uKFC Creates Tray Keyboard, So Your Greasy Fingers Don’t Smudge The Smartphoner

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  KFC restaurants in Germany rolled out a limited-time tray liner that moonlights as a keyboard for your smartphone.

  For many consumers sitting down for dinner now includes an extra guest: their smartphone. But sometimes the meal can get a bit messy. To keep your grubby fingers off your pristine mobile device, Kentucky Fried Chicken has created the Tray Typer; a bluetooth keyboard that keeps you connected even with the greasiest of fingers.

  The Verge reports that the keyboard, which replaces the traditional paper liners found on fast food trays, is part of the company’s latest advertising campaign in Germany.

  The rechargeable high-tech tray liner is reportedly durable enough to be wiped down and used over and over at the restaurants.

  However, the launch of the limited-time gimmick was so popular, a representative for the advertising company that made the product tells The Verge, that each one that was handed out during the initial campaign ended up going home with customers.

  KFC Tray Typer keyboard is finger clickin’ good [The Verge]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uWest Coast Port Slowdown Is A Bonanza For Fashion Bargain-Huntersr

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  Listener42

  The cargo-unloading slowdown on the West Coast of the United States had far-reaching effects on the global economy, causing problems for everyone from McDonald’s in Japan to truckers in Los Angeles. It was especially harmful to the fashion industry, which saw hot styles shipped over from Asia cool down as they sat off the coast, unable to be unloaded and put in stores. However, this means a bonanza for off-price retailers.

  Some of these clothes and accessories might find their way to the department store chains’ own downscale stores, like Nordstrom Rack and Off 5th. There are entire off-price chains built on opportunities like this, though, and TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, and their colleagues are ready to buy up all of those clothes that have finally found their way out of the cargo backlog. This led to a great first quarter for TJX, owner of TJ Maxx and Marshalls,

  Off-price retailers do produce their own clothing as well, often licensing the name of a prominent brand but making the clothes themselves a little bit downmarket from similar items from the original. However, the port slowdown has apparently been great for fashion discounters and for bargain-hunters alike.

  Off-price retailers strike gold from West Coast slowdown [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uSprintShack Stores Will Be Fully Staffed And Stocked In Juner

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• The deal that Sprint made with the new owners of RadioShack means that the mobile carrier gets to effectively double the number of retail stores that it runs. That’s great for Sprint, but means that they need to hire people or move existing employees to the new stores. Don’t worry: Sprint will be ready and even have their signage out front by July.

  We learned this from an appearance by the company’s chief financial officer, Joe Euteneuer, at a JP Morgan investor conference this week. He told investors that the good part about taking over stores that are already open is that there isn’t a lot to do: they need employees to work in them, of course, but the only other things they need to do are stock the shelves with Sprint, Virgin Mobile, and Boost phones, and put signs up with prominent Sprint branding.

  Another interesting piece of information is that the numbers of people who begin Sprint service and then return their devices to the store within the initial 14-day return period is lower than ever, which is probably because the carrier is close to finished with their LTE network buildout.

  Sprint-RadioShack Stores to Be Fully Staffed by Mid-June [Wireless Week]
  Sprint’s Euteneuer: We’re looking at 600 MHz auction, but don’t need to participate [Fierce Wireless]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uSenator Calls For Investigation Into Three For-Profit College Chains, Restrictions On Future Campus Salesr

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  (bluwmongoose)

  The struggle to protect students from potentially harmful for-profit college chains continued today as Illinois Senator Dick Durbin urged the Department of Education to investigate the business practices of three of the country’s largest propriety education companies – ITT Educational Services, Career Education Corporation, and Education Management Corporation.

  In a letter [PDF] to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Durbin pushed the Dept. to increase its oversight of the companies, hold them accountable for their actions and put restrictions on any campus sales in order to protect students and taxpayers.

  The companies are three of the largest for-profit players in the country; ITT Education Services owns the ITT Technical chain, EDMC operates a number of small colleges including The Arts Institutes and Argosy schools and CEC owns several career colleges and universities including Colorado Technical and American InterContinental.

  Durbin asks the Secretary Duncan to provide information related to any steps the Dept. has taken to address allegations that the three schools have engaged in harmful practices such as inflating job placement rates, perpetrating deceptive recruitment tactics, pushing students into high-cost private loans and failure to provide required financial documents to regulators.

  ITT Educational Services was recently charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  CEC has faced a number of lawsuits and investigations stemming from accusations it inflated job placement rates for its graduates.

  Likewise, EDMC – which is partially owned by Goldman Sachs – has faced its share of issues in recent years, from falling enrollments and financial difficulties and increased scrutiny from state and federal regulators.

  Back in 2011, the company was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and four states. That lawsuit accused the company of violating a federal law against paying recruiters based on the number of students they manage to enroll.

  “For each of these companies, what steps has the Department taken to ensure that current and prospective students are informed of ongoing investigations and lawsuits?” the letter asks.

  Durbin warned that the Department’s failure to fully scrutinize ITT Tech, EDMC and CEC would be akin to risking “another Corinthian-style debacle.”

  Now-bankrupt Corinthian Colleges Inc. – the operator of chains Everest University, Heald College and WyoTech – endured a slow downfall after finding itself under investigation from several state and federal agencies beginning in 2012.

  The school entered into an agreement with the Department of Education last July to sell or close a majority of its campuses. Prior to the agreement CCI enrolled 72,000 students and received $1.4 billion in federal student aid. The company closed all of its campuses last month.

  “The collapse of Corinthian Colleges, Inc. should be a wake-up call for the Department of Education and lead to earlier and more aggressive oversight of for-profit colleges,” the letter states. “Unfortunately, Corinthian is not unique in the for-profit industry. Other major for-profit education companies, including CEC, EDMC, and ITT Tech, face a litany of investigations and lawsuits similar to Corinthian and are all on the Department’s own Heightened Cash Monitoring list. The Department must investigate these companies and aggressively hold them accountable for wrongdoing in order to protect students and taxpayers.”

  In the letter, Durbin argues that the Dept. allowed CCI to continue receiving billions of dollars in federal funds despite a litany of investigations and lawsuits levied against the company.

  “Those mistakes must not be repeated,” Durbin writes. “Failure to act now with respect to wrongdoing by other for-profit colleges will harm a large population of student borrowers and subject the Department to a new wave of legitimate claims for loan relief.”

  In addition to requesting information about steps to oversee the companies, Durbin urged the Dept. to put conditions on any sale of CEC, EDMC and ITT Tech campuses.

  Both CEC and EDMC have recently announced they would sell or close a number of schools in the wake of falling enrollment and decreased revenue.

  “In August 2014, with respect to the sale of Corinthian campuses, you assured me in writing that ‘the Department will not approve a sale to another entity if that entity is currently under State and/or Federal investigation,'” Durbin writes. “Today, I ask you to make that same commitment with respect to the potential sale of brands or campuses owned by CEC, EDMC, and ITT Tech.”

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uWeight Watchers Ice Cream Bars Set Good Example, Lose Weightr

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• Weight Watchers-branded meals and snacks are supposed to make it easier to follow the Weight Watchers points system and, well, lose weight. Reader M is a fan of their packaged ice cream bars, and was disappointed when she noticed that they’re a little bit smaller than they used to be after a recent package redesign. Yes, it was the Grocery Shrink Ray.

  Granted, they aren’t a lot smaller. Each bar has lost 2 grams, which is about the same weight as a U.S. dime. Yet the fluid ounces remains the same, which means they may have switched to a slightly less dense formula for the frozen dairy dessert.

  Here’s the original packaging:

  

  Here’s the nutritional information that went along with it:

  

  Here’s the redesigned package. Nothing different here, other than the addition of “No artificial sweeteners” to the front of the package.

  

  Ah, but the bar has lost two grams when you look at the nutrition information. “It really made me mad cause all the manufacturers are doing the same dirty tricks,” M writes. Then at some point in the future they’ll probably advertise ‘new larger size!!!'” Or advertise a “jumbo” fudge bar that weighs 80 grams and costs more than these bars.

  

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uL.A. City Council Votes To Raise Minimum Wage To $15/Hour By 2020r

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  (.sanden.)

  At $9/hour, the current minimum wage in Los Angeles is already well above the $7.25/hour federal minimum. But today the L.A. City Council voted for a plan that will increase that wage to $15/hour by 2020.

  According to the L.A. Times, some 800,000 workers in the city will be affected by the increase if it is adopted.

  The original plan, put forth by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014, would have raised pay to $13.25/hour by 2017. But labor groups pushed for the $15 hourly rate, which will be phased into for many employees over the next five years. Nonprofits and businesses with fewer employees will have an additional year to comply.

  One of the biggest criticisms of minimum wage rates is that they are often raised only periodically. This hurts workers whose pay may lag behind increases in cost of living, and it is often costly to employers who suddenly have to raise wages for workers.

  The L.A. plan is to, starting in 2022, tie minimum wage increases to the consumer price index. The idea is that in years of price inflation, low-wage workers won’t get left behind while employers won’t be compelled to give raises during flat or down years.

  While a number of labor groups cheered the decision, many small business owners maintain that the higher wages are untenable and they will be forced to reduce their headcount.

  The plan, which was approved by a vote of 14-1, will now go to city attorney, who will draft an actual ordinance for the council to approve.

  If signed into law by the mayor, the first stage of the wage increase would bring the minimum wage to $10.50/hour starting in July 2016.

  Seattle was the first major city to get the $15/hour minimum wage ball rolling when its city council voted last summer to approve a plan to raise wages over the course of up to seven years. San Francisco, where the minimum wage is already over $12/hour, followed suit in November 2014. Its plan will reach the $15/hour target by July 2018. And like the L.A. proposal, future wage increases will be tied to the CPI.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uDoes Net Neutrality Give The FCC Authority To Overturn Data Caps?r

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  (djgrafite)

  While some cable companies, like Comcast and Cox, continue to run regional tests of data caps for their broadband services, at least one major industry analyst is egging the industry to establish harder data caps before the FCC’s new net neutrality rules go into effect in mid-June, even though the new rules don’t actually set any hard and clear guidelines about the Commission’s authority to intervene on the issue of data caps.

  The Open Internet Order [PDF] does include transparency rules that require Internet service providers are clear with their customers about data caps and any repercussions for exceeding those limits. Some companies throttle users’ speeds after passing a monthly limit; some shut off service unless the customer pays for additional gigabytes.

  All of this is supposed to be clear to the customer. If the ISP is hiding this information or making it difficult to understand, the FCC could intervene. However, it’s likely that the intervention would only extend to making sure the policies are made clear, not getting rid of the caps.

  These transparency rules have actually been in place since the 2010 Open Internet Order, and the FCC has warned ISPs about violating them, but data caps have continued to proliferate.

  The only way that the new Open Internet Order could result in the FCC eliminating or curbing data caps is if they are found to be in violation of the so-called General Conduct Rule.

  The FCC does not specifically call out data caps in the Order, so consumers or content companies would need to make their case that a data cap puts either or both of them at an unreasonable disadvantage.

  A simple example would be a cable company ISP with a data cap so low that a large number of subscribers approach the monthly limit through regular use. This could be seen as a cable company trying to make streaming video competitors less attractive to the benefit of its own pay-TV business. Another possible reason is that the ISP is trying to earn overage fees by taking advantage of a lack of competition for broadband access in the area. In either case, the ISP would likely need to demonstrate that its cap is set so low because of a genuine congestion issue.

  For now, the above example is an extreme, as most cable ISPs with caps set them well above the monthly usage average. But as streaming video grows in popularity — along with the increased use of web-connected devices in the home — there will come a time when it might not just be data hogs bumping their heads against that ceiling every month.

  A more complicated example of a possible future challenge to data caps would involve so-called “zero-rating” arrangements between ISPs and certain content providers. In these deals, the data from that content provider is not charged against a user’s data cap.

  If Cable Company X has this sort of arrangement with Streaming Video Company Y, then Y’s competition could try to argue that consumers are less likely to use their services because that could put users over their monthly limits. In that case, an FCC ruling could impact both the use of data caps and zero-rating agreements.

  In short, the answer to whether or not the FCC can get rid of data caps is that the Commission has the authority to investigate and respond to practices that may unreasonably disadvantage consumers and/or content providers, but data cap opponents are going to have to make a convincing case that these restrictions are so unfair as to fall into that category.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist