Campos, head of global marketing operations at Asus, suggested in a pre-briefing. “You have to follow the trends.”

Do you? Is the notch a trend? Or are manufacturers like Asus turning it into trend? Asus boasted that its notch is 26 percent smaller, but since it houses completely different technology, we’re struggling to see how that’s something to brag about. The truth is that the average person spotting you taking an Asus Zenfone 5 out of your pocket is going to assume it’s an iPhone X and that’s deliberate.

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

The Zenfone 5 has a fingerprint sensor on the back and retains a bezel at the bottom of the screen. We don’t think there’s a practical reason it has to have a notch at all, much less one so similar to Apple’s. What bothers us even more is that the notch is not widely considered a gorgeous design feature, so why would you copy it? The curved edges of the display on something like the Nokia 8, though reminiscent of Samsung’s recent releases, also improve the look of the phone and it doesn’t lose its identity. But the Zenfone 5 looks like an impersonator.

Sadly, the notches didn’t end there. Next up, we saw leaks of the forthcoming Huawei P20 range. Assuming they’re accurate, the notch is smaller, and clearly different from the iPhone X, but given that there’s a big bezel at the bottom and a fingerprint sensor, why does it need a notch at all?

Following that, there was news of a possible LG G7 on the show floor, with footage and photos from Israeli site Ynet. It’s important to note that it may not be the final handset design, in fact, it may not be genuine at all. What can’t be disputed is that it has an iPhone X style notch, albeit a smaller one.

We know LG’s last couple of G series phones haven’t sold in the numbers they deserved to, but we’d hate to see it diverge from the innovative path it has followed over the last few years. The G6 ushered in the 18:9 aspect ratio that has become standard, even in budget phones this year, and though the V30 has some issues, we don’t think the design of the display with minimal bezels top and bottom is one of them.

We can live with the notch, as long as we can see the point of it, but it’s always going to be a polarizing design choice that some people just don’t like. A notch that serves no clear purpose is entirely different. It’s not as though the notch is the only way to tackle the problem. Samsung has shaved the bezels right down and the Galaxy S9 looks gorgeous. Xiaomi shifted the camera to a single bottom bezel with its Mi Mix phones, and the Vivo Apex concept phone we saw at MWC sports a pop-up front-facing camera. We don’t think those solutions are ideal, but neither is the notch, and at least Xiaomi and Vivo are trying something different.

If a manufacturer can work out a way of having a camera under the screen, then we’re sure the notch will fade away. In the meantime, we’d like to see some fresh ideas about how to cope with it, and some individual, distinctive styles. What we don’t want is a flood of phones that look obviously inspired by an iPhone X notch that’s actually one of the low points of the device. We understand the drive to copy great design ideas, but the notch has no place on that list.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Here is everything we know about the Asus ZenFone 5
• Asus Zenfone 5 hands-on review
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Drunk guy doesn’t quite recall requesting a $1,600 Uber ride

Here’s a story for anyone who ever takes an Uber ride at the end of a particularly heavy night out.

The advice, if the story of one Kenneth Bachman is anything to go by, is to make absolutely sure you’ve requested the correct destination for your ride. Because a simple slip up could cost you big.

Kenneth, from Gloucester County, New Jersey, was out partying last weekend with friends in Morgantown, West Virginia. Apparently intending to stay at accommodation nearby, he requested an Uber ride and … well, he doesn’t remember too much after that.

What he does remember is waking up in an Uber car. That’s the good news. The bad news — for Kenneth, that is — was that he was already several hours into a five-hour trip back to his home in Gloucester County. Three hundred miles away.

“Basically, I kinda just blacked out,” Kenneth told CBS Philly. “The last thing I remember was being at the bar and then I just woke up in the Uber.”

Not wanting to be dropped off by the side of the road in the middle of the night, he figured he and his hangover may as well go all the way home.

The fare reached an eye-watering $1,635, partly because of surge pricing and partly because he’d accidentally ordered one of Uber’s larger XL cars instead of a regular UberX. But mostly because it was a 300-mile ride apparently selected in error by a crocked Kenneth.

The New Jersey man later disputed the fare with Uber, saying he never would’ve ordered a ride taking him hundreds of miles, but he’s since dropped the claim, according to NJ.com.

With his head now clear, Kenneth is making preparations to return to Morgantown to pick up his bags. If he wants to save himself a few bucks this time around, he can walk there in 105 hours or cycle in 36. Or try hitchhiking.

Kenneth’s sorry tale reminded us of another recent episode where an Uber rider was hit with an even bigger fare for a journey that lasted just 20 minutes. Toronto-based Hisham Salama was charged an absurd 18,518.50 Canadian dollars (about $14,400) for the ride, but in this particular case Uber admitted there had been an error and refunded the rider.

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• Oops! Uber charged a rider more than $14,000 for a 20-minute journey
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Xiaomi all set to launch 32-inch and 43-inch Mi TV 4A in India on Mar. 7

Xiaomi’s upcoming models in the Mi TV 4A series could start off at just ₹12,999 ($200).

Xiaomi introduced the 55-inch variant of the Mi TV 4 in India for ₹39,999 ($615) a few weeks ago, and the company is getting ready to launch smaller variants of the Mi TV 4A at much more affordable price points. According to a leaked listing, the 32-inch Mi TV 4A could end up retailing for just ₹12,999 ($200), whereas the 43-inch model could go on sale in the country for ₹21,999 ($340).

Mi fans! It’s time to switch to something smarter, slimmer & sleeker. Time to #SwitchToSmart TV. A new series coming soon! pic.twitter.com/ARiE3I54A7

— Mi India (@XiaomiIndia) March 1, 2018

As a refresher, the 32-inch Mi TV 4A features a 1366×768 HD-ready panel, and is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Amlogic T962 chipset with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. The 42-inch TV features a Full HD (1920×1080) panel, and comes with the same Amlogic T962 chipset but with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

The 43-inch model is notable for including HDR10 compatibility, as well as Dolby Virtual Surround Sound and DTA audio. Both models have sleek designs, and if the build quality of the 55-inch Mi TV 4 is any indication, they’ll be some of the best TVs in their segments.

Like the 55-inch Mi TV 4, both upcoming models in the series will offer the PatchWall interface with personalized recommendations. If the leaked prices are to be believed, Xiaomi is taking the same strategy it used to its advantage in the phone segment and using it for its TV business. The 32-inch model in particular should see a lot of interest as it offers smart TV features for under ₹15,000, making it highly enticing for those that are looking to pick up their first TV.

Xiaomi Mi TV 4 preview: The next big thing is here