Blog dedicado a la formación en todos sus ámbitos: presencial, online, a distancia
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Una infografía sobre cómo sobrevivir a la invasión móvil en el puesto de trabajo. Vía
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Cómo sobrevivir a la invasión móvil en el puesto de trabajo
Here’s a useful piece of information for the “pub trivia” section of your brain: Burger King introduced its onion rings in 1974. We came across this ad for them in TV Guide, mostly noticeable for the terrible ad copy, the modest serving size, and the fact that the onion rings are not actually on a burger. It’s like fast food from a different world.
Maybe there’s a generation gap, but whoever wrote this ad was very fond of the phrase “French Fryin’ Legion,” which isn’t particularly clever and has no clear connection to onion rings. Maybe if an anthropomorphic onion were wearing a white cap.
Last month, the CEO of Time Warner Cable called his company’s upcoming merger with Comcast a “dream combination” — and in the same speech, he delivered some decidedly less-dreamy news. There would indeed be rate increases coming for TWC customers in 2014, he confirmed. Now, those increases are starting to appear.
Over the past couple of billing cycles, TWC customers from all around the country are indeed saying that they’ve seen their bills go up. A subscriber in Massachusetts described a $4 hike for her TV/internet bundle; another in Los Angeles reported a whopping $11 jump this month.
When the L.A. subscriber asked TWC in a customer support web chat why she was seeing such a large increase in her bill, he answered, “I can check that the reason for the price increase is the recent price on the account for all the customer.” When she asked for clarification, the rep confirmed that all customers experienced a similar price increase.
Both of those subscribers use paperless billing for their cable bills. But reader Stacey, who lives in the Raleigh area, gets a paper copy of her internet-service-only bill from TWC each month. And her most recent contained an unfortunately timed pair of surprises. One was a $3 rate increase. The other? A letter from TWC singing the praises of its pending merger with Comcast.
The full text of the letter reads:
Dear Valued Customer:
Recently, Time Warner Cable announced plans to merge with Comcast, forming an industry-leading technology and media company dedicated to delivering great customer experiences.
Above all, this merger will benefit you, our customers. Our two companies have been behind many of the innovative services that you enjoy every day — digital cable TV, high-speed Internet, DVRs, Video On Demand and WiFi in the home and on-the-go — to name just a few. The combined company will innovate faster and deploy even better products and features, including a superior video guide, faster Broadband Internet speeds and even more WiFi access points so you can access the Internet wherever you go.
We expect the merger to close around the end of 2014. In the meantime, all of us at Time Warner Cable remain committed to providing you with great TV, blazing fast Internet, rock solid phone service and innovative home security and monitoring. And we will continue to make significant investments to improve reliability and to enhance our customer service.
We are very excited about the promise of this combination for you, our customers. We’ll keep you posted as things evolve in the coming months.
As always, thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable.
Sincerely,
Robert D. Marcus
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Consumer groups and lawmakers have continually expressed concerns that the mega-merger would raise prices for consumers since the day it was announced, and it seems those concerns were well-founded.
The merger, which is still a long way from actually being approved, is already causing headaches for TWC subscribers — long before they can actually see any of the supposed benefits from becoming Comcast customers.
Hola:
Una infografía sobre cómo empezó Angry Birds. Vía
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Cómo empezó Angry Birds
Hola:
Una presentación con los Secretos del éxito en Redes Sociales.
Un saludo
Do you own a VHS copy of Speed, that 1994 insta-classic starring one vacant-eyed Keanu Reeves and a young Sandy Bullock? There’s a guy in Idaho who’d like it, because he only has about 550 VHS copies as it stands and he’d really like to own um, all of them, before he dies. Eventually.
It all started when the fellow bought six copies of the movie from a pawnshop in 2007 and thought it was kind of funny, reports KREM News. And now it’s his life’s work, the hobby he spends all his free time on.
He’s not relying on his own powers of ferreting out the Reevester, either.
“We’re running a Kickstarter to get the van fixed up and painted like the bus from the movie Speed. It’s so we can travel the country, come to your town and get copies of Speed,” he explained.
If he could, he’d just buy every copy on Amazon, but the costs add up. And besides, some people just donate them to him, sending copies from faraway places like Japan.
It sounds like more than a fascination with how (SPOILER ALERT) Keanu and Sandra save everyone/fix everything, it sounds like a full-fledged life goal.
“No one ever really knows if the work they’re doing is making the world a better place or not, but they don’t give up,” the dogged collector explains. “That’s how Speed works. We just have to keep going no matter what.”
So when will enough be enough, seriously? Because words like “all” and “every” sound like a bit much, right? Wrong answer. The guy won’t even put a number on how many copies he wants before he stops looking.
“No, I’m never giving up. I can’t stop my whole life because I’ll never know. So, I’ll die looking for Speed.”
Here’s where we all go searching through that box in the closet because seriously, help a fella out in his life quest.
Moscow man collecting every VHS copy of Speed [KREM News]
Consumerist is one of the top Google results when you type “gree dehumidifier recall” in the search box, and we also actually answer some of our e-mail, so desperate customers have turned to us for help. One customer who submitted her materials a few months ago told us, “I called the number on the paperwork and sat on hold for over an hour before I finally hung up.”
Earlier this week, another customer reported spending an hour and a half on hold. “They had all my info and the requested returned items,” she wrote to Consumerist. “All was supposedly done in March and she said I should receive my rebate any day.”
Since Consumerist has been in contact with both customers on the ground and Gree’s media relations team, we’ve been acting as a go-between, passing on the names of frustrated customers who contact us, then reporting back to those customers what we’re able to find out.
When we passed on that Gree had no record of one person’s claim, he vented at Consumerist:
Return kit was mailed on March 22???? On April 15 I spoke to [a customer service rep] re: [serial number] Model SGDEH701 and she indicated you had received the return kit and claim would be sent to escalation department and had not been processed yet???? This is the time of year that we NEED these units!
We want to help, but the number of people contacting us has increased sharply in the last few weeks. For advice on what to tell our readers, we turned to Scott Wolfson of the Consumer Products Safety Commission.
We wanted to know: is there a formal time limit for companies to get a refund out to customers? In the case of other recalls, it could also be parts for repair–whatever they had promised customers as a remedy.
There is no fixed time limit: a “reasonable expectation” that a recall won’t drag on for too long is part of a recall plan. If a recall is particularly large and complicated, companies can get some extra time to get refunds or repairs out to customers. “There are case by case agreements that the CPSC comes to with recalling firms,” Wolfson told Consumerist. He didn’t specify that Gree is one of these cases, but we’ll point out that serial number verification and full refunds for 2.6 million recalled units is a very large and complex recall.
Still, the CPSC is there ostensibly to help protect the public from unsafe products, and making sure that companies act responsibly when a recall does happen. To that end, they want to make sure that refunds or other remedies get out to customers in a timely manner. “We take pride at CPSC that the say we announce a recall, we do want that remedy to start to be available to the consumer,” Wolfson noted.
If you’re stuck without a refund, you can seek help from the CPSC. Regarding the Gree refund, Wolfson tells Consumerist that the agency is there to help. “If you are a consumer and you were given an assurance that you would get your refund at a certain point and that date has come and passed, your next call should be to the CPSC.” Yes, he says, Gree customers are coming to the CPSC with their concerns. If you don’t have your refund yet, or have If you are a consumer that had one of the affected Gree dehumidifiers and you have a concern about how the recall is being handled, please call the hotline at 800-638-2772.
When a customer at a Holiday Inn bar in New Jersey asked the bartender about the paw-print tattoo on her arm, she told him she loves animals and volunteers with a pit bull rescue group, reports CNN.
During the chat with the friendly couple, they got to talking about her own pets and she confided that one of her dogs was at the veterinary hospital and had just had emergency surgery hours before, after he swallowed a hard plastic ball.
When the man said something about surgery not being cheap, she explained that it was — around $2,700 in this case but she would do whatever she could for her dog Tucker, including working three jobs.
The bartender was shocked to find that the man had filled out the receipt for the couple’s drinks and dinner with $1,000 in the tip line, and tried to return it.
“I went back over and said ‘Sir, I cannot accept this, what is this for, why would you do this?’” she said, adding that she was shaking and crying when she saw it. He told her to put it toward her dog’s medical costs.
“I just stood there in shock. I walked around and hugged this couple. They said, ‘We’ll be praying for Tucker.’”
The hotel manager tracked down the customer through her comptroller this week to verify the tip as legitimate, and it sounds like his generosity isn’t limited to this one instant.
“Apparently this man does this quite frequently. Just a really nice guy and humanitarian,” the manager said. “I have never ever seen a $1,000 tip like that.”
Man leaves $1,000 tip for dog’s surgery [CNN]
Nissan’s European research center recently tested Ultra-Ever Dry paint, which repels water and some oils, CNET reports.
The coating contains some really scientific sounding components (super-hydrophobic, oleophobic properties and complex micro-geometry) that causes water and some oils to bead and flow off.
Could the product usher in beginning of self-cleaning cars? Nissan seems to think so with its demonstration of how the new technology works. To test it out the company coated half of a Nissan Note with the paint and then drove through a water and mud-strewn course.
A video (posted below) shows water and mud easily falling off the car on the side with the new paint, while the side without appears to be covered in dirt residue.
The new product was developed by Ultratech International, a company that focuses on oil spill clean-up and industrial fluid management.
Don’t get too excited about skipping the car wash just yet. CNET reports that Nissan must evaluate the paint’s durability, cost, supple and appearance on vehicles before bringing it to market.
Nissan tries on dirt-resistant paint [CNET]
In a post on — where else — her Google Plus page, she writes that she was told to remove her Google Glass before her United flight from San Diego to San Francisco took off “because of security concerns.”
According to the passenger, the flight attendant was concerned that the Glass camera could be used for nefarious purposes and says the in-flight magazine explicitly spells out the airline’s policy on such things.
The passenger posted a blurry-as-all-heck photo (presumably with her Glass camera) of that page, but it’s impossible to read. I couldn’t find the policy on United’s website and it’s not mentioned in the airline’s contract of carriage, but I did find a PDF version of the magazine from which I could scrape the relevant text:
ONBOARD PHOTO AND VIDEO POLICY: United Airlines strives to provide customers with a safe and pleasant travel experience. The use of any device for photography or audio and/or video recording is permitted only for capturing personal events. Any photography or recording of other customers or airline personnel without their express prior consent is strictly prohibited. Any photography (still or video) or recording (audio or video) of airline procedures or aircraft equipment is strictly prohibited, except to the extent prior approval has been specifically granted by United Airlines. This policy is not a contract and does not create any legal rights or obligations.
Once again, it appears as if someone assumed that just because Google Glass can shoot photos and video that it always is shooting photos and video, and not just sitting idle on the user’s head, making them look a bit silly to other passengers.
Interestingly enough, the flight attendant had no problem with the passenger taking a photo with her cellphone camera. The explanation from the attendant was that somehow phones are “different” from Google Glass.
As we’ve pointed out before, many of the privacy concerns about Google Glass — at least with the device in its current, rather obvious form — are much ado about nothing.
It’s much easier for me to covertly shoot video with my phone’s camera than it would be with Google Glass. I can hold my phone to my ear and pretend to talk, while the rear-facing camera records whatever it’s pointed at. I can leave it on the table and record and transmit audio without anyone noticing.
Whereas shooting video or photos with Google Glass requires the user to be looking in the direction of what he or she is recording, which is incredibly obvious, especially when the person is wearing something that only a few years ago would have led everyone around you to think you were cosplaying. I suppose you could take off the Glass and point the camera in the direction of something you want to record, but that may be even more obvious than staring straight at someone.
There will soon be a point when Glass and other wearable devices are seamless integrated into our everyday eyewear, but we’re not there yet and people need to stop freaking out so much.
And meanwhile, over at US Airways, it’s apparently perfectly okay for pilots to wear Glass:
