Month: October 2016

The Microsoft Band 2. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Microsoft's strange foray into wearables may be at an end. Mary Jo Foley was tipped off that the Band 2 has been pulled from Microsoft's online store, and the company gave her a statement:

We have sold through our existing Band 2 inventory and have no plans to release another Band device this year. We remain committed to supporting our Microsoft Band 2 customers through Microsoft Stores and our customer support channels and will continue to invest in the Microsoft Health platform, which is open to all hardware and apps partners across Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

Not only is the Band 2 dropping out of the sales channel, its SDK has also been removed. Reports continue that the team developing the Band has been... well... disbanded. Oddly, the company previously told Foley that it's still "exploring" the wearables market, though what form this exploration will take is, as yet, unclear.

The entire Band project was peculiar. The first Band, released in 2014, was a surprisingly credible first effort at a fitness wearable: Microsoft has a reputation for never nailing the first release of any product (received wisdom being "wait for version 3"), but the Band was a bit better than that. The Band packed in a multitude of sensors and functionality, as well as reasonable software and a range of cloud services. It worked with the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone.

Enlarge / MILWAUKEE, WI: A woman rests her head on the shoulders of a man as a group of supporters stop and pray after a verdict of not guilty came back on four of the five charges for the three former police officers who stood trial for the beating of Frank Jude Jr. (credit: Getty | Darren Hauck)

After news broke that a group of Milwaukee police officers savagely beat an unarmed black man named Frank Jude in 2004, the city saw crime-related 911 calls drop by about 20 percent for more than a year—totaling about 22,200 lost reports of crimes—according to a new study by a group of sociologists at Harvard, Yale, and Oxford universities.

The outcome wasn’t unique to Jude’s beating, the researchers found. Looking at the city's 911 call-records from 2004 to 2010, they noted similar drops after other highly publicized local and national cases of police violence against unarmed black men.

The findings square with earlier research showing that communities—specifically black communities given recent events—become more cynical of law enforcement after brutality cases. But the new study, published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review, is the first to show that people actually change their behavior based on that elevated distrust. Namely, community members become less likely to report crimes to law enforcement, likely out of fear of interacting with police or skepticism that police will take them seriously and help.

(credit: Caribb)

Late last Friday, Volkswagen Group agreed to pay 652 Volkswagen dealers a total of $1.21 billion in a settlement that was proposed earlier this summer. Each dealer would receive approximately $1.85 million.

The settlement is related to the emissions scandal that broke over a year ago—VW Group was producing diesel Jettas, Beetles, Golfs, and Passats, as well as Audis and Porsches, that were giving off significantly more nitrogen oxide (NO_x) than the company claimed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To goose the numbers, the cars were outfitted with illegal software that engaged the emissions control systems on the cars when they were being tested in the lab but relaxed emissions controls while the cars were on the road.

When the EPA announced that it discovered VW Group’s defeat devices, Volkswagen dealers across the US were suddenly left with cars they couldn’t sell sitting on their lots. Lawyers for the dealers also argued that they should be compensated for VW’s tarnished image, which hurt their sales.

Webpass radios on a San Francisco building. (credit: Webpass)

Google Fiber today said it has completed its acquisition of Webpass, a wireless Internet service provider that will figure prominently into its plans for deployment of high-speed Internet. But the Alphabet division is not giving up on fiber, saying it will use both wireless and fiber networks to compete against cable companies and telcos.

Google Fiber revealed its plan to buy Webpass in June, and the company said in an announcement today that Webpass "is now officially part of the Google Fiber family." The Webpass site has been updated to call the service "Webpass from Google Fiber."

"It’s been impressive to watch Webpass evolve from a boot-strapped startup to an established category leader with tens of thousands of happy customers in five major metros from San Francisco to Boston," Google Fiber President Dennis Kish wrote.

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a fired Oklahoma police officer who sued his former department for damages after the agency released a video of the officer roughing up a suspect. The officer, Mike Denton, was fired and then reinstated with full back pay before being fired again years later after another video surfaced of him allegedly using excessive force on someone. Denton previously claimed the first video's release was a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and association.

The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the former officer did not prove that the release of the 2011 video by the Owasso Police Department was done in retaliation. Denton had previously e-mailed fellow union members urging them to reject a proposed collective bargaining agreement. But ultimately, the court said that Denton proffered "unsubstantiated allegations" (PDF).

The officer's suit, however, highlights that different people can come to varying conclusions about the value of police video. This idea first came to light with the Rodney King beating, but a similar split occurred with videos in Charlotte, North Carolina and El Cajon, California just last week. In this instance, Denton likely would not have found himself in hot water at all if not for the initial video.