uCoca-Cola Tripling Number Of Names For Next “Share A Coke” Campaignr

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  (Robert Fairchild)

  
  
  
  Last summer, Coca-Cola briefly reversed a decade of sagging sales by slapping a bunch of peoples’ first names on Coke bottles and telling folks to share on social media. And because all follow-ups to successful campaigns must be bigger than the original, the beverage giant is tripling the number of names that will be slapped on bottles when the sequel arrives this summer.
  

  For the 2014 version of the soda equivalent of miniature license plates you buy at roadside souvenir shops, Coca-Cola used 250 of the most common first names among the target teen/millennial market.

  
  

  AdAge reports that this number will at least triple, perhaps giving hope to all the Borts out there that they may someday stumble upon a bottle of sugar water with their name printed on it.

  
  

  In addition to amping up the name coverage, the names will appear on a wider variety of packaging. Last year, only 20 oz. Coke bottles were involved in the promotion (though some cans carried generic terms like “BFF” and “High Fructose Corn Syrup”).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uCalifornia’s Denim Industry Trying To Get That Distressed Look Without Using Water During Droughtr

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  (stevendepolo)

  
  
  
  California is in the middle of a long drought right now, with state officials asking everyone to pitch in and do their best to conserve water. But that’s a bit tricky for the state’s denim industry, which produces about 75% of the “premium” jeans sold worldwide. Because getting that expensive, distressed vintage look is all about washing… and washing again, and again. With water, of course, which is in short supply.
  

  Some companies are now investing in waterless technology as an alternate to washing and distressing denim with water, reports MarketWatch, along with advising consumers to only wash their jeans after 10 wears instead of the common two-wear-and-wash routine.

  
  

  So-called premium denim is used to make jeans costing anywhere upwards of $100 sold by companies like 7 for All Mankind, True Religion and J. Brand. Repeated washing with stones, or bleaching and dyeing the denim creates that ideal look.

  
  

  “(The) water issue in fashion in Los Angeles is a big deal,” John Blank, economic adviser to the California Fashion Association, a trade group, told MarketWatch. Making premium denim “requires water. It is all about that processing. It is the repeated washing to get the premium look. This is what people pay for.”

  
  

  He says Southern California produces 75% of the high-end denim in the U.S. that’s sold around the world, employing about 200,000 people in the area., making it the largest U.S. fashion manufacturing hub, said Blank.

  
  

  One company called Blue Creations of California Inc. does garment washing and dyeing for several upscale brands, and is now planning on buying a second “ozone machine” soon. Those machines use ozone gas to get the stonewashed look without using water, the company says.

  
  

  Since it purchased its first ozone machine four years ago, the company says it’s cut its water usage by as much as 50%.

  
  

  “The drought is definitely having an impact on design and on the manufacturing process of garments,” a company rep said.

  
  

  Some companies that send their denim to Blue Creations have even required that it use the ozone machine in most styles, which only adds up to about $1 more in cost per item for customers.

  
  

  Levi is also using the ozone machines to replace the bleach it used to use to lighten denim, and is cutting down on how many times it washes jeans as well. Last year, Levi CEO Chip Bergh urged people to stop washing their jeans to cut down on water usage, saying people can just dry and spot clean then instead.

  
  

  Why the fashion industry is eyeing the California drought impact closely [MarketWatch]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uFCC Looking Into Verizon “Supercookies” That Track Wireless Users’ Behaviorr

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  (Mike Mozart)
  

  
  
  
  For years, the Internet behavior of all Verizon Wireless smartphone customers was being tracked by “supercookies” on their devices that they could not opt out of. After the tracking became public knowledge, the company recently gave its customers a way to shake off the invasive snooping, but that isn’t stopping the FCC from looking into whether the program violated federal guidelines.
  

  The Hill reports that FCC Chair Tom Wheeler recently sent letters [PDF] to various U.S. Senators who had expressed concerns about Verizon supercookies, which append an invisible header to all web traffic coming out of your phone.

  
  

  The tracker, called a UIDH (unique ID header) is consistent and permanent. Unlike regular site tracking code, clearing out your cookies and upping your privacy settings doesn’t do anything about these. And they build a comprehensive, unique, entirely trackable history of basically everything you’ve ever Googled or visited on your phone.

  
  

  “[W]e are looking specifically into carriers’ injection of header information and the collection and use of information about their subscribers’ Internet activity,” writes Wheeler. “As you suggest, we will be considering the extent to which our rules and policies relating to consumer privacy, data security, and transparency may be implicated.”

  
  

  Fiercewireless notes that AT&T engaged in a similar tracking program, but discontinued it in 2014.

  
  

  Verizon continues to use the supercookies, but now gives users the ability to opt out.

  
  

  To opt out of the supercookies, Verizon Wireless users can log into the company’s website and change the setting under “Customer Privacy Settings.” Under that category, you’ll want Relevant Mobile Advertising to get rid of the supercookie. You may also want to consider using this opportunity to opt out of the other two listed programs: CPNI settings and Business and Marketing Reports.

  
  

  Verizon customers can also call 1-866-211-0874 to opt out of the RMA program.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uTime Warner Cable Promises Free Internet Speed Boost To Charlotte Customers Before Google Moves Inr

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  (Photo Nut 2011)

  
  
  
  The new rule of the internet might well be: where Google goes, competition flows to follow. And so, Time Warner Cable customers in Charlotte are about to see a big boost in internet speeds long before a Fiber rollout comes to their town.
  

  Time Warner Cable announced the upgrade to “TWC Maxx” this week, for customers in the Charlotte area.

  
  

  The move is similar to what TWC has done in Austin (also a Google Fiber city) and has promised to do in New York and L.A..

  
  

  Although the name sounds like an “adult” on-demand channel, the “Maxx” plan is basically an upgrade taking the local network to all-digital delivery, instead of analog, which basically frees up bandwidth on the existing network for increasing internet speeds for consumers. According to TWC, internet customers at all subscription levels will see speed increases, ranging up to 300 Mbps for the top tier, appear for free beginning “this summer.”

  
  

  Granted that 300 Mbps is nowhere near as fast as the gigabit (1000 Mbps) fiber Google is planning to bring to Charlotte, but it is certainly much faster than TWC’s current 50 Mbps ceiling. It also has the extremely beneficial factors of “no additional charge over my current bill” and “I don’t have to do anything to make this happen” going for it for current TWC subscribers. That doesn’t mean bills won’t keep going up over time (because they will), but it sure beats having to sign up for a new service that isn’t even rolled out yet.

  
  

  TWC’s move feels like one farther step in a path that Google seems to be carving nationwide: a swath of cities seeing improved service, and price parity, in the face of actual competition from internet providers. Most of us live in monopoly, or at best duopoly, territory for broadband providers.

  
  

  But when Google announces plans to expand into a new market, competitors either strive to dive in first, like Comcast in Atlanta, or drop prices to match, like AT&T in Austin and Kansas City.

  
  

  In short, even customers who don’t sign up with Google benefit from Google’s entrance into their local markets. Almost as if competition is a real and valuable thing that spurs businesses to offer better service, at better prices, to consumers.

  
  

  [via DSL Reports]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uSomeone’s Actually Doing Something Good With Leftover Hotel Soapsr

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  (CleantheWorld.org)

  
  
  
  Because no one wants to arrive in their hotel room and find used soap awaiting them in the shower, guests are always given a fresh bar upon checking in. While many of those partially used bars surely end up wasted in the trash, one non-profit group is collecting a bunch of leftover hotel soaps to help people in need.
  

  Clean the World started seven years ago, founded by a tech company worker who traveled often. He tells the Associated Press he was hit with a thought one night while staying at a Minneapolis hotel.

  
  

  “I picked up the phone and called the front desk and asked them what happens to the bar of soap when I’m done using it,” recalled Shawn Seipler, the group’s CEO. “They said they just threw it away.”

  
  

  He did some research and found that millions of used bars of soap from hotels around the world end up in landfills every day. Meanwhile, people in developing nations are dying from illnesses that could be prevented simply with better access to personal hygiene products.

  
  

  That’s how Clean the World began, and it has now expanded to include industrial recycling facilities in Las Vegas, Orlando and Hong Kong, places where there are plenty of hotels and used bars of soap can be collected by the thousands. Heck, they’ll even take half-used bottled shampoos and the like as well.

  
  

  Though people in the U.S. and other developed countries might take hygiene products for granted due to their ubiquity, soap and other items aren’t as plentiful in many other nations.

  
  

  “A lot of people are surprised to find out that one of the most effective ways to prevent many deaths is actually just hand-washing with soap,” Global Soap director Sam Stephens said. “We’re hoping to make a difference.”

  
  

  Clean the World announced this week that it’s teaming up with another initiative called Global Soap to step up production, hygiene education and delivery to those in need.

  
  

  Together, they say they’re now collecting used soap from more than 4,000 hotels, and have delivered about 25 million bars to 99 countries, as well as homeless shelters right here in the U.S.

  
  

  Here’s how it works: The soap is collected, shredded, run through machines that get rid of any residual bacteria another guest may have left, and then get shaped into new bars and packaged up. People get soap to wash their hands and possibly prevent the spread of common infectious diseases, and everyone wins.

  
  

  Group hopes recycled hotel soap helps save lives worldwide [Associated Press]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCountdown Clock For Real Net Neutrality Lawsuits Starts Mondayr

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  (Steve)

  
  
  
  The Net Neutrality rules narrowly approved by the FCC in February and made public in March will finally become part of the Federal Register on Monday, kicking off a 60-day countdown clock for everyone and their Aunt Peg to file a lawsuit to try to block, neuter, or gut the new regulations.
  

  28 U.S.C. § 2344 sets up a 60-day window for “Any party aggrieved” by a finalized federal order to “file a petition to review the order” with a federal appeals court.

  
  

  With the neutrality rules officially becoming part of the Federal Register on April 13, that means telecom and Internet companies seeking to block them from being enforced have until mid-June to get their petitions in.

  
  

  While it was a lawsuit brought by Verizon that ultimately gutted the 2010 neutrality rules, it seems unlikely that individual companies will put themselves out there as the ones looking to kill the order.

  
  

  Instead, as we recently wrote, the more likely candidates for going to war with the FCC are industry trade groups like the wireless industry’s CTIA and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which primarily represents the cable industry.

  
  

  It’s expected that the plaintiffs in these cases will contend that the FCC failed to give the industry proper notice in advance of passing the new rules. They will likely argue that the initial draft rules proposed by FCC Chair Tom Wheeler — which included some allowance for controversial Internet “fast lanes,” where ISPs can charge content providers for improved access to end-users — are so different than what was ultimately voted on by the Commission that more time was needed.

  
  

  There will also be the argument that the FCC lacks statutory authority to reclassify broadband service as telecommunications infrastructure.

  
  

  When the 2010 rules were gutted, it was because Verizon successfully argued that the FCC could not impose strict neutrality regulations because broadband was not classified the same way that more highly regulated telephone services are. And so the FCC, in creating the new rules, reclassified broadband to recognize its vital importance to the public.

  
  

  The FCC is within its rights to reclassify broadband; the plaintiffs will have to prove that the reclassification wasn’t justified or that the Commission erred in the process of reclassification.

  
  

  A pair of early lawsuits have already been filed by a telecom industry trade group and a Texas-based broadband company no one outside of San Antonio has ever heard of. Those petitions were filed within a 10-day window detailed in 28 U.S.C. § 2112(a) just in case the “declaratory ruling” sections of the rule were actually considered finalized on March 12 when the FCC published the full text of the order on its site.

  
  

  The two lawsuits have since been consolidated into one case that is now before a federal appeals court in D.C., though some legal experts say it’s likely the complaints will be dismissed for being filed too early.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uFormer TV Pitchman Heading To Trial After Refusing To Admit He Kicked An Owl While Paraglidingr

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  (YouTube)

  
  
  
  Folks from Utah might remember the zany owner of the now defunct Totally Awesome Computer Chain for his series of wacky commercials. The former TV pitchman and paragliding aficionado is back in the spotlight now as he heads to trial, accused of kicking a barn owl in flight while he soared through the air.
  

  Though Dell “Super Dell” Schanze was originally on board for a plea deal in the case, that fell through as he failed to admit that he’d knowingly harassed the owl in February or March of 2011, reports the Associated Press. In order to have a plea deal, he’d have to acknowledge that he’d done so, as a U.S. District judge pointed out to him.

  
  

  But he said he refused to admit to a crime that he said would make him appear to be the kind of awful person who goes around kicking avians.

  
  

  “Do you not see the conundrum?” Schanze told the judge. “I’m not an evil, horrible guy and I’m not going to lie.”

  
  

  The judge replied that no one was accusing him of being evil, and that he didn’t have to accept the plea deal if he didn’t want to.

  
  

  After Schanze, who’s facing a misdemeanor charge charge of knowingly using an aircraft to harass wildlife and pursuing a migratory bird, again refused to admit to booting the owl, the judge ordered the case to go to trial April 20.

  
  

  The charges were filed in October after a federal investigation into a video posted online that seems to show a paragalider near Utah Lake kicking an owl in flight and then bragging about it.

  
  

  Schanze closed his computer store chain in 2006 amid slow sales and legal trouble. This isn’t his first brush with the law over paragliding activities — he was charged in 2006 with disorderly conduct after buzzing traffic during rush hour, and received a $300 fine. A fan paid that off.

  
  

  In 2011, he was arrested in Oregon after a video appeared to show him illegally jumping off the 125-foot-tall Astoria Column with a parachute.

  
  

  Here’s a taste of his past TV work:

  
  
  

  Former TV pitchman will go to trial in owl harassment case [Associated Press]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist