Blog dedicado a la formación en todos sus ámbitos: presencial, online, a distancia
Last week, the folks at Gamasutra noticed something funny about free-to-play EA game Dungeon Keeper.
When the game asks users of the Android version to rate it, users are only given two options: 5 stars or 1-4 stars:
Clicking on the button marked “5 stars” takes the user to the Google Play store with the hope that a positive review will come of it.
Clicking on the “1-4 stars” button brings up a different message, asking the user to e-mail the company:
@LewieP @RaveofRavendale 4 or less goes here http://t.co/yRaQR70mfj—
mike (@mike_robbo) February 06, 2014
As Gamasutra points out, you’re not locked into a Google Play rating just because you clicked either button, though one would assume that most people who click “5 stars” aren’t doing so sarcastically and that any review they leave at Google Play would be positive. And users who give the game fewer than five stars on the in-app survey are still able to go to Google Play and leave whatever scores and reviews they choose.
However, it does seem to some like a deliberate attempt to steer happy users toward leaving a review while attempting to placate unhappy users by giving them an e-mail outlet to vent their disappointment.
A rep for EA tells Gamasutra that “The ‘rate this app’ feature in the Google Play version of Dungeon Keeper was designed to help us collect valuable feedback from players who don’t feel the game is worth a top rating.”
Last week, the FDA approved Given Imaging’s PillCam COLON for patients who have experienced an incomplete colonoscopy due to anatomy issues, previous surgery, or other colon diseases. Incomplete colonoscopies occur in approximately 750,000 patients each year in the United States, The Associated Press reports.
The device uses a battery-powered camera to take high-speed photos while it takes a leisurely ten-hour ride through a patient’s intestinal tract. The small device is equipped with two miniature color video cameras and an LED light source.
Given first introduced and received FDA approval for a similar pill in 2001, but company studies found the images were no as clear as those from in-office procedures.
The PillCam, which was previously approved in 80 other countries, costs about $500. The going rate for a traditional colonoscopy is about $4,000.
Given Imaging, headquartered in Israel, produces other medical devices including pillcams to screen the small intestine and esophagus.
FDA Approves Pill Camera To Screen Colons [The Associated Press]
Some companies are just too tiny to get the immediate attention of the company’s sales staff, you see. “Before, we ended up with a lot of merchants that’d call in, and we wouldn’t necessarily have someone available right then and there,” the company’s VP of product development explained to Bloomberg Businessweek. A self-service platform, which is popular in Web advertising, would let small businesses create and administer their own deals without an intermediary. That’s a good thing and a bad thing: it opens up the Groupon model to smaller businesses that might not normally try the service. However, if their deals go horribly awry, businesses can’t blame Groupon’s sales staff for over-promising or not explaining things correctly.
Groupon Unveils Self-Service Tool to Draw Merchants to Deal Site [Bloomberg Businessweek]
yWe’ve been hearing reports back from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, from reporters saying their hotel rooms have been, well, less than finished or those that came with beers already under the bed. But it seems athletes aren’t immune from the shoddy shenanigans: over the weekend two different bobsledders had a bit of a close call with malfunctioning parts in the Olympic Village.
Within six minutes of each other on Saturday, bobsledders Rebekah Wilson (Britain) and Johnny Quinn (U.S.) tweeted evidence of some pretty hairy situations.
Wilson tweets that she was greeted with the the abyss of an empty elevator shaft when she walked out her door to find the doors already open into the yawning chasm of doom. Or something like that.
Wowzers! @paulawalkerGB nearly didn't have her brakewomen after walking out into this! http://t.co/7AzRxRsioX—
Rebekah Wilson (@BexGBbobsleigh) February 08, 2014
She explained later that yes, this was in the Olympic Village, but that she didn’t even have to press the call button, the shaft was just… waiting for her.
And then there’s our great American hero Quinn, who found himself trapped in his room’s bathroom when the locked door refused to become unlocked. Despite the lack of protein-filled Greek yogurt, he managed to bust straight through the door in time to make an interview with the Today show that he was perilously close to missing. It’s helpful that the door appears as though it’s partly made with cardboard.
…With no phone to call for help, I used my bobsled push training to break out. #SochiJailBreak http://t.co/apZRefgvCO—
Johnny Quinn (@JohnnyQuinnUSA) February 08, 2014
That shot has been retweeted more than 27,000 times by now, so go ahead and do that if you haven’t already. Because America!
The state’s Organized Crime Task Force announced over the weekend that its actions against illegal cockfighting in Queens, Kings (Brooklyn), and Ulster counties had resulted in nine felony arrests and the rescue of some 3,000 roosters that had been destined for bloody battle.
The first raid happened late Saturday night, early Sunday at a cockfight in Queens that had been operating at that location since May 2013. Authorities initially detained 70 people at the event before ultimately charging six attendees who had brought and fought birds with felony Prohibition of Animal Fighting. The OCTF rescued 65 roosters here.
While this was going on in Queens, the OCTF raided a pet store in Brooklyn, rescuing 50 fighting birds and charging the store’s owner with Prohibition of Animal Fighting. In addition to the roosters, investigators found cockfighting paraphernalia — artificial spurs, candle wax, medical adhesive tape, and syringes used to inject performance-enhancing drugs.
The final raid occurred a couple hours up the Thruway at a 90-acre farm in Plattekill, where thousands of roosters were recovered. Authorities say the farm had operated for years under the guise of a live poultry farm, hiding thousands of cages for cockfighting birds within the center of the property to avoid detection by neighbors and law enforcement. The farm’s manager and a farmhand were arrested.
The OCTF had some help with taking down the cockfighters. The ASPCA provided assistance in the investigation and helped with evidence collection as well as removal and sheltering of the seized animals. Then everyone from the Ulster County Sheriff’s office to the NY State Police to the Department of Homeland Security provided surveillance and assistance in the raids.
“Cockfighting is a cruel, abusive and barbaric practice that tortures animals, endangers the health and safety of the public and is known to facilitate other crimes,” NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “This investigation – one of the largest in U.S. history – illustrates the prevalence of cockfighting in America, its brutal nature and the link to other illegal activities. My office will keep working to hold these individuals accountable, and put an end to illegal cockfighting.”
In New York, cockfighting and possession of a fighting bird at a cockfighting location are felonies, and each charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in jail and a fine of $25,000. Merely attending a cockfight is a misdemeanor and carries a possible sentence of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Last week Subway announced that it would stop using azodicarbonamide, an ingredient known as a dough conditioner that’s also a chemical found in yoga mats, shoe rubber and other synthetic leather. It’s recognized as a safe ingredient in the U.S., but is banned in Europe and Australia as a food additive. But of course, Subway isn’t the only fast food restaurant to use it. So where else can you find azodicarbonamide?
Pretty much everywhere, notes CNBC:
McDonald’s: regular bun, bakery style bun, bagel and English muffin, Big Mac bun and sesame seed bun
Burger King: specialty buns, artisan-style bun, sesame seed bun, croissant, English muffin, home-style Caesar croutons and French toast sticks
Wendy’s: bagel, premium toasted bun, sandwich bun and panini bread
Arby’s: croissant, French toast sticks, harvest wheat bun, honey wheat bread, marble rye bread, mini bun, onion bread and sesame seed bun.
Jack in the Box: bakery style bun, jumbo bun, croissant, grilled sourdough bread and regular bun
Chick-fil-A: chargrilled chicken sandwich, chicken salad sandwich, and chargrilled chicken club sandwich
While Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, Arby’s and Jack in the Box didn’t give CNBC a comment, a few companies did pipe in about using azodicarbonamide, which again, is totally legal in the U.S.
“Azodicarbonamide is commonly used throughout the baked goods industry, and this includes some of the bread goods on our menu,” a McDonald’s spokeswoman said, pointing out that it’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
It sounds like azodicarbonamide will remain on the menu, as Mickey D’s will keep serving “the great tasting, quality food they expect from McDonald’s. This ingredient, like all the ingredients we use, is available to consumers on our website.”
Dunkin’ Donuts also had an answer, writing that “There are trace amounts of azodicarbonamide, a common ingredient approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration, in three Dunkin’ Donuts bakery items, including the Danish, Croissant and Texas Toast. All of our products comply with federal, state and local food safety standards and regulations. We are evaluating the use of the ingredient as a dough conditioner in our products and currently discussing the matter with our suppliers.”
So it sounds like the chemical is here to stay at DD as well.
Over at Starbucks, there’s a change coming as the chain is transitioning the chemical out of its foods like the butter croissants and chocolate croissants.
“Our new La Boulange Bakery goods do not contain the ingredients. Our goal is to transition all the stores to La Boulange. We’re about halfway through that transition,” a Starbucks spokeswoman told CNBC.
What’s the big deal, anyway, if it’s legal for use in food? The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest is lobbying the United States Department of Agriculture to consider putting the kibosh in it, saying that when the chemical is baked in bread it produces the carcinogen urethane and “leads to slightly increased levels of urethane in bread that pose a small risk to humans” when azodicarbonamide is used at its maximum limit.
A World Health Organization report states: “Case reports and epidemiological studies in humans have produced abundant evidence that azodicarbonamide can induce asthma, other respiratory symptoms, and skin sensitization in exposed workers. Adverse effects on other systems have not been studied.”
Whether you care about it or not, it’s always better to know what’s in your food and then make a decision whether or not to eat it. The more you knoooooow [cue shooting star, rainbow].
That Chemical Subway Ditched? McDonald’s, Wendy’s Use it Too [CNBC]
The AP reviewed air safety documents and media reports for the last two decades and found at least 150 incidents in which a commercial flight either landed at the incorrect airport or began to land before realizing a mistake was made.
According to the AP, many of these goofed landings and approaches occurred at night when a pilot sees an airport’s runway lights and mistakenly believes that it is the one at which he’s supposed to land. And in almost all cases, the air traffic controller on the ground gave the pilot clearance to land based on what the pilot sees and relays to the controller, rather than any automated system.
“You’ve got these runway lights, and you are looking at them, and they’re saying: ‘Come to me, come to me. I will let you land.’ They’re like the sirens of the ocean,” explains a former Air Force pilot who now teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California.
“Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” isn’t just a Burt Bacharach/Hal David/Dionne Warwick classic, it’s also a valid question to ask of several pilots who have confused the runway at San Jose’s Moffett Field with the nearby Mineta San Jose International Airport.
In a 2012 report discovered by the AP, a San Jose air traffic controller writes that airport confusion “occurs several times every winter in bad weather,” with planes being cleared to land at Mineta while they were actually preparing to land at Moffett.
And San Jose isn’t alone in this sort of mix-up. Last summer, a commercial flight headed for San Antonio International in Texas was actually about to land at Lackland Air Force Base. Someone pointed this out at the last minute to the pilot, who aborted the landing and headed to the correct airport. When he spoke to the San Antonio tower about the goof, he recalled that “They did not seem too concerned…. and said this happens rather frequently there.”
While the AP found 35 mistaken landings and 115 approaches at wrong airports in news reports and NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, it believes there are others, as reports to the NASA database are voluntary. Reporters requested FAA documents that would reveal a more accurate number but were turned down, claiming that some of the information in those reports may be used in eventual enforcement actions against pilots.
The potential problems with landing at the wrong airport don’t just involve having to move passengers and cargo to the correct destination or the embarrassment of admitting an error.
A training captain for a major airline explains to the AP that when a pilot lands at the wrong airport, they don’t know the length or condition of the runway on which they are about to touch down.
“There could be a bloody big hole in the middle of the runway,” he says. “There could be a barrier across it. There could be vehicles working on it.”
From an FAQ sheet handed out to people curious about the store’s name and branding:
“By adding the word ‘dumb’, we are technically ‘making fun’ of Starbucks, which allows us to use their trademarks under a law known as ‘fair use’. Fair use is a doctrine that permits use of copyrighted material in a parodical work without permission from the rights holder. It’s the same law that allows Weird Al Yankovic to use the music from Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ in his parody song ‘Eat It”.
The owners of the business may be shooting themselves in the feet with a later statement in this same FAQ. In response to the question, “Are you saying Starbucks is dumb?” they write, “Not at all. In fact, we love Starbucks and look up to them as role models. Unfortunately, the only way to use their intellectual property under fair use is if we are making fun of them. So the word ‘dumb’ comes out of necessity, not enmity.”
Starbucks has so far only said that it’s “looking into” the matter, but given that the coffee chain spent the better part of a decade trying — but failing — to stop a small New Hampshire coffee company from selling a dark roast dubbed “Charbucks,” we imagine a legal letter is on the way to this one-off coffee shop.
In the Charbucks case, the name was a direct parody both of the Starbucks name and of its reputation for very darkly roasted coffee blends. The makers of Charbucks also did not attempt to brand their product using the Starbucks logo or font, so the court repeatedly held that the Charbucks name was “not likely to impair the distinctiveness of the famous Starbucks marks.”
Here are some photos from inside the Dumb Starbucks:
Enjoy our full menu of coffees and cold drinks http://t.co/wPacrEEH9k—
Dumb Starbucks (@dumbstarbucks) February 08, 2014
L.A.’s ‘Dumb Starbucks’ Imitates the Real Thing [WSJ.com]
A Mysterious New Coffee Shop Called ‘Dumb Starbucks’ Is Baffling Los Angeles [SFgate.com]
