uAT&T, Uber Team Up To Stream College Football Games On Your Next Ride Across Townr

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  The next time you have to trek across down during the big game, you might not have to worry about missing any extraordinary plays: Uber and AT&T have struck a deal to stream college football games in some of the vehicles operated through the ride-hailing service. 

  AT&T announced today that it will partner with Uber to conduct a two-month, Saturdays-only test allowing passenger to watch college football games while on the move in Nashville, Detroit, Atlanta and Houston, Reuters reports.

  Under the program, a limited number of Chevy Tahoe SUVs will include four tablets mounted on the vehicle’s headrests.

  The devices will come equipped with AT&T wireless connectivity and the company’s U-Verse app so that passengers can easily stream live college football games. The cars will also come with wireless headphones so users can also listen to the games, too.

  For now, there is no additional cost for the feature, but riders will have to click on a custom tab within the Uber app to hail one of the connected cars.

  To add a bit of incentive for consumers interested in hailing a ride in one of the cars, AT&T says that former football stars will make surprise appearances in the back seats.

  AT&T, Uber to test college football streaming in connected cars [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uRaiders Of The Lost Walmart Find Strange And Useless WebTVr

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• Do you remember the WebTV? You may not have even known anyone who used them, but they were a device that turned a regular TV into a slow Internet terminal. Some people who find computers intimidating really liked the idea. However, they should not pick up this unit that Liz found on the shelf at her local Walmart, mostly because there’s not much you can do with it.

  Microsoft owned WebTV, and they shut down the service that powers the device more than two years ago. Much of the technology that went into the WebTV ended up in the Xbox or in set-top boxes.

  The retail price of the WebTV was about $200 when it was on the market. How much is Walmart selling it for now that the product has possibly been sitting on a shelf for 10 years, and can’t actually connect to the Internet?

  

  

  

  Some readers inevitably accuse Raiders of the Lost Walmart tipsters of sending us old photos, maybe from 2006 in this case. Here’s a close-up of the price sticker that shows the date it was printed.

  

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFinal US Airways Flight On Roundtrip Journey Between San Francisco And Philadelphia Todayr

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  The last US Airways flight ever took to the skies this morning in Philadelphia for a roundtrip journey to San Francisco and back again: Flight 1939 — named for the airline’s founding year — left 31 minutes late at 10:36 a.m. and will be making scheduled stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, Phoenix and San Francisco before returning to Philly as a red-eye flight on Saturday.

  To commemorate US Airways’ last day flying the friendly skies, American is setting up gate-side celebrations at each stop along the way. Passengers on the final leg from San Francisco will toast the old airline’s name with an onboard Champagne toast as well.

  “We definitely wanted to give a nod to US Airways and everyone that helped us build this airline,” American Airlines spokeswoman Martha Thomas told USAToday. “We wanted to make it a special experience for employees and customers.”

  Tonight at midnight, US Airways’ reservation system will merge with American Airlines, and its website will follow. Airline staff at airports around the country will be taking down US Airways signs and branding after the last flights on Friday, with the goal to have American Airlines signage up in time for Saturday morning’s flights.

  This is all part of the final act in the $17.7 billion US Airways/American Airlines merger that was finalized back in 2013. However, it’ll still take some time for US Airways planes to get their new paint jobs, American says, and US Airways flight attendant uniforms will also stick around for a bit until crew members get updated outfits.

  US Airways’ final flight closes curtain on another major airline [USAToday]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uEgg Prices Went Up Yet Again Last Month — But Relief Could Be In Sightr

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  The bad news: the after shocks of the avian flu outbreak that hit U.S. farms this year continue to linger, with egg prices increasing yet again in September. The good news: prices should start to fall, experts say, just in time for prime holiday baking season.

  The Labor Department reported its biggest year-over-year increase of 2015 for egg prices last month, with the average price nationwide for a dozen eggs rising to $2.97, up from $2.94 in August and a 50.6% spike over September 2014, reports the Chicago Tribune.

  Respite from high prices is likely on the horizon, according to Rick Brown, senior vice president of commodity market analysis firm Urner Barry. He told the Tribune that he thinks prices will decline before the end of 2015 as farmers start restocking their bird populations as they recover from losing almost 50 million chickens in the midst of the avian flu. Price increases are staying relatively low due to imported eggs from Europe and Mexico, as well.

  “We’ve reached the point where the price is starting to flow down,” Brown told the Tribune.

  It’s good timing, too: people love baking during the holidays when it’s cold outside and cozy inside. Demand might not be as high as usual as consumers shy away from high prices, however. Food producers are instead turning to egg substitutes and fewer whole eggs to save cash.

  In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been throwing money at the problem, reporting that it spent an estimated $500 million trying to flush out every trace of the flu from U.S. farms. That effort could pay off.

  “The worst is behind us, provided we don’t have another outbreak,” Brown said.

  Fingers (and feathers) crossed.

  Egg prices jump again, but relief may be on the way [Chicago Tribune]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uMicrosoft Trade-In Program Pays $200 For Your Old Windows Laptop, $300 For A MacBookr

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• Microsoft is hoping a $200 trade-in offer will help convince current Windows users to stick around, and that $300 is enough to win over Mac users.

  Microsoft launched the Easy Trade Up promotion on its website Friday, giving customers the opportunity to earn cash for trading in their older laptop – even a Mac – and buying a new Windows 10 machine.

  Under the program, the company will hand over between $200 for older Microsoft computers and $300 for MacBooks if customers buy a qualifying computer (priced $600 or more) from the Microsoft store before October 20 and send in their older machines.

  

  There are a few conditions for the program, of course: trade-ins have to be under six years old and in working order with a minimum display size of 11.6 inches.

  It’s unclear if customers have to foot the bill for mailing in their old computers or if Microsoft will send back the devices if they are deemed unfit for trade-in. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for clarification on these issues and will update the post when we hear back.

  The Verge points out that the deal is similar to others that Microsoft has used to drum up sales in the past. The company previously offered $200 rebates for iPads traded in for Surface tablets and $100 rebates for PS3 users who switched to the Xbox One.

  [via The Verge]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uAtlanta Comcast Customers Can Pay $35 Fee To Avoid Data Cap Overage Feesr

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  In markets where Comcast is testing its “data thresholds” (read: hard data caps), it’s also been trying out a so-called “Unlimited” offering where customers pay even more money to avoid paying more money. In Florida, where Unlimited first launched, Comcast priced that program at $30, but the good people of Atlanta will have to pay even more to avoid paying more.

  DSLreports.com notes that Atlanta has been added to the list of markets where Comcast markets itself as the gateway to all the cool high-speed entertainment on the Internet but wants to limit and monetize customers’ access to those things.

  Without the Unlimited option, customers who hit their 300GB monthly cap are billed $10 for every 50GB they go past the cap. With the Unlimited plan, customers pay $30-35/month for the right to disregard that data cap.

  But if you consider that a typical broadband-only plan from Comcast costs around $75/month, that $35 fee for Atlanta residents is probably about half of what many of them are already paying for Internet access each month. That’s effectively a price increase to get the same level of service that Comcast customers in other parts of the country receive.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uSketchy 10% Of Doctors Are Writing More Than 50% Of Painkiller Prescriptionsr

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  While most doctors try to honor their oath to do no harm, some physicians just want to be paid (or are really, really, just horrible at their jobs). Take, for example, the 1-in-10 doctors responsible for writing the majority of painkiller prescriptions.

  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently looked at painkiller prescription patterns in eight states — California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, and West Virginia — and found that a small percentage of doctors are writing a significantly large percentage of these prescriptions.

  Anywhere from 49.6% (Idaho) to 65.9% (Delaware) of opioid prescriptions in these states were written by only 10% of physicians. The top 20% of doctors account for more than two-thirds of painkiller prescriptions in all of these states and more than three-quarters of prescriptions in six of the eight states.

  In Delaware, more than 25% of opioid prescriptions come from only 1% of the state’s physicians. In Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, this elite class of sketchy doctor is responsible for at least 20% of painkiller prescriptions.

  And these doctors are also writing prescriptions with substantially larger daily dosages. The more frequently a physician prescribed opioids, the higher the dosage tended to be. In general, the dosages prescribed by prescription-happy physicians were about double their more conservative colleagues.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist