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| Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 09:28:39 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Uber Missed Criminal Records of Drivers, Prosecutors Assert
Message-ID: <18F2F264-2937-44CA-9B7D-CC99F8F8FCB7@roscom.com>
Uber Missed Criminal Records of Drivers, Prosecutors Assert
District attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco say drivers for
the ride-hailing service have included some convicted of murder or sex
offenses.
SAN FRANCISCO - For more than a year, regulators in various cities
have questioned whether Uber, the ride-hailing service, vets its
drivers for criminal backgrounds as carefully as traditional taxi
companies.
Now the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles have
offered perhaps the most concrete evidence to date that people
convicted of murder, sex offenses and various property crimes have
driven for Uber, despite assurances from the company that it employs
"industry-leading" screening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/technology/uber-missed-criminal-records-of-drivers-prosecutors-assert.html
***** Moderator's Note *****
I've always been fascinated by the way technology changes things.
Uber in driving inefficiencies out of the hackney carriage trade in
the same way that airline ticketing companies have driven travel
agents out of business. Cab drivers of old had to spend gas driving
around hoping for fares, or depend on a dispatch service might or
might not give them high-value fares if they were on good terms with
the dispatcher.
But, the smartphone is not a good judge of character. Uber, seeking to
run a virtual corporation which involves little investment and forces
all its costs on its employees, is living in the margin between the
metered rates of taxicabs and the cost riders are willing to pay to
drive themselves or take public transit. That margin, built as much on
customer ignorance as it is on smartphone technology, is now being
reduced by the old-line players, whom are pointing out that words and
reality don't always match in the online business world.
Bill Horne
Moderator
|
| Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 10:28:26 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Consumers are Cutting the Cord to Gain Choices and Pay Less
Message-ID: <D3219DE8-77B5-47C9-9329-13792A66CC2F@roscom.com>
Congress and the FCC can help consumers have more broadband options as
they choose online services over cable TV.
In recent years, a lot of media and telecommunications executives
dismissed the idea that Americans would stop subscribing to cable and
satellite TV services. But the cord-cutting phenomenon can no longer
be ignored.
American cable and satellite companies collectively lost more than
600,000 subscribers in the second quarter of this year, the biggest
decline the industry has ever seen. Analysts expect the trend to
accelerate as more people replace cable with Internet-based services
like Netflix, HBO Now and Amazon, which are much cheaper than the
traditional TV package offered by companies like Comcast and DirecTV.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/opinion/consumers-are-cutting-the-cord-to-gain-choices-and-pay-less.html
***** Moderator's Note *****
The one thing I don't get is how people can stand the lower bandwidths
that over-the-air Internet offers. There's no way that cellular 3,4,
5, or "N"-G pipes can replace cable when it comes to carrying capacity.
Bill Horne
Moderator
|
| Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 01:13:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Consumers are Cutting the Cord to Gain Choices and Pay Less
Message-ID: <mr8icm$brn$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
To article <D3219DE8-77B5-47C9-9329-13792A66CC2F@roscom.com>, the
moderator appended:
>The one thing I don't get is how people can stand the lower bandwidths
>that over-the-air Internet offers. There's no way that cellular 3,4,
>5, or "N"-G pipes can replace cable when it comes to carrying capacity.
It doesn't. Consumers aren't dropping their Internet subscriptions,
just the expensive video bundle.
Without any premium channels, I pay more than $90 a month for video
service from Comcast -- and that's in a building with competition from
both RCN and Verizon FiOS, and I own my TiVo rather than renting an
inferior "box" from Comcast. If it were not for the downsides to
streaming (inconsistent user interfaces, DRM to prevent ad-skipping,
lack of access to certain sports) I would probably cancel my video
service as well.
As it is, I'm still contemplating switching to FiOS video, because
they carry (Comcast-owned) Universal Sports, whereas Comcast and RCN
do not. The events to which the NBC networks own the US broadcast
rights (including the Olympics) are not legally available for
streaming in the US to those who do not subscribe to a cable or
satellite bundle that includes the channel on which they air.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
|
| Date: 20 Aug 2015 12:35:13 -0600
From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Deceptive Flip Phone
Message-ID: <98011b81e73c2118c510627bdc51fc52.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com>
A few weeks back, I visited a Verizon Wireless store to upgrade my
pre-paid Samsung flip phone to regular service.
I had lost my pre-paid phone a few week prior while I was in Naha,
Okinawa. I got a new prepaid flip phone from Walmart and transferred
my account to that phone.
When I got to the Verizon Wireless store, they told me that I could
not transfer that phone to regular service since it had been in
service for less than six months.
I have several electronic devices and I use four port USB chargers to
charge them. I am obviously not going to drag several proprietary
chargers around with me everywhere I go.
They brought out an LG flip phone. It had a USB cable and a charger
with an 'A' type jack in the charger. It seemed reasonable to expect
that it would charge on my four port AC chargers and my three port
mobile charger. So I said OK.
Upon getting home, I discovered that it would not charge on any of my
multi-port chargers. Despite its appearance of USB compatibility, it
was a proprietary charger.
I took it back to the Verizon Wirelesss store and told them that any
phone that would not charge on a standard USB charger did not meet my
needs.
They tried to charge me a restocking fee but after going back and
forth a few days, they finally agreed to exchange the phone without a
restocking fee since I also discovered a defect in the unit which I
won't describe here.
They brought out a Samsung flip phone. They let me see if it would
charge on my four port USB charger and my three port mobile charger.
Both chargers worked just fine.
So I told them to go ahead and transfer my service to the Samsung
flip phone. I've been happy with the Samsung.
The point being is the lesson I learned here: Do not assume that a
device that appears to have a USB charger is not proprietary.
Personally, I think that LG was being deceptive when they
manufactured that phone to appear that it could be charged from any
USB charger. But that is just my opinion, of course.
If Verizon had not forced me to changed phones, we would not have had
this exchange.
I have several Isound four port USB chargers and a three port mobile
USB. I use them to charge my iPad and several lesser current devices
at the same time. I did find out that the Isound (AC) unit cannot
charge two iPads at the same time. But that is not a major concern
since I only have one iPad anyway.
So as they say, 'Let the buyer beware!'.
|
| Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 22:55:41 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Deceptive Flip Phone
Message-ID: <qlzqklcuhfa2$.wlp8lb46u666.dlg@40tude.net>
On 20 Aug 2015 12:35:13 -0600, Fred Atkinson wrote:
> an LG flip phone. It had a USB cable and a charger
> with an 'A' type jack in the charger. It seemed reasonable to expect
> that it would charge on my four port AC chargers and my three port
> mobile charger. So I said OK.
>
> Upon getting home, I discovered that it would not charge on any of my
> multi-port chargers. Despite its appearance of USB compatibility, it
> was a proprietary charger.
'Tain't just LG playing such games. I have several older Motorola handsets,
and several Motorola chargers for them, all sporting a certain style of USB
port or plug ("mini-B", I believe), all plugs mating nicely into all ports.
But only certain phones will accept a charge from any given charger, and
only certain chargers will successfully charge any given phone.
I'm led to believe that Motorola has invented a gambit of using clever
little resistors, pull-up or pull-down, perhaps in series with the hot
charging pin, or perhaps shunting that pin to ground, so that a handset
will be able to recognize "unauthorized" chargers and refuse their
offerings, lest its battery be adversely affected (or so the story goes).
Which handsets? An original RAZR V3, a later (Cingular-branded) RAZR V3xx,
a SLVR L2, and a Verizon-branded WinMo Moto Q9m.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
|
| Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 01:10:48 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Deceptive Flip Phone
Message-ID: <mr8i6o$r27$2@reader1.panix.com>
In <98011b81e73c2118c510627bdc51fc52.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com> "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> writes:
> I had lost my pre-paid phone a few week prior while I was in Naha,
>Okinawa. I got a new prepaid flip phone from Walmart and transferred
>my account to that phone.
> When I got to the Verizon Wireless store, they told me that I could
>not transfer that phone to regular service since it had been in
>service for less than six months.
> They brought out an LG flip phone. It had a USB cable and a charger
>with an 'A' type jack in the charger. It seemed reasonable to expect
>that it would charge on my four port AC chargers and my three port
>mobile charger. So I said OK.
> Upon getting home, I discovered that it would not charge on any of my
>multi-port chargers. Despite its appearance of USB compatibility, it
>was a proprietary charger.
Could this be the result of the four vs. five USB wire issue? Back in the
heydeys of Usenet Jim Navarro (sp? - from memory.. can't look it up
from here) posted a Motorola FAQ, and one of the first Q&A (maybe
the first) addressed a similar problem with them.
It seems that there are many USB cables (and who knows, possible
the chargers and hubs) which only run four wires. The Motorola
needed all five...
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
|
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