Month: December 2016

Geoscientist Lida Xing was shopping at an amber market in Myitkyina, Myanmar in 2015 when he saw an unusual piece of amber. Trapped inside was a small object that the amber merchants thought was a sprig of leaves. But Xing thought something much more interesting was going on, so he decided to take a closer look. What he found could change our understanding of how feathers evolved.

Xing had discovered eight fully preserved vertebrae from a young, non-avian dinosaur called a coelurosaur. As an adult it would have been about the size of an ostrich, but this juvenile was still tiny enough to get trapped in tree sap and never escape. Feathers covered its tail, but at the tip they fluffed out in a pattern that suggested this animal may have had a fan-shaped tail. After Xing convinced the Dexu Institute of Paleontology to buy the amber, he and an international group of colleagues in China, England, and Canada examined it closely, using a number of imaging techniques that allowed them to generate 3-D reconstructions of the tail structure.

Chung-tat Cheung

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Aurich)

Current and former AT&T customers will get refunds or bill credits totaling $88 million within the next 75 days, satisfying the terms of a settlement between AT&T and the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC announced today. The AT&T customers were victimized by "mobile cramming," charges for third-party services that were placed on their phone bills without the customers' authorization.

AT&T agreed to pay for the refunds and credits in a settlement announced in October 2014, and it agreed to notify current customers about the process for applying for refunds. The process, which was led by a third-party contractor that validated each customers' claim, is finally just about over. Some of the money was also recovered from Tatto and Acquinity, two companies that were allegedly behind cramming schemes that affected AT&T customers.

Customers were allowed to apply for refunds for any unauthorized third-party charges that occurred in 2009 and later.

Enlarge (credit: We-Vibe Store)

A few months back, we reported on the collision of the Internet of Things and sex toys. The maker of an Internet-connected, remote-controlled vibrator was sued in federal court for being a little too connected to its users: the company tracked various app settings such as vibration level and "temperature" without customer consent.

Standard Innovation, the company behind the We-Vibe vibrator, was extremely apologetic at the time. It also noted that no customer data was compromised and said that it was updating its privacy policy. But now, the company has "agreed" to settle the proposed class-action lawsuit (PDF).

According to Illinois federal court documents (PDF), the anonymous plaintiff—identified as "N.P."—and the company have mediated their dispute. They have "executed a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") regarding agreed terms for settlement of Plaintiff's claims on behalf of herself and a putative settlement class." A hearing is tentatively set for next month, and the actual settlement should be lodged in court by then.

Enlarge / The United States Treasury Department (pictured) sells bonds to investors and corporations. Bloomberg reported that Apple holds $41.7B in US Treasury bonds, the single largest corporate holder. (credit: Eric Gilliland)

Apple has received at least $6 per American taxpayer over the last five years in the form of interest payments on billions' worth of United States Treasury bonds, according to a Wednesday report by Bloomberg.

Citing Apple’s regulatory filings and unnamed sources, the business publication found “the Treasury Department paid Apple at least $600 million and possibly much more over the past five years in the form of interest.” By taking advantage of a provision in the American tax code, Bloomberg says that Apple has “stashed much of its foreign earnings—tax-free—right here in the US, in part by purchasing government bonds.”

As The Wall Street Journal reported in September, American companies are believed to be holding approximately $2 trillion in cash overseas that is shielded from US taxes. Under American law, companies must pay a 35-percent corporate tax rate on global profits when that money is brought home—so there is an incentive to keep as much of that money overseas as possible.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. (credit: FCC)

Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai yesterday vowed to take a "weed whacker" to FCC regulations after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, with net neutrality rules being among the first to be cut down.

Pai is the commission's senior Republican and could end up being the FCC chairman, at least on an interim basis until Trump chooses a long-term chair.

"I’m optimistic that last month’s election will prove to be an inflection point—and that during the Trump Administration, we will shift from playing defense at the FCC to going on offense," Pai said in a speech yesterday before the Free State Foundation in Washington, DC, said. The commission "need[s] to remove outdated and unnecessary regulations... We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation," he also said.