uIKEA Expands Crib Mattress Recall To Include Five Additional Stylesr

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  IKEA expanded a recall of crib mattresses to include the SULTANA brand.

  All recalls are important to take note of, but ones related to baby products are often of the greatest concern. And IKEA’s expansion of a six-month old recall to include an additional 150,000 crib mattresses because of the risk of entrapment would fall into that category.

  The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced today that IKEA will add four types of SULTANA mattresses to its January recall, bringing the total number of mattresses recalled to roughly 300,000.

  IKEA initially recalled five styles of VYSSA mattresses after receiving two reports of infants becoming entrapped between the mattress and an end of the crib. Fortunately, the children were removed from the situation without injury.

  The newly recalled mattresses include the BLUNDA, DROMMA, SNARKA and SUSSA models that are 52 inches long and 27 ½ inches wide and were manufactured on May 4, 2014 or earlier.

  

  Mattresses can be identified by a label on the cover. [Click to enlarge]

  Affected mattresses can be identified by a label on the cover that has the manufacturer date in Month-DD-YY format or YY-WW format and the SULTAN or VYSSA model name, the company says in a statement.

  Consumers should inspect the recalled mattress by making sure there is no gap larger than the width of two fingers between the ends of the crib and the mattress. If any gap is larger, customers should immediately stop using the recalled mattress and return it to any IKEA store for an exchange or full refund.

  The mattresses sold for about $20 to $100 at IKEA stores throughout the U.S. and online from October 2000 to May 2014.

  Customers with questions or concerns can call IKEA at (888)966-4532.

  IKEA Expands Recall of Crib Mattresses Due to Risk of Entrapment [Consumer Product Safety Commission]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uJudge Throws Out United’s Lawsuit Against “Hidden City” Airfare Site Skiplagged.comr

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  Example Skiplagged listings for flights that don’t end in Chicago, but go through Chicago. As part of its settlement with Orbitz, Skiplagged will no longer direct people to purchase their hidden city fares through the travel-booking site.

  Last fall, both United Airlines and Orbitz sued travel-booking startup Skiplagged.com, which helped travelers find so-called “hidden city” tickets where you book a multi-stop itinerary with the intention of not flying all the way to the end. Orbitz settled its part of the case in February, but the United suit continued — until yesterday, when a federal judge dismissed the airline’s complaint, but not because the airline didn’t have a case.

  Instead, in his order [PDF] dismissing the complaint, the judge says it’s a matter of jurisdiction, i.e., that United filed its copyright claim in the wrong court.

  The lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois, but the judge explains that “the record only shows a limited course of dealing between the parties and Defendant’s Illinois contacts were with a third-party. Such contacts, even where relevant, are not meaningful enough to warrant exercising personal jurisdiction over Defendant.”

  In non-legalese, because the defendant, Skiplagged owner Aktarer Zaman, lives in New York and doesn’t operate his business in Illinois, this particular court should not be the one to hear it.

  “This dismissal does not preclude Plaintiff from refiling and litigating its claims in a proper forum,” concludes the order.

  And it looks like United may not give up its fight, with a rep for the airline telling CNN that “the decision was a ruling on procedural grounds and not on the merits of the case.”

  The rep continued, “We remain troubled that Mr. Zaman continues to openly encourage customers to violate our contract of carriage by purchasing hidden-city tickets.”

  For his part, Zaman is calling the dismissal “definitely a victory.”

  Skiplagged lets users search for savings through hidden city fares. For example, rather than book a flight that terminates in Chicago, it might be less expensive to book a flight to Kansas City that stops in Chicago. I can just get off the plane when it lands at that first stop.

  It’s not illegal, but it is against every major airline’s policy. Because Skiplagged didn’t just provide pricing information but actually directed users to airline sites where they could then book their hidden city tickets, it was accused of, among other claims, encouraging customers to violate their terms of service by knowingly booking these fares.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uPlayed With That Viral Age-Guesser This Week? You Just Gave Microsoft A Bunch Of Free Photos To User

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  Time has apparently not been kind at all to those Cheerios… and the baby didn’t need the extra year of aging, either.

  If you use Facebook, Twitter, or basically any part of the internet at all, sometime in the last 24 hours you’ve seen Microsoft’s newest tool, the age-guesser. Everyone’s sharing it, using it, and laughing over (or feeling insulted by) the results. But the tool’s rapid spread also accidentally highlights one of the biggest challenges of the digital age: the fine print.

  The tool, How-Old.net, has gone viral very fast because of how hilariously wrong it often is. The world-weary baby at the top of this post, for example, was 9 months old when the picture was taken, which isn’t too far off — but the Cheerios on her tray were neither sixteen, male, nor in fact human at all. Plug in fictional characters or politicians, and the results are jokes that basically write themselves.

  Microsoft isn’t planning to make age guessing a fixture of its Office Suite anytime soon; the tool was put together quickly as a demo for the company’s Azure cloud platform and services. But buried in the fine print of the Azure terms and services, as Fast Company points out, is a clause that might give Microsoft more power than you want them to have:

  [B]y posting, uploading, inputting, providing, or submitting your Submission, you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies, and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all Microsoft services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, and reformat your Submission; to publish your name in connection with your Submission; and to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Website Services.

  In other words: Microsoft now maintains the rights to use any image you uploaded in basically any way they want. And that “public performance” bit is basically an out that prevents you from suing on copyright grounds if they do.

  Are your dog, best friend, grandma, U.S. representative, worst nightmare, favorite baseball player, kid, cat, and Cheerios likely to end up being used in demos, ads, or other products? No, not really. Microsoft has gotten tens or hundreds of thousands of pictures submitted, and, frankly, they can afford better promotional images from real photographers when they need a pic or two. And given how quickly the page was thrown together, and how chancy the lightning strike of viral fame can be, it’s unlikely at best that the tech giant actually meant the service to be a giant free photo collection tool.

  But the fine print should be a reminder to all of us: when it comes to data and privacy, the devil is indeed in the details.

  Read the fine print before you use Microsoft’s viral age-guessing tool [Fast Company]

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uDelta Employees Will Probably Be Dressed Better Than You With Plan For New Designer Uniformsr

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  (quinn.anya)

  Maybe you think of yourself as a snappy dresser. Maybe you prefer to wear housepants on a regular basis. I’m not here to judge, only to report that someday in the nearish future, most Delta Air Lines employees will have an automatic advantage over us less fashion fortunate, with designer Zac Posen on board to pull together new uniforms for all workers.

  Though the kinds of expensive couture pieces seen on one kind of runway at fashion shows won’t likely show up in say, the average tarmac worker’s coveralls, the airline says in a press release that it’s hoping Posen can bring some flair to the friendly skies with “high fashion and function.”

  Nearly all uniformed employees will get an updated look, with Posen designing uniform collections for Delta’s flight attendants and airport customer service agents, and advising on the uniform project for Delta’s ramp and ground support agents, Delta Cargo agents and Delta TechOps employees.

  “I’m thrilled to partner with this classic American brand and look forward to collaborating with Delta employees to understand their wants and needs for the new collection,” Posen said in the press release. “Together, we will bring everyday elegance and style innovation to the ground and air alike, while making employees look and feel their best.”

  He’ll be working with Delta employees over the next few months to get a handle on their needs while on the job, with the new uniform program expected to roll out in early 2018.

  Racked points out that Delta will likely focus on wearability of the uniforms in light of what happened when Virgin Atlantic cabin crew complained that their Vivienne Westwood-designed uniforms left their feet blistered from high heels and their legs restricted in overly slim pencil skirts.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCommunity Furious That School Cafeterias Served Smelly 6-Year-Old Pork To Kidsr

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• You might not take your kids all that seriously when they complain about the gross mystery meat served in their school cafeteria, but the children in some schools in Hawkins County, Tennessee had a right to complain last week when they were served pork that had been sitting in the freezer since 2009.

  As long as it has always been kept at a consistent and cold temperature, 6-year-old meat isn’t going to make people sick, but it might not necessarily be appetizing, either. A school employee sent a mobile phone photo of the not-so-mysterious meat to the county commissioner.

  “Here in Hawkins County, we have a lot of kids that go to school and that might be the only meal they get all day long,” the commish told TV station WJHL. “It just upsets me that these kids are going to school to get that meat.”

  He reports that a cafeteria worker told him that the school made gravy for the pork roast, which is a time-honored method of dealing with meats that have problematic textures and flavors. However, the news that their kids were served meat that had been sitting in a freezer that long shocked parents in the community.

  Reviews from cafeterias at individual schools varied, but were overall positive. The chicken fajitas served that day seemed to be more popular with kids overall, though.

  “As soon as you tasted the pork, [and] it was just as soon as you tasted it, me and a friend both, it was not good,” a high school student explained to the TV station.

  6-year-old lunch meat served to students in Hawkins County, TN [WJHL]
  Hawkins Co. parents search for answers after 6-year-old pork served to students [WJHL] (Thanks, Kelly!)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWhy Everyone Is Suddenly Dying To Buy A Cable Company You May Never Even Have Heard Ofr

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• Odds are (unless you live in central Florida) that you probably don’t know much about Bright House Networks. The cable company serves about 2 million TV and internet customers, mostly in Florida and also in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, and California. But in the many eddies rippling through the cable world after the sinking of the Comcast/TWC merger, this one regional provider may be poised to make or break some pretty big deals.

  Bright House, the Wall Street Journal reports, is the new kingmaker. All eyes are turning to the nation’s sixth-largest cable company and its 2 million customers as investors try to figure out where the

  If you thought someone already called dibs on Bright House, you’re not wrong. Charter and Bright House announced a $10bn deal just about a month ago. But there’s one huge hitch in that plan, and its name is Comcast.

  The Charter/Bright House deal, as set up in March, was contingent on the Comcast/TWC merger going forward. As part of that now-firmly-failed transaction, Comcast/TWC would have spun off 4 million customers to Charter as a concession to prevent the merged company from crossing a particular threshold of “too large.” That move would have allowed Charter heavily to consolidate their presence in the Midwest and would have given a post-merger Comcast more access to both coasts.

  Part of the deal between Charter and Bright House’s ownership, the WSJ reports, is that if the Comcast/TWC failed, the Charter/Bright House deal would have a “30 day ‘good faith’ period” to renegotiate their deal. Comcast and TWC called off their merger plan one week ago, so there are 22 or 23 (depending how you count) days left in that window. But Charter is not the only party who can negotiate with Bright House during these weeks — and TWC could jump in, too.

  According to the WSJ, Time Warner Cable is likely to jump in with a pitch that would let Bright House’s current ownership retain more shares and hold more influence in the combined company than the Charter deal would permit.

  But those investor details might also be what motivates Charter to push hard for the deal. The added customers — a drop in the bucket compared to Comcast’s 22m, but a huge growth from Charter’s ~6m — and cash flow could be a step on the path that would also allow Charter to go out and acquire TWC.

  So, this is effectively where we stand: Charter and Time Warner Cable are about to find themselves in competition over buying Bright House Networks, while at the same time Charter tries to buy Time Warner Cable. It is possible, therefore, that all three could end up as one single company in the near future — or that all the buyout offers could be spurned or face too many regulatory hurdles.

  While none of the deals on (or near) the table have the same disastrously large scope and attendant dangerous gatekeeper power that the Comcast/TWC transaction did, consumers are right to remain wary of continued consolidation. It’s true that putting more players into Comcast’s league could keep Kabletown’s influence under control, but it is even more true that consumers need more competition in the marketplace, not less.

  The competition situation is already pretty abysmal in most of the country, and every single merger makes it that much worse.

  Bright House Emerges as a Player in the New Cable Drama [Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uGreat, Now Hackers Are Apparently Hiding Malware In Job Applications Submitted Onliner

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  (Pixteca | Len & Pix【ツ】)

  Though we often think of all the stress in a hiring process as being on the side of the job seeker, businesses have a new potential part of the process to worry about: Researchers say hackers are infecting companies by slipping malware in along with resumes submitted through job posting website CareerBuilder.com.

  According to security company Proofpoint (via MarketWatch), the attackers are going through open positions and then attaching documents with names like “resume.doc” or “cv.doc” to applications. When a hiring manager or interviewer on the other end opens it up, the malware gets in because CareerBuilder automatically emails notifications and attachments with resumes to the job poster when someone applies.

  “Rather than attempt to create a realistic lure, the attackers here have instead capitalized on the brand and service of a real site: the recipients are likely to read them and open the attachments because not only are they legitimate emails from a reputable service, but these emails are expected and even desired by the recipient,” Proofpoint researchers wrote in a blog post.

  CareerBuilder is investigating the attack with the help of third-party experts and letting affect customers know, a spokeswoman told MarketWatch. She says the site “has controls in place to stop mass distribution of applications to job postings and takes a variety of preventative measures.”

  Proofpoint adds that any job boards that work similarly are also susceptible to these kinds of attacks.

  Foot in the door: Cybercriminals leverage job search website to sneak malware into businesses [Proofpoint]
  Hackers sneak malware into job applications [MarketWatch]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist