Sony Pictures’ employees around the globe are still locked out of their company computers after they were hacked on the 24th by a group calling itself the “Guardians of Peace.” Now, new details have emerged that shed some light on what they want and …
Crowdfunding has more often than not been a novel idea when it comes to getting a bunch of like minded people to be able to help see a vision through. Having said that, it is not too often that we see smartphones being crowdfunded, but as in life, there are always exceptions to the rule. Case in point, Sonim Technologies with their Limited Edition Sonim XP7 Extreme Android smartphone that has appeared on crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The Sonim XP7 will target active sports enthusiasts who are on the lookout for a smartphone that is capable of meeting their demanding lifestyle, and is also able to withstand the most rigorous conditions which one can encounter.
Sonim has already made a name for themselves when it comes to developing the toughest mobile phones in the market, as it has seen action by folks who tend to work in extreme environments. The start of this Indiegogo campaign would see Sonim end up as the first established Android handset manufacturer to do so, without going through the traditional, established route.
The Sonim XP7 Extreme is so tough, it surpasses standard rugged-use certifications and has been tested against Sonim’s very own rigorous Rugged Performance Standards (RPS). The XP7 Extreme’s unique design is capable of protecting devices from the challenges faced by participants of extreme and rough outdoor sports, and it is also shock-resistant so that it can meet even the toughest military-grade certifications. Not only that, it has been specially constructed to be both submersible in water as well as drop resistant, meeting IP68 and IP69 standards.
Heck, if you think that you know pressure at your work, the Sonim XP7 Extreme goes the extra mile, since it can withstand the crushing force of a ton of metric pressure. Other features include an extra loud 103dB front-facing speaker and noise-cancelling microphone, an extra-long-life battery that offers up to 1,000 hours of standby time and 40 hours of talk time, in addition to a three-year, comprehensive warranty for damage.
Indiegogo Page
[ Sonim looks to Indiegogo for XP7 rugged smartphone copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
President Obama’s job approval rating has declined most rapidly among working class whites. Another poll confirms continuing racial division over the Ferguson shooting. And we take a tour of past poll questions asked about Thanksgiving. This is HuffPollster for Wednesday, November 26, 2014.
OBAMA’S APPROVAL DROPS AMONG WORKING CLASS WHITES – Frank Newport: “President Barack Obama’s job approval rating among white non-college graduates is at 27% so far in 2014, 14 percentage points lower than among white college graduates. This is the largest yearly gap between these two groups since Obama took office. These data underscore the magnitude of the Democratic Party’s problem with working-class whites, among whom Obama lost in the 2012 presidential election, and among whom Democratic House candidates lost in the 2014 U.S. House voting by 30 points. Obama’s overall job approval rating has dropped throughout the first six years of his administration, and this downward trajectory is seen both among white Americans who are college graduates and those who are not. But the gap between his approval ratings among college-educated and non-college-educated whites has grown. It was six points in 2009, when Obama had the overall highest ratings of his administration, then expanded to 10 points in 2010 and to 12 points in 2013. The gap between these two groups is at its highest yet, at 14 points so far this year.” [Gallup]
DIVISION OVER FERGUSON SHOOTING – HuffPollster: “Americans are still deeply divided over the shooting of teenager Michael Brown this summer by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll taken before a grand jury decision not to indict Wilson was released Monday night. While 28 percent said Wilson was at fault and should be punished, 23 percent said he was fully justified in the shooting of the unarmed 18-year-old, and another 30 percent said both Wilson and Brown made mistakes and it was ‘just a tragic accident.’ Another 20 percent were undecided. Twenty-two percent had expected Wilson to be punished too harshly, while 26 percent believed he’d get off too lightly. Eighteen percent expected him to receive about the right punishment, and the remaining 34 percent were undecided….In the latest round of HuffPost/YouGov polling, 64 percent of black Americans said Wilson was at fault, compared with just 22 percent of whites. White respondents were more than seven times as likely as blacks to say that the shooting was justified. A majority of black Americans said Wilson would be punished too leniently, with just 2 percent worrying his punishment would be too harsh.” [HuffPost]
POLLING THANKSGIVING: A LOOK BACK – With extra time on our hands after the elections, HuffPollster searched the iPoll database maintained by our friends at the Roper Center Public Opinion Archives for questions asked about Thanksgivings past. Here are the highlights:
‘Franksgiving?’ No, Thanks – In 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to move the holiday’s official date so Thanksgiving would be celebrated a week earlier. As recounted by HuffPost’s Sam Stein and Arthur Delaney, Roosevelt was responding to pressure from retail lobbyists worried that a particularly late Thanksgiving would adversely affect Christmas shopping. The Roper Archives shows a poll conducted by George Gallup poll in August 1939 found 50 percent disapproved of Roosevelt’s plans and just 30 percent approved.
Thankful war is over – World War II was still very much on the minds of Americans just before Thanksgiving 1946, more than a year after the Japanese surrender marked the end of the conflict. A Gallup poll conducted just before the holiday found nearly a third were thankful that the “war is over, world at peace” (26 percent) or that they or another family member were out of military service (4 percent).
Family trumps cash – Fast forward to 1991, when a “Family Values Survey” conducted by Democratic pollsters Mellman and Lazarus for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company found that far more Americans preferred “spending time with your family on Thanksgiving” (79 percent) to “one thousand dollars in cash.”
Heart-warmth trumps heartburn – In 1997, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll asked Americans whether the Thanksgiving dinner was more likely to “warm your heart or give you heartburn.” Heartburn lost in a landslide, 82 to 12 percent.
Testing the bounds of thankfulness – In 1993, the ABC News/Washington Post poll asked about a long list of things people might be thankful for on Thanksgiving. We present the full list, without further comment (percentage very or somewhat thankful in parentheses):
Giving new meaning to dysfunctional family Thanksgiving… – In November 1998, with House Republicans weighing whether to impeach President Clinton, ABC News asked Americans who they would rather have as a Thanksgiving dinner guest, Monica Lewinsky or Kenneth Starr. The narrow winner was the volunteered response “neither” (35 percent). Those respondents with a preference divided evenly (32 percent each) between the former presidential intern and the special prosecutor.
We promise there will be no math – Four years ago, in 2010, the Marist Poll used an open-ended question to quiz respondents about the origins of the holiday. Nearly nine out of ten (86 percent) passed, naming pilgrims and indians as the two groups that first celebrated Thanksgiving. Six percent named another group and 7 percent were unsure.
A nation divided over Turkey – Two years ago, CBS News asked Americans to name their favorite Thanksgiving food. Nearly half (45 percent) named turkey, the rest named one of seven other dishes listed (such as stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc). And yes, there was polarization: Turkey was mentioned far more often by conservatives (54 percent) than liberals (38 percent). Liberals were more likely to order off the pollster’s menu, opting for “something else” (16 percent) more often than conservatives (7 percent). Hmm.
2014 Epilogue: Upshot takes a bigger data approach – Not to be outdone, our friends at The Upshot compiled the most “unusually popular” Thanksgiving dishes searched for by Google users in each of the 50 states. So if you want to know which state searched for “pig pickin cake” more often than any other, we’ve got the link for you. [NYT]
HuffPollster will be taking a brief break for the holiday. We’ll see you Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!
HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL! – You can receive this daily update every weekday morning via email! Just click here, enter your email address, and and click “sign up.” That’s all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime).
WEDNESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Kathleen Weldon reviews historical polling data covering perceptions of the student loan system. [HuffPost]
-More than two-thirds of Americans do not feel safe walking at night in their neighborhood. [Gallup]
-Gallup finds Americans projecting an increase in their holiday spending over 2013. [Gallup]
-Nathan Gonzales says 2014 was an anti-incumbent election mostly for Democrats. [538]
-Annie Pettit offers 11 ways to write the age question wrong. [Peanut Labs]
-The Pew Internet Project quizzes Americans on their knowledge of technology. [Pew]
Some worry about what can go wrong, but there’s a lot to like about anonymity
Creative Commons by Jhaymesisviphotography
There are a growing number of social media apps that encourage anonymity. Popular services such as Ask.fm, Secret, Whisper and Yik Yak allow people to post under an assumed name, or no name at all. A new one, called Rooms, is actually owned by Facebook — the very company that popularized the “real-name culture.”
Plenty of discussions about these services focus on the risks, but I am going to present the positive side. There is a reason why they are popular and there are some advantages to being able to post anonymously.
Most importantly, anonymity frees you from having to worry about your “permanent record.”
The good side of anonymity
Online safety experts have repeatedly warned people to think about their reputation before posting, because something you post on a service like Facebook can come back to haunt you later. And I’m not just talking about rude or harassing comments or pictures of you abusing substances, but things like sharing opinions that might not be popular among your friends or future employers. When you don’t have to put your name on a comment, you’re more likely to say what you really think, even if it’s politically incorrect within your circle of friends.
At a panel I moderated at the recent Family Online Safety Institute, or FOSI, conference, Secret’s Dave Willner said that people sometime use anonymous apps to share good news so it’s not seen as bragging. It’s common, he said, for people to use Secret to post about a great new job, a raise or to satisfy a burning desire to share news that’s not final or official.
When you sign up for Secret, you give the app access to your phone’s contact list and optionally your Facebook friend list, so what you post is shared with people you know even though they don’t know it’s you. You can also share with people nearby so there is either a personal or location affinity with the people in your circle.
But Secret users don’t even have a profile or username, which means that others can’t form an opinion about you based on what you say because there is no “you” attached to the comments. People would have focus on what you said, not who you are or what you typically say. The service prohibits naming people in comments, except public figures.
Dealing with demons
All of the anonymous apps allow you to share things that might be uncomfortable to discuss if people knew it was you. You might desperately need support if you just lost your job or broke up with a partner even if you don’t want people to know. Perhaps you’re having troubles at home, work or school and want feedback on the way you’re interacting with your partner, parent, sibling, co-workers, boss, teacher, etc.
Apps like Secret, Whisper, Ask.FM and Yik Yak are wonderful ways to discuss things like substance abuse, illnesses, obsessions, religious doubts, sexual orientation and other issues you might not want to disclose.
Level playing field
Yik Yak CEO Tyler Droll said his service “levels the playing field and gives everyone an equal voice.”
On Facebook, he said, “the popular kids have more influence.” On Yik Yak, “the quietest kid in the class can be the funniest and the person with 20 Twitter followers can now reach a huge audience.”
Droll said that it puts the focus back on content rather than who’s saying it. Yik Yak, which is popular on college campuses, enables you to anonymously interact with people nearby.
Until recently, Ask.fm was based in Latvia and enabled people to ask questions about anything. Unfortunately, it was associated with some negative experiences, including bullying and the spreading of false rumors, before being acquired by IAC.
In an interview, Ask.FM’s new CEO Doug Leeds, who also runs Ask.com, said that the company reached an agreement with the attorneys general of New York and Maryland to establish a safety center and hire a chief trust and safety officer among moves to better police its service.
Ask.fm’s new chief safety officer, Catherine Teitelbaum, said that, while questions can be asked anonymously, they aren’t posted until answered by someone who discloses his or her identity.
On a recent visit to their website, I noticed that most questions are not at all inflammatory. “If you were going to be stuck on an island with three celebrities, which three would you choose?” strikes me as a pretty innocent question, as does “Where in the world would you like to visit” or “What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately?”
Sure, you could ask “Am I pretty” and perhaps get some pretty cruel answers, but you’re also likely to get some kind ones as well. There are still some things that I personally find distasteful, but that’s also true on Facebook, Twitter and, for that matter, the comments sections of many online news sites.
The law’s long arm is still there
It’s also important to remember that anonymity doesn’t shield you from the law. Even though they don’t disclose it to other users, some anonymous services do know your true identity and can be compelled to respond to binding orders to reveal that information to law enforcement. There are also other ways for cops to track users, such as IP addresses or cell phone records, and there are plenty of criminals in jail who thought they were anonymous.
To repeat a phrase I used in the title of a previous article, these services do have their challenges, but anonymous is not synonymous with ominous.
This column first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and on SafeKids.com
Nineteen a minute: That’s how quickly people become identity theft victims in the U.S. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 10 and 16 million Americans are defrauded each year in this way. Thanksgiving can be an awkward time of year for some victims, since family members account for more than 30% of the identity thieves.
Axton Betz-Hamilton knows this firsthand. Raised in a middle-class home–her mother Pamela was a tax preparer, her dad a department manager for a grocery store–her identity theft story is both a family affair and exponentially stranger than fiction.
“We lived on hobby farms–one in Portland, Ind., and then another in Redkey,” Betz-Hamilton told me. Thanksgivings were with family. Her paternal grandfather moved in during the ’90s. (He had been a welder at a tractor factory.) Together, they were a small family unit that looked like many others, though in reality they were ensnared in a mindboggling circle of financial fraud.
“Nineteen Thanksgivings came and went, and [my mother] cooked those dinners for us–me and dad and my grandfather after he moved in in 1995. We were getting robbed by the hand that fed us the entire time,” she said.
The Damage
Betz-Hamilton’s identity theft story spans 20 years, starting in 1993. The charges on credit cards that were acquired using her Social Security number amounted to about $4,000, but the damage rippled out, impacting every aspect of her financial life.
Betz-Hamilton first discovered that she had been victimized when, as a 19-year-old college student, she was moving off-campus, and the utility company asked for a $100 deposit. The reason: bad credit. She ordered a copy of her credit report (while important for everyone, this is a crucial step for anyone who has been a victim of identity theft). She assumed there would be a one-pager featuring a couple student loans. Instead, a large manila envelope arrived. She then contacted the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of identity theft. They told her to file a police report. She did that, and waited as nothing happened.
When she disputed the accounts with one of the credit card companies, she was told that her story did not hold up. “There had been two payments before the account was maxed out.” This was earlier in the evolution of identity theft, so all the various tactics were still unknown, but it is not uncommon for an identity theft to try to extend the value of a target by making things appear to be as normal as possible.
“My credit report was 10 pages long, and my credit score was 380,” she said.
The consequences Betz-Hamilton faced will be familiar to anyone who has ever struggled with a bad credit history. “I had to pay higher interest rates for my car loan and the credit cards I legitimately obtained. My first car loan was 18.23% and my first credit card had a 29.9% APR. I’ve had to pay deposits for electric, phone and cable. I had to pay higher insurance rates through 2009.”
Anatomy of Family Fraud
In 1993, Betz-Hamilton’s parents were victims of identity theft. When she found out that her identity had been stolen, the most logical assumption was that whoever had stolen her parents’ identities had stolen hers as well. Another 18% of identity theft victims are defrauded by friends, neighbors and in-house employees. It took 20 years and a fluke discovery for her to learn the truth.
Pamela Betz died of cancer in 2013, and the details of her secret life emerged. She had stolen her daughter’s identity. She had stolen her husband’s identity. She compromised her father-in-law for around $1,500. And of course she herself had mountains of debt.
Betz-Hamilton’s father made the discovery after finding a blue plastic file-box in one of the outbuildings on their farm. Inside, there was a 12-year-old credit card statement. The account was in his daughter Axton’s name. It was overdue, and so he called his daughter to give her a hard time about this hidden bit of past ignominy. She told him the card never existed. Upon closer inspection, the account had a card in his wife’s name.
The 20-year fraud began to unravel.
“She had a lot of purses and backpacks, and that’s where she stored the paper trail,” Betz-Hamilton recalled. “It was also between dresser drawers. Papers were folded and shoved into books. We didn’t know my grandfather’s identity had been stolen until I found a credit card statement in one of those purses, and I still don’t know how far back that goes.”
Questions arose. Was there another house somewhere, cars or perhaps another life? On her deathbed, an alarm rose when Betz-Hamilton’s father noticed that his wife’s wedding ring was missing.
“We think she pawned it,” Betz-Hamilton told me. “I have no idea what she was up to. Maybe she had a second life. She had been using multiple names. I’m still looking.”
Dr. Axton Betz-Hamilton is now a professor at Eastern Illinois University where she teaches courses on personal finance and consumer issues. She wrote her Ph.D dissertation on child identity theft; how people experience it, looking specifically at victims under the age of 18 who learn about their situation later in life.
“My mother’s last wishes were to be cremated, and we respected that. She wanted her ashes to be with me. I’m sitting next to my mother right now,” she told me over the phone.
“Sometimes I yell at her. And sometimes I shake the box she’s in. We just don’t know who mom was. It’s hard to grieve for her. To change things up and start new traditions, I had Christmas at my house last year. Mom was here on the shelf. It was awkward.”
Indeed.
FERGUSON, Mo., Nov 26 (Reuters) – Two FBI agents were shot and wounded at a house in north St. Louis County early on Wednesday, though the incident was “not directly related” to racially charged unrest in and around nearby Ferguson, an agency spokeswoman said.
One agent was shot in the shoulder and the other was shot in the leg while assisting local police in executing an arrest warrant, FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said in a brief statement. Their injuries were not life-threatening.
“The incident is not directly related to the Ferguson protests,” Wu said, but did not elaborate further.
Some 2,000 National Guard troops helped ward off a second night of rampant arson and looting in suburban St. Louis after a grand jury declined to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, and sympathy protests spread to several U.S. cities.
The Wednesday morning incident involving the FBI agents followed hours after a clash between police and protesters in Ferguson.
Despite a beefed-up military presence in Ferguson, a police car was torched near City Hall as darkness fell, and police fired smoke bombs and tear gas to scatter protesters. (Reporting by Edward McAllister in Ferguson; Additional reporting and writing by Eric M. Johnson from Seattle Editing by W Simon)
One of the oft cited drawbacks of a purely touchscreen world is that smartphones and tablets become nigh unusable with just fingers in cold regions or weather because gloves that would keep our hands from falling off from frostbite also get in the way of touch interfaces. Of course, there are styluses, but those are easy to lose or drop … Continue reading
Mozilla wants to make searching for the things you need faster on Firefox, and so to facilitate that the company will be introducing an update sometime in the future that brings with it a new search interface. With this new search, users are able to type a keyword into the search field, then choose a specific preset search engine or … Continue reading
One of the debates surrounding the new smartwatch trend is the one about classical, analog watches and sophisticated, but sometimes inelegant smartwatches. Some people see a watch as more than just a timepiece but also as a form of expression, a part of personality. These types of people would probably never wear a smartwatch even if they see the utility … Continue reading
When offline playback arrived for Blinkbox’s video streaming service on the iPad, we knew that Android support couldn’t be far behind. After all, Tesco has plenty of Hudl 2 tablets to sell this Christmas, which all heavily promote its services. So fo…
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