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For the better part of a year rumors have been swirling about the features and design  of Apple’s yet-to-be launched iPhone 8. Speculation  about the highly anticipated 10th Anniversary phone, which CEO Tim Cook blamed for the poor sales of the iPhone 7 , may have reached peak levels this weekend after the tech giant accidentally pushed out firmware for its HomePod. Apple has released the firmware that will power the HomePod smart speaker several months ahead of the device’s December launch. But, as MacRumors reports , that earlier update has unintentionally given the public a look at what we might see in the iPhone 8, which isn’t expected until September. Facial Recognition Among the details iOS developers claim to have discovered in the iOS 11.0.2 update is a reference to infrared face detection. This, MacRumors notes, gives the impression that the new phone could rely on facial recognition in some capacity, such as for locking and unlocking the device. Researches say t...

From 2015 to 2016, retail-watchers carefully tracked the proposed merger of Staples and Office Depot , which itself had recently acquired OfficeMax . The Federal Trade Commission ultimately didn’t bless the deal, but the two chains have come back with a new idea: What if Office Depot were to acquire just the retail portion of Staples? The New York Post reports that’s what the two companies are working on right now, according to mysterious “sources.” Instead of two competing retail big-box office chains, spinning off the consumer-facing part of Staples and selling it to Office Depot would mean just one big nationwide chain under the Office Depot name. That might meet with the FTC’s approval. Back in 2016, a federal judge ruled in favor of the Commission, which argued that the storefront operations of both chains weren’t the as much of an antitrust issue. Ordinary shoppers can buy the merchandise available at office supply stores from a variety of retailers. The companies’ large corp...

Google recently announced a suite of new tools for advertisers , allowing them to link a customer’s offline credit card purchases with the things they look at online. Shockingly, some privacy advocates think this sort of tracking goes too far and have called on the federal government to investigate. The Electronic Privacy Information Center this morning filed a complaint [ PDF ] with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate Google’s Store Sales Management consumer profiling technology and stop the company from tracking customers’ in-store purchases. According to EPIC, Google’s system, which can allegedly track 70% of all credit and debt card transactions in the U.S., puts the personal information — including product searches, location searches and payment information — of shoppers and Internet users at risk of hacks or other data breaches. The group alleges that Google is increasing that risk by refusing to reveal details about the algorithm that “deidentifies”...

You would think that after just having finished a mega-merger with Time Warner Cable last year, Charter might want to take a break before diving into any more major transactions. And yet that hasn’t stopped Sprint from coming ’round knocking at Charter’s door. What’s the would-be deal? Late last week, news of Sprint’s interest in Charter first began to bubble up when thee Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies were in talks to come together and create one massive new multi-media entity. Sprint had already been in talks with both Charter and Comcast — who are working together on mobile — about a deal that would allow both cable giants to resell mobile service on Sprint’s network through their own respective brands, much as they already do with the Verizon network. But as the WSJ reported, coming out of those talks, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has gone farther, and is pursuing a full-blown merger with Charter. The resulting business would be a massive, publicly-trad...

A family in Michigan kept their dog safe in their own front lawn, hanging out behind an invisible fence. The problem with invisible fences, though, is that people wandering through the neighborhood can’t see them. Like the man who was reportedly performing surveying work for an AT&T contractor, and fatally shot the family’s dog, which he thought was attacking him. The family recounted to WXYZ-TV (warning: auto-play video at that link) that their dog, Katie, age four and a half, was hanging out in the yard. “I heard a pop and the next thing I know my dogs laying down on the ground dead,” one of the dog’s owners told the TV station. “I noticed a guy coming from my neighbor’s yard into our yard.” The family reports that the shooter said he was cutting through their property to get to a meter, and that the dog “lunged at [him].” The family insists that their dog would not have acted that way. The important question, which a representative of the man’s employer couldn’t answer, is...

Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks are putting Shark Week, Guy Fieri, House Hunters, and Bizarre Foods all under the same umbrella in a $14.6 billion mega merger of hugely successful, moderately entertaining media companies. Maryland-based Discovery Communications announced today that it would pay $90/share for network rival Scripps Networks, creating a programming juggernaut representing 20% of ad-supported pay-TV audiences in the U.S. Discovery, best known for its flagship Discovery Channel, maintains a total of 13 networks including  TLC, Animal Planet, the Science Channel, and others. Scripps brings another nine channels to the fold, including HGTV, Food Network, and the Travel Channel. “We believe that by coming together with Scripps, we will create a stronger, more flexible and more dynamic media company with a global content engine,” David Zaslav, President and CEO, Discovery Communications, said in a statement. Once the deal closes, likely early in 2018, th...

There’s only one good thing about nonsense holidays like National Ice Cream Day or National Donut Day : If you like the food being celebrated, restaurants have events where you can get discounts or free items. National Chicken Wing Day, July 29, is no exception. Discounts Buffalo Wild Wings: Small plates of boneless wings for $9.99, and traditional wings for $11.99 . East Coast Wings & Grill: Buy wings on the holiday, get a voucher for five free wings the next time you come back . Hooters: Buy any 10 wings, get 10 smoked chicken wings free . They’re calling it “National Smoked Chicken Wing Day.” Hurricane Grill & Wings: $1 wings and a free soda or beer if you spend $20 on food . WingHouse: Buy 10 wings, get five free. Wingstop: Buy wings, get five free boneless wings from 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. We as a species deserve to have an asteroid take us out as soon as possible The Office Tavern and Grill in New Jersey sent us an email about their offering for this “holiday...

When Bob Harte took his two young kids shopping with him at an organic gardening store in Kansas City, Missouri, he had no idea that he had inadvertently set in motion a series of events that would — eight months later — lead to the Harte family watching helplessly as armed sheriff’s deputies searched every corner of their house for nonexistent evidence of a marijuana grow operation. Let’s go back to August 2011. Bob, a former CIA officer who had moved from D.C. to the Kansas City suburbs in 1999, was working on a hydroponic vegetable garden in his basement. One day, he packed his son and daughter into the car and drove across the river to shop at a Missouri store that sells hydroponic gardening supplies. As he left the store, he was unaware that a Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant was staking out this store under the presumption that hydroponic farmers are likely to be cultivating illegal marijuana. At home, Bob’s wife Adlynn — also a former CIA officer and now an attorney — was ind...

Nearly 25,000 Wells Fargo customers, including many servicemembers, lost their vehicles after failing to pay for unneeded, unwanted insurance the bank charged them for, according to a new report suggests.  The New York Times reports that a 60-page internal report prepared for Wells Fargo executives details the bank’s latest customer service fiasco involving hundreds of thousands of people who were charged for unneeded insurance. According to the report, more than 800,000 people who received car loans from Wells Fargo from Jan. 2012 through July 2016 were charged for unneeded insurance policies underwritten by National General Insurance. Expensive Insurance The insurance, which the bank required on auto loans beginning in 2006, was automatically added to customers’ tabs through Wells Fargo’s Dealer services unit. When a customer came to Wells Fargo for an auto loan their information was sent to National General Insurance. While the company was supposed to check to see if the c...

There’s a total solar eclipse coming across much of the country on Aug. 21, which will be amazing to watch. However, use caution, and make sure not to risk your eyesight to see it. Not only should you wear special eclipse-viewing glasses when you look at the sun, but you should make sure that those glasses aren’t counterfeit. Counterfeit eclipse glasses are a thing? Yes, there’s an online market for counterfeit eclipse glasses, and it’s a very robust one. In response to the demand for eclipse glasses, companies have popped up to meet that demand. The glasses are essential because they let us safely look at the sun while it’s in partial eclipse, before the moon moves in front of it fully. You can find hundreds of listings on Amazon, but just because a company says that they’re selling eclipse glasses, or throw around the correct ISO number, that doesn’t mean their products are safe. A writer for Quartz bought some glasses on Amazon , and later learned that they were counterfeit, e...

The grocery shrink ray is a phenomenon that you may have noticed, where companies make their packaged products slightly smaller, charge the same price, and hope that no one notices. It’s not a new phenomenon , but the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom recently tallied up shrunken products in the last five years. Toblerone and toilet paper The best-publicized shrunken product during that period was, of course, the Toblerone from Mondelēz . The manufacturer shrank the chocolate bar’s distinctive triangles, angering its fans. However, that’s just one of the 2,529 products that the government noted . Toilet paper brand Andrex, which uses the same puppy-centric marketing as its American cousin brand Cottonelle, shrank its rolls from 280 sheets to 221, but claims to have improved its quality while reducing the number of sheets, balancing things out. Maybe. On the plus side, 614 consumer products got bigger during the same period. Not buying companies’ excuses The ON...

Installing a massive water-filled tank full of colorful floral and different species of fish might sound like great way to give your home that enormous little touch of pizzazz you always envisioned. Or could prove to be a dangerous addition, as some species of floral can emit deadly chemicals. The Washington Post reports that while poisonings related to in-home coral reefs are rare, they do occur. Certain species of corals, including zoanthid corals, release potent toxins when they feel they are being attacked by a predator. The most dangerous of these toxins is palytoxin, a chemical that burns the skin and eyes on contact, while also irritating an individual’s throat and lungs. This is likely what occurred to an Australian family earlier this year. The Post reports that all seven members of the family were hospitalized after waking in the middle of the night, having trouble breathing. Authorities believe that when the family cleaned its coral tank that night, the coral reacted ...

It’s been a heck of a week in D.C. On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate held a high-drama, high-stakes vote to move on a proposal to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). That kicked off a frankly bonkers week of politics and politicking, with debate — and Senators’ support — all over the map. In the wee small hours of Friday morning, that effort finally shambled to a halt, fatally collapsing on itself . But is this actually the end of Congressional efforts to undo the ACA? In many ways, covering or reading about D.C. right now calls to mind a monster B-movie. At the end, the vampire gets a wooden stake through its heart and falls into its casket. The lid falls down dramatically, the credits roll, and you know that the monster will remain out of the picture — until the inevitable Return of… film a couple of years later. That shambling, undead interpretation of this particular initiative is as good an analogy of any other. In more literal terms, here’s where it stan...

Not only can competitive video game players now receive scholarships to the University of Utah , they could parlay that love into a pretty well-paying professional esports career, where players will receive a salary and benefits rivaling other professional sport athletes.  Activision Blizzard announced Wednesday additional details of its professional esports Overwatch League set to begin play this fall, including player salaries and potential bonus awards. Players in the league, which was crafted to resemble other professional sport leagues such as the NFL and MLB, will make a minimum salary of $50,000 per year. At this rate, Bloomberg notes, the salary for Overwatch players rivals that of Major League Soccer players, who receive a minimum salary of $53,000. However, Overwatch players stand to earn more than just their base salary. The League says that players can earn as much as 50% of their team bonuses. These bonuses, Activation Blizzard notes, will total $3.5 million in the...

Could your future cigarette purchase come with a little less nicotine? It’s possible, as the FDA revealed today a new multi-year roadmap intended to protect kids and reduce tobacco-related disease and death. The FDA announced today a comprehensive regulatory plan that moves the issues of addiction and its relation to nicotine to the forefront of the agency’s efforts to implement the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. “Congress gave FDA powerful tools to help reduce the harms caused by tobacco use when it passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said today. “And it sent a strong signal by calling it the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.  To put it simply: it’s all about kids and families. Congress made that clear in the law. And we take that responsibility very seriously.” To this end, the agency says it will use its rule-making authority and seek input on public health issues in deter...

So long, old friends: After many redesigns and colors, Apple has dropped the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle from its lineup. Why drop the teeny devices now? Their ancestor the iPod Classic is now gone , and the two devices were the only music players left that don’t use iOS. Worse, the iPod Shuffle doesn’t have Bluetooth. Yesterday brought the death of the two older models of iPod , and the surviving model is what used to be called the iPod Touch. This marks the first time since 2001 that Apple won’t sell a standalone music player. The iPod Touch is really a tiny tablet that runs iOS, the operating system of Apple’s phones and tablets. It only connects to WiFi, not mobile data, but otherwise resembles an iPhone. Here’s where the death of the smaller iPods comes in. Like its cousin, the iPhone 7, the newest version of the iPod doesn’t have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. How can Apple sell you Beats wireless headphones and AirPods if the Shuffle doesn’t even have Bluetooth? by Laura N...

It was almost five years ago that Starbucks paid $620 million to acquire mall tea chain Teavana , politely declining the $800 million tea tin upsell. While Teavana products are now for sale in every Starbucks cafe, including fruit-infused iced teas, the company announced this week that it will be closing the remaining Teavana retail stores over the coming year. The retail tea biz There are 379 Teavana stores in shopping malls , where employees brew very strong samples to entice shoppers to buy tasty loose teas. Starbucks had also opened a few standalone Teavana-branded tea bars, but ended the experiment by converting these businesses into Starbucks cafes or closing them. Instead, Teavana products began to show up on the standard Starbucks menu, including an Oprah-endorsed chai and a piña colada-themed tea drink. Starbucks will keep distributing Teavana drinks in grocery stores as well as selling the brand’s teas and brewed products in its cafes. This is becoming a trend with Sta...

Federal safety regulators and Honda have opened investigations into what could be the 13th U.S.-based death linked to recalled shrapnel-shooting Takata airbags. Honda announced Thursday that a Takata airbag inflator ruptured during the crash of a 2002 Honda Accord in Florida last week, in which a 34-year-old woman was killed, Reuters reports.  While an official cause of death has not been confirmed, Honda and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating whether the ruptured airbag played a part in the woman’s death. The crash occurred around 6:40 p.m. July 19 in Holiday, FL, when a 19-year-old in a Pontiac Firebird turned into the woman’s path, WTSP10 reports. Consumerist has reached out to Takata for additional information on the crash and investigation. We’ll update this post if we hear back. If the death is confirmed to be a result of the Takata airbag rupture it would become the 13th in the U.S. and 18th worldwide. It would also be the 12th such de...

Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here , and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool. by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

After several days of mystery and voting for and against amendments on a bill that doesn’t really exist, Republican leadership in the Senate has finally released the text of the Health Care Freedom Act, better known as the “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill. The Senate Budget Committee released the bill [ PDF ] via Twitter shortly after 10 p.m. ET on Thursday night. We presume they were waiting to see who was evicted from Big Brother . The 8-page bill does the following: • Negates the “individual mandate” — the requirement that all people must have some form of insurance or pay a penalty — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the beginning of 2016. • Negates the “employer mandate” — the requirement that businesses of a certain size must provide full-time employees with qualifying coverage — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the...

With politicians — most notably our current President — using social media to communicate directly to the world, the question is now being asked whether a lawmaker is violating the First Amendment when they actively block people from following them online. One federal court has chimed in, finding that a politician in Virginia crossed the line when she temporarily banned a constituent from commenting on her Facebook page. The case at hand involves the government of Loudon County, VA, just northwest of D.C., where Phyllis Randall, Chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors barred the plaintiff, a local man named Brian Davison, from commenting on her Facebook page because his statements were critical of her actions while in office. Davison sued Randall and the Board in federal court, arguing that his ban from the Facebook page was an illegal prior restraint based solely on his point of view. A bench trial was held in May, and this week the judge in the case ruled against Randall, findi...

Sure, big-box hardware store Lowe’s has a customer service robot that still won’t keep you from hating your partner , but supermarket chain Schnucks, based in St. Louis, is about to put robots to work in a different job. In three stores, it will send a robot down the aisles three times a day to check shelves and find out which products need to be restocked. A robot that actually restocks the shelves would be an interesting use of technology, and maybe that’s next. For now, though, Schnucks will be deploying Tally, a robot that looks unnervingly like a tower fan and will scan store aisles for stock levels and maybe even pricing errors. Want to see it in action? Here’s a video from the company that created the robots, Simbe Robotics. The robots have been deployed in a few retailers, including a trial at Target. (There’s no word on whether they’re able to flag instances of Target Math , or items that cost more when you buy larger quantities.) The chain will bring in students from Wa...

For the better part of a year, airlines have experimented with different programs aimed at easing travelers’ frustrations when it comes to their checked luggage; from Alaska’s electronic baggage tags to Delta’s checked bag map . Now, its American Airlines turn, as the carrier launched an app update allowing passengers to receive notification when their bags are delayed.  American announced today that it was putting an end to the timeless tradition of waiting at the baggage carousel for bags that never show up. The airline launched Customer Baggage Notification (CBN) system that notifies customers of the status their checked baggage if the bag is not on the same plane when they land at their destination. The system provides three types of baggage notifications. Early Baggage Arrival notices will be sent when a bag is delivered before the customer; Late Baggage Arrival – Go to the Baggage Service Office informs travelers that the bag hasn’t arrived and that they should see an ...

After a chaotic and tumultuous week, the Senate appears to be slowly, painfully congealing around a plan it can agree on to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). But that plan itself is still something that nobody, including the Senators who will probably vote on it, has seen the text for. And even if the Senate does vote to pass it, is that really the bill we’re going to get? If you’re confused by all this, you’re not alone. The entire internet at this point is full of experienced healthcare experts and Congressional reporters who have no clue what’s going on behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. But as support for the “skinny repeal” seems to be solidifying, watchers are starting to ask if repeal is actually the plan — or if the end goal is to create a backdoor to pass the House version of repeal, that the Senate basically already rejected. A busy couple of days On July 25, the Senate voted 51-50 to open debate on a healthcare bill. That bill was the House’s Americ...