The questionable stability and frequent security issues with Adobe’s Flash have long been a running joke among the tech-minded. Although the once-ubiquitous plugin’s star began to wane after mobile browsing took off, it still makes a lot of the content on the internet move. But after the release of yet another potentially disastrous vulnerability recently, the crowd clamoring for an end to Flash has now gone far beyond your local IT office, and includes both Firefox and Facebook.
The newest big exploit in Flash security surfaced about a week ago, after European company Hacking Team was itself hacked. Hacking Team provides spyware and surveillance support to government entities — basically, they break privacy and exploit vulnerabilities on purpose, and get paid (handsomely) for it.
Among the data taken from Hacking Team were some zero-day exploits, including one for Adobe Flash. The Flash exploit made it into circulation very shortly after being discovered, and has turned out to be very bad.
Adobe rushed out a patch for that vulnerability, but then two more were found over the weekend.
That’s when Mozilla apparently decided enough is enough, according to CNN. The company behind Firefox started blocking Flash by default across the board, until such time as Adobe can be sure the product is safe. The head of Firefox support took to Twitter with a pointed image calling out Flash for its security flaws.
Facebook — or at least, the company’s head of security — has likewise joined the bandwagon and is calling for an end to Flash use, CNN adds. Alex Stamos, Facebook’s security chief, tweeted on Sunday that “It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash,” and added that he hoped the browsers would kill support for it on the same day.
Macromedia Flash was everywhere in the early 2000s, powering the first wave of popular web-based video series and casual games. Adobe acquired the company in 2005 and started releasing products branded as Adobe Flash in 2007.
But 2007 was also the year the iPhone launched, and Flash began to go out of vogue when the mobile era began. The iPhone has never supported it (Steve Jobs was infamously against it), and Adobe pulled Flash support for Android way back in 2011. Video juggernaut YouTube, which was originally Flash-based, has been using HTML5 by default since the beginning of this year.
When it’s time to buzz about a reported new feature, having a recognizable code name is kind of a must-have. So it goes with Facebook’s new rumored project, a personal digital assistant nicknamed “Moneypenny,” after the secretary character in James Bond movies.
It seems Moneypenny would live inside Facebook’s Messenger app as opposed to hanging out in the main app or browser version of the social network, says a report from The Information (via Apple Insider).
The feature is currently being tested internally, and instead of being used to find directions to the closest coffee shop, Moneypenny sounds more like a concierge service, with “real people” available who can help users accomplish tasks online, like researching/buying products and services, among other as-yet-to-be-determined things.
Maybe you want to buy a new TV but don’t want to look around for the best deals. That might be the kind of thing Moneypenny could do for you while you’re busy playing Candy Crush and report back.
There are other services out there besides Siri, Google Now and Cortana that are more likely to be rivals to the eventual Moneypenny (which might not stick as a name), businesses like Magic, which puts users in touch with live operators via text message to order services any time of the day, as well as the similar Operator service and GoButler.
Last year, Amazon and book publisher Hachette engaged in a contentious feud that at times saw the online retailer use its considerable clout to make it difficult for consumers to purchase books by Hachette-published authors. Now, eight months after the two companies came to an undisclosed agreement, groups representing thousands of authors and booksellers are pointing to the online book retailer’s actions as reason for the Department of Justice to open an antitrust investigation into Amazon.
The Authors Guild [PDF], the American Booksellers Association [PDF], and Authors United [PDF] sent letters to the Dept. of Justice on Tuesday urging the agency to look into how alleged anti-competitive business practices have allowed Amazon to become the largest seller of books in the U.S., the New York Times reports.
The groups – led by Douglas Preston, a Hachette writer who founded Authors United amid Amazon’s dispute with the publisher – claim Amazon engaged in a plethora of hurtful practices, including predatory selling by offering book titles at what appears to be below-cost, strong-arm tactics against publishers, dictating the pricing of self-published authors and steering customers to its own published books rather than those offered through other publishers.
“In recent years, Amazon has used its dominance in ways that we believe harm the interests of America’s readers, impoverish the book industry as a whole, damage the careers of (and generate fear among) many authors, and impede the free flow of ideas in our society,” Authors United tells the DOJ.
The groups tell the Dept. of Justice they fear that Amazon’s sheer market power constitutes a monopoly as a seller of books and as a buyer of books.
“As with our author colleagues, we are concerned that the mega-book-retailer Amazon.com has achieved such considerable market power with such questionable business tactics that it is undermining the ecosystem of the entire book industry in a way that will be detrimental, especially to mid-list authors, new authors, and minority voices,” the American Booksellers Association wrote in its letter to the DOJ.
The groups point to an industry research study to show just how powerful Amazon has become in the literary world. According to the groups, Codex Group found in May 2014 that the retailer accounts for a 64% market share of ebook sales and a 41% market share of all new book sales.
“Given Amazon’s dominant market share, no publisher — regardless the size — can afford to not do business with them, whatever the cost,” American Booksellers Association writes in its letter. “And no one knows this better than Amazon, which has ruthlessly cut off the sales of publishers large and small when they have not yielded to Amazon’s strong-arm negotiating demands.”
As a result, the groups say they have already seen fewer titles published by major publishing houses each year.
While the groups contend that Amazon’s business practices hurt the industry as a whole, they say the supposed anti-competitive behavior harms American readers more than anything.
Authors United asserts in its letter that Amazon’s practice of routinely selling books below cost in order to bring in business for its other businesses has driven retailers out of business. In turn, this has caused “deflation across the industry and reduced the amount of revenue available for publishers to invest in new books, thus depriving readers of wider choice.”
“Over the years, Amazon has benefitted readers and authors in many ways,” the letter continues. “But no temporary price cut can compensate for the costs to free expression and the health of America’s book industry that have resulted from Amazon’s abuse of its dominance in the world of books.”
According to the NYT, the American Booksellers Association and the Authors Guild – which collectively represent more than 2,200 stores and 9,000 authors – have separately urged the Dept. of Justice to investigate Amazon, but have never done so on a joint scale.
“Our point of view seemed to have been ignored,” Oren Teicher, chief executive of the booksellers association, tells the NYT. “But the climate has changed. There are efforts in the European Union — in Germany and a few other countries — to take a closer look at Amazon’s practices. That has ramifications on what happens here.”
The European Union announced last month that it would formally open an antitrust case into whether Amazon stifled competition in ebooks through the use of restrictive contracts.
Amazon and the Department of Justice did not return the NYT’s request for comment regarding the letters.
It goes without saying that finding your car has been stolen is not a pleasant experience. But one Texas couple was not only reunited with their vehicle, but had it returned to them in better condition than the last time they saw it, after the thief apparently had some repairs done on it while it was away.
The family’s dad had to leave his 2004 Dodge Durango by the side of the road in Ohio after it broke down on his way to work in June, reports KHOU.com (warning, link has video that autoplays), because he couldn’t afford to buy a tow to move it elsewhere. While he was waiting, a thief got to it instead.
Cut to this past Sunday, when his wife was driving with another family member and spotted a silver Durango with familiar deer damage dents on the driver’s side leaving a gas station. The two called the police and followed the car for several miles, narrating their route to law enforcement along the way.
When she was finally reunited with the SUV with the police’s help, she found there had been a few unexpected changes, some more welcome than others: The thief had fixed the SUV’s drive shaft, installed three new wheels… and left a bunch of drugs in the center console.
“(The thief) did fix what was wrong with it and why it was left on the side of the road,” the woman said, with her husband adding that there were about 30 little baggies of drugs, which police confiscated.
“I was shocked,” she said. “Shock was all I could feel. You don’t expect to get something back that’s been gone for a month.”
They are not looking at photos. They are looking at contracts.
How long should a couple have to wait for finished photo albums from their wedding? One couple would really enjoy browsing the professional photo albums that the photographer they hired promised as part of their package. They’ve been married for a year and a half, and they photographer seemed to have disappeared. It was time to call in the power of local news.
Specifically, CBS Sacramento and their consumer reporter Kurtis Ming. The missing things from the photographer are the big pieces that people seek out professional photographers for. Their photographer wasn’t responding to messages, and appeared to have closed down her studio.
The couple had already paid in full, of course. One wedding planner recommends that couples pay wedding vendors in segments: one-third when signing the contract, one-third on the wedding date, and one-third once all of the items in the contract are delivered.
The photographer got in touch with the TV station, saying that she was intentionally difficult to find because of a situation in her personal life, and that she had two albums ready for the couple in this story to look at. Great! As of last night when the story aired, though, the couple hadn’t seen the alleged albums. They’ll keep waiting…but also plan to file in small claims court.
The problem with that: you need an address where papers can be served, and no one seems to know where this photographer lives or is doing business.
Back in 1921, when Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram and Walter Anderson imagined what their legacy would ultimately be, they probably didn’t believe that the country’s first fast food burger chain would become the subject of a movie about two pot-smoking pals caught up in a raunchy quest for a sack of small, square White Castle burgers.
White Castle may have survived in the fast food industry for nearly 100 years, but the nation’s original burger chain was never even supposed to be. In fact, co-founder Billy Ingram – whose family still manages the company – had planned to work in the insurance business. That is until he met the operator of three hamburger stands in Wichita, KS, in the early 1900s.
After the chance meeting with Walter Anderson, plans changed for Billy Ingram, and along the way, he and Anderson forever changed how Americans eat out.
By all accounts, Ingram and Anderson didn’t have plans to etch their names into the history of American restaurants when they met in 1908.
According to the Columbus Business Journal, Ingram had just become a partner with an insurance company and Anderson ran three small but popular burger stands in the middle of Kansas.
And while Anderson had experience with his own hamburger business under his belt, when he and Ingram set out with $700 to open White Castle in 1921, they were fighting an uphill battle.
To change this perception, the two men began their new restaurant venture with an immaculate-looking small building outfitted with porcelain enamel, steel exteriors, and stainless steel interiors that evoked a sense of cleanliness.
That spotless image was also expected of employees, who were required to be well groomed and outfitted in stain-free uniforms, the Columbus Business Journal reports.
In addition to trying to quell customers’ concerns by pushing the restaurant’s clean, white sterile aesthetic, Ingram and Anderson ramped up the transparency by grinding the beef in full view of the dining area. Customers could see for themselves exactly what went into making their burger patties.
And it worked. Just two years later, White Castle expanded to El Dorado, KS, and then Omaha, NE, to feed customers sacks of 5-cent small burgers (now commonly known as “sliders”), becoming the first fast food hamburger chain in the world, according to the company’s own historical account.
By the end of the decade, the company had restaurants in most major midwest cities, as well as several in the Mid-Atlantic region, including New York and New Jersey.
As Anderson and Ingram expanded their new restaurant venture during the 1920s, the men took special care to ensure the meals customers received at each location were as uniform as possible.
To do so, they created the White Castle System. According to an article from restaurant publication Saveur, the organizational plan allowed cooks at any White Castle location to turn out near-identical small, square burgers on a rather large scale.
The burgers at each location were cooked according to the same recipe and assembly order: ground beef balls placed on a hot grill and topped with thinly shredded onions. The burgers were flipped and squashed into a thin patty. Next, the bottom bun was placed on top of the burger. Finally, a pickle and the top bun were added to complete White Castle’s increasingly popular slider.
That assembly line style – which many have compared to Henry Ford’s revolutionary auto assembly line – helped to usher in the fast food industry as we know it.
But it wasn’t just the burgers that Ingram and Anderson streamlined when they began expanding. They also opened subsidiaries to create prefabricated White Castle buildings, meaning each location looked exactly the same, creating a distinct and immediately recognizable brand.
Although White Castle was enjoying modest growth and business at the start of the 1930s, Ingram and Anderson continued to look for ways to attract new customers.
To further show that burgers weren’t dangerous or undignified, the company commissioned a study in 1930 that tracked the health of a college student eating White Castle sandwiches. According to a company timeline, the University of Minnesota study found that the student – who ate nothing but White Castle hamburgers and water for 13 weeks – was in “top physical health.”
The remainder of the 1930s saw several other changes for White Castle. The company moved its headquarters to Ohio, and shortly there after Ingram bought out Anderson and became the sole owner of White Castle, the Columbus Business Journal reports.
Ingram also closed the restaurants in Wichita and Omaha, two of the company’s smallest markets. To this day, the chain’s birthplace of Wichita — and the entire state of Kansas, for that matter — remains without a White Castle restaurant.
Around that same time, White Castle consolidated its prefabrication operations and its other division that made the distinctive paper hats that workers wore.
But the era of change also provided one of the company’s biggest sales boost, thanks in part to Ingram’s new marketing ploy to entice long-standing and new customers to give White Castle a try: coupons.
The company timeline reports that the coupons could be found in local newspapers and offered customers the ability to buy five hamburgers for just 10-cents each.
The start of the ’40s — and the beginning of World War II — brought more change to the company. While the restaurant had to follow suit and ration beef during the War, it recouped some business by adding hot dogs and fried eggs to the menu.
By 1947, the business was booming and long lines had formed outside locations. To cut down on the wait, the company once again revolutionized its burgers. This time by adding five holes to the patty, reportedly helping it to cook faster and become more flavorful.
The early popularity of White Castle spawned several imitations but they rarely proved to be much competition for the real deal.
Then came the gradual emergence of McDonald’s and other chains that expanded through franchises, which allowed for faster growth and less risk for the parent company, but limits the corporate office’s ability to control every aspect of the business.
Minyanville reports that Ingram steadfastly refused to franchise his restaurant, because doing so meant he wouldn’t be able to oversee every location.
It’s for these reasons, that the company was quickly outpaced by other fast food restaurants and never really had the chance to grow past its regional operations in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic area.
Still, White Castle does boast the distinction of being the first fast food restaurant to sell one billion burgers, a feat reached in 1961, just two years before the much younger McDonald’s would hit that same milestone.
White Castle may not have physical locations in every state like some of its fast food counterparts, yet the company’s presence is felt beyond its buildings.
Beginning in the late ’40s, customers began spreading the White Castle wealth to others by shipping burgers on dry ice, according to the company. Three decades later, White Castle took that idea and made it its own when it began flying burgers all over the country through the “Hamburgers to Fly” program.
In 1987, White Castle moved into the pre-packaged retail business when it launched a line of frozen sliders sold at grocery stores, ensuring that customers thousands of miles away from the nearest location could enjoy the small burgers.
Billy Ingram died in 1966, but his style of management continues at the more than 400 White Castle locations in a dozen states.
Because Ingram never franchised the restaurants or sold the company, White Castle remains privately held and family managed.
After his death, Ingram’s role was taken over by his son E.W. Ingram, Jr., whose own son E.W. Ingram, III followed suit.
The company is now led by its fourth generation of the Ingram family. The Columbus Dispatch reported in 2013, that Lisa Ingram, the great-granddaughter of Billy, had been promoted to president of the company.
But it’s not just the Ingram family that keeps the small chain on consumers’ minds, pop culture has also played a part.
The restaurant has been prominently featured in several songs including those from The Smithereens and the Beastie Boys, as well as on the big screen in the movie Saturday Night Fever.
And, while the company never franchised itself, in 2004 it became the plot point for what became a small movie franchise: Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, and its two subsequent sequels, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.
So whether they know it or not, Ingram and Anderson can be thanked for inspiring this hilariously profane clip that we never tire of watching:
The lawsuit contended that Telebrands’ interactive phone ordering system and business practices violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act by aggressively upselling products; subjecting consumers to a lengthy ordering process; failing to provide a means for consumers to decline offers for additional products; failing to provide consumers with an opportunity to confirm the merchandise order prior to authorizing charges; shipping and billing for additional products that consumers declined to purchase; failing to provide consumers with the total cost of their orders; and failing to provide consumers with an opportunity to speak with a live customer service representative when ordering on the phone.
According to the final consent order [PDF], Telebrands must revise its phone system and websites to, among other things, inform consumers of the cost of their merchandise order, including any shipping and handling charges, prior to consumers authorizing payment. Phone customers must be given the option to speak with a live customer service representative when an order is placed, and they must have a way to decline solicitations for additional merchandise.
In addition to the $550,000 penalty, Telebrands must train its employees on how to not violate the law and pay for a Consumer Affairs Liaison who will be responsible for monitoring the company’s compliance with the settlement terms and applicable laws. The liaison, who must be approved by the state (so don’t just hire your cousin), is also expected to facilitate resolution of consumer complaints and provide quarterly reports to prosecutors.
“We’ve put consumers back in control of the ordering and payment process, through these revisions to Telebrands’ business practices,” said Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman about the settlement. “No longer will consumers find themselves subjected to an onslaught of solicitations for products that they have no interest in, with no way to end the merciless upselling.”
