Blog dedicado a la formación en todos sus ámbitos: presencial, online, a distancia
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Una infografía con 10 diferencias entre lo que quieren los universitarios y lo empleadores. Vía
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10 diferencias entre lo que quieren los universitarios y lo empleadores
Hola:
Una infografía sobre la película “Amanecer del Planeta de los simios” en Redes Sociales. Vía
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La película “Amanecer del Planeta de los simios” en Redes Sociales
A class action suit against Google involves the in-app purchase of currency for the game Marvel Run Jump Smash.
Reuters reports that a U.S. district court in San Jose ruled that Google must face a class action lawsuit filed by a New York woman earlier this year.
The suit [PDF] was filed in San Francisco by a mother who says that one of her young boys ran up $65.95 in in-app purchases while playing the game Marvel Run Jump Smash on her Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet.
“Prior to the purchase of an App, Google requires account holders to enter their password,” reads the complaint. “However, once the account holder enters the password, he or she (or… his or her minor child) could make purchases for up to 30 minutes without re-entering the password. Thus, a parent could enter his or her password to permit a child to download a free gaming App, and then allow the child to download and play the game. What Google did not tell parents, however, is that their child was then able to purchase Game Currency for 30 minutes without any supervision, oversight or authorization.”
The federal judge Monday denied Google’s motions to dismiss portions of the case that alleged its advertisements were “unfair, deceptive or misleading” and allegations that Google breached the “duty of good faith and fair dealing.”
Google is just the latest company taken to task over in-app purchases.
In June 2013, Apple settled a class-action lawsuit over in-app purchases made by children on their parents’ phones and tablets. Then in January, the company reached a deal with the Federal Trade Commission in which it would issue at least $32.5 million in refunds to consumers.
Earlier this month, the FTC sued Amazon in federal court related to an investigation into the e-tailer’s in-app purchase policy that essentially allows children to make unauthorized purchases.
Google must face class action over kids’ in-apps purchases [Reuters]
(CBS DFW)
Shopping at Costco is pretty great, but that doesn’t mean you should bring your dog along on your shopping trip, then leave it in your vehicle with the temperature outside in the 90s. The same goes for your very young and very old loved ones. Come to think of it, just don’t lock anyone in the car. An elderly woman and a dog are both still alive because authorities intervened and got them both out.
A passing shopper filmed an Animal Services employee breaking the windows of a van in Plano, Texas over the weekend. “I was hot, and I could only imagine what the dog was going through,” the shopper noted. An Animal Services employee said that while they would have preferred not to break into the vehicle, the dog was becoming distressed, panting rapidly. He had been left with a cup of water, and the van’s windows were all closed.
Animal Services now has the dog, because it turns out that he didn’t belong to the owner of the van. The family claimed to have found him as a stray recently, and the city is looking for his owner(s). The dog will go up for adoption if they can’t be found. The people who locked the animal in the van received a citation for animal cruelty, and the city is not responsible for the expense of repairing the broken window.
Meanwhile, police were summoned to a casino in Maryland when someone reported an elderly woman sitting alone inside of a locked truck in the parking garage. It was about eighty degrees inside the closed vehicle, and she had been waiting there for five hours while her son was inside gambling. When police found him, they arrested him for vulnerable adult neglect, as well as an unrelated outstanding warrant.
Sitting in a hot car is a miserable experience even if you’re a young and healthy adult human. Don’t leave vulnerable elders, children, and animals in your vehicle.
Police: Man Left His Elderly Mom in Hot Car While at Md. Casino [CBS Washington]
Plano Man Breaks Into Hot Van To Rescue Dog [CBS DFW]
The In A Snap app allows customers to take a picture of a target advertisement to immediately purchase the item and have it shipped to their home, the retailer announced in a blog post.
The snap and shop technology isn’t just relegated to the retailer’s weekly ads, customers scanning the latest editions of Real Simple, Architectural Digest and Domino magazines can take photos of print ads to purchase products, as well.
Officials with Target say the app is an example of the company’s “test-and-learn” approach to reaching digitally savvy customers.
Earlier this year, the company created one big advertisement by connecting an episode of TBS’s Cougar Town with items from a home decor line at the store.
Viewers watching the show online could click on a decor piece with a flashing red plus sign and be taken to the product’s page to make the purchase.
It appears that In A Snap is currently only available on iOS supported electronics, but officials with Target say if the launch goes smoothly they plan to expand its offerings and the number of adds that can be snapped.
Target Testing Image Recognition App for Easy Mobile Shopping [Target]
Evol does not make burritos for hamsters. Yet. (YouTube)
No, no, that “equipment” was not the company’s burritos. Police say that the high carbon monoxide levels in the building may have come from the large batteries that power their forklifts, which had been recharging inside the building. Police didn’t specify where those forklifts were, only that they give off gas while charging.
Paramedics checked 70 employees for signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, and sent 6 to a local hospital. The facility re-opened and burrito-making resumed after the emergency responders aired out the building. Employees sent to the hospital were released later the same afternoon as well.
The company says that it will investigate what caused such a severe leak.
Carbon monoxide exposure at Boulder’s Evol Foods sends 6 to hospital [Boulder Daily Camera]
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Una infografía con los Posibles modelos del iPhone 6. Vía
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Posibles modelos del iPhone 6
The Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2015, which passed the House last week and currently awaits Senate action, includes language that would place new restrictions on some of the federal military benefits currently used toward for-profit education.
The provision, which was introduced by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, changes the language of the “90/10 rule” – used to cap for-profit colleges’ federal funding – to include the Defense Department’s voluntary military education programs.
The current federal 90/10 rule is a provision in the law that bars for-profit colleges and universities from deriving more than 90% of their revenue from the U.S. Department of Education’s federal student aid programs. The other 10% needs to come from sources other than the federal government.
Currently, tuition assistance for servicemembers and MyCAA for their spouses are not included in the 90/10 calculation. Durbin and others believe the omission of these programs make servicemembers and their families vulnerable to aggressive recruitment by for-profit colleges.
If passed, the proposed legislation would also prevent these funds from being used for advertising and marketing purposes while requiring the Department of Defense to better track how the Tuition Assistance and MyCAA funding is being spent by for-profit colleges.
None of the funds made available by this Act… may be disbursed or delivered to an institution of higher education… unless the institution certifies to the Secretary of Defense that it will not use revenues derived from educational assistance funds provided in any form under any Federal law for advertising, marketing or student recruitment activities.
Durbin says in a news release that the recent failure of Corinthian Colleges Inc., its less than savory reputation and the fact that its schools have continued recruitment of students underscores the provision’s importance.
A recent Military Times article reported that the CCI-operated Heald College and Wyotech representatives were actively recruiting servicemembers at education events at four military bases just last week.
“Before signing up for class and student debt, every student should know Corinthian schools are going out of business,” Durbin says. “While my bill would bring much-needed long-term reform to the for-profit college industry, it can’t prevent students from enrolling in a failed for-profit college tomorrow. The Department of Education and state agencies around the country need to put an end to all new Corinthian College enrollments as several states have already done.”
Durbin Legislation Would Help Curb Predatory Marketing Of Armed Forces By For-Profit Colleges [Sen. Dick Durbin]
Here’s a letter sent to a Consumerist reader in 2013, reminding him to re-opt-out of BofA junk mail, even though he was no longer a customer.
We first wrote about this last year, when a Consumerist reader — who wasn’t even a Bank of America customer anymore — received a letter from BofA reminding him that his 5-year-old junk mail opt-out with the bank was set to expire and that he’d have to contact BofA if he didn’t want to get back on the list of useless mailings that go right into the shredder.
In today’s L.A. Times, David Lazarus takes a closer look at the situation, pointing out that it’s not just BofA that puts a time clock on customers’ opt-out preferences. In fact, he writes that Wells Fargo’s opt-out only lasts for three years, meaning you’ll be saying “no” to WF junk mail more frequently than you’ll be watching the U.S. lose (or fight to a glorious draw) at the World Cup.
A rep for BofA tells Lazarus that the auto opt-out is really all about you, the customer, who Bank of America loves so much.
“We update consumer preferences on direct-mail solicitations every five years because individuals’ preferences may change in the interim and we want to make sure we have current information,” explains the rep.
Yes, the reason you haven’t bought your first home is because you opted out of bank junk mail and don’t know that Bank of America — which has been in the headlines on a regular basis for the last five years because of it mortgage practices — offers home loans.
Lazarus suggests a couple of ways to cut down on junk mail:
• OptOutPrescreen.com is a site operated by the nation’s biggest credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion. It allows you to opt out electronically of most credit and insurance junk mail for five years. If you want to nix these mailings on a more permanent basis, you’ll need to do so in writing.
• DMAchoice.org is run by the junk mail trade group, the Direct Marketing Association. It allows you to opt out of a wide variety of junk mail from the DMA’s 3,600 companies and organizations.
We don’t know if either of these will help if some jerk who controls the mailing list changes your last name to “Is A Slut.”
Prepaid debit cards may offer a convenient alternative for unbanked consumers, but there are often unexpected costs buried in all the fine print of the cards’ disclosure documents that most people never read. It doesn’t need to be that way.
Today, the Pew Charitable Trusts unveiled the above video comparing a typical prepaid card packaging to their own disclosure box that aims provide easy comparison of prepaid card fees and terms and conditions.
The video features two consumers, Lisa and Jim, who are purchasing prepaid cards to better budget their expenses for a vacation. While Lisa’s prepaid card uses the Pew disclosure box, Jim’s does not.
Jim’s “typical” prepaid card box only lists some of the fees associated with the card. To see the full list of fees, Jim has to purchase the card and then read the fine print on a hard to find Terms and Conditions paper.
While Jim’s struggling to read his card’s fine print, Lisa is off enjoying a Hawaiian vacation.
“We wanted to show in a very accessible way how the disclosure would work,” Susan Weinstock, director of consumer banking research for Pew, tells Consumerist. “We thought doing something fun and engaging would provide that opportunity.”
Although the short video may not be groundbreaking, it does get the point across that prepaid cards can be tricky products to invest in; because there are no federal laws or regulations to protect consumers who use the cards, they could be subjected to hidden fees, unauthorized transactions, or loss of funds.
The video is Pew’s latest effort to bring awareness to the hidden dangers of prepaid cards. Back in February, Pew unveiled the model disclosure box in conjunction with a study detailing the lack of transparency in current card disclosures.
“Many prepaid cards have summary disclosures and leave other fees buried in terms of conditions, or in longer complicated disclosures that are harder to reach – either online or in the case of retail you have to open the package,” Thaddeus King, senior reseacher for consumer banking tells Consumerist.
Pew’s disclosure box – which shouldn’t be confused with a similar box that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on – fits on the inside flap of the existing card packaging, making it more convenient for consumers to find fees before purchasing the prepaid card.
Pew researchers found that nearly all of the 66 cards included in its study failed to disclose at least one type of fee, service, or consumer protection.
That research was echoed in an April Bankrate.com survey that examined 30 popular prepaid cards and found that while all charged fees, the actual fee structure varied considerably.
Officials with Pew say the use of its disclosure box would allow for less surprises when it comes to using prepaid cards.
The first company to embrace Pew’s box was JPMorgan Chase. The company announced earlier this year that its Chase Liquid prepaid cards would be the first product to employ Pew’s disclosure box. The company also uses Pew’s checking account disclosure box.
Pew is working on expanding the reach of its box by partnering with Visa in the future. The major credit card company has decide to create a seal of approval designation for Visa-backed prepaid cards. In order for a card to receive the seal they must employ the disclosure box, Weinstock says.
Aside from bringing awareness to consumers, Pew officials hope the prepaid video encourages federal regulators to finish their work on creating consumer protections when it comes to the cards.
“Once rules are in place this will be a safe product that can be a much cheaper option than a checking account,” Weinstock says.
Pew previously made several recommendations to the CFPB to make prepaid cards safer for consumers:
