HTC opens up BlinkFeed, allows apps like Foursquare and Fitbit to push data to your homescreen

Love it or hate it, Sense is growing up. BlinkFeed, the beating tiled heart of the HTC experience is now being opened up to developers through an SDK. That means that third parties will be able to push information to the stream of data that makes up your feed. For example, Fitbit will be able to keep you abreast of how many steps you've taken without you having to go into the app. Oh, and the Fitbit app does harvest movement data from the phone's internal sensors, just like it does on the iPhone 5S, so you don't really need that separate band. HTC announced one other launch partner for the BlinkFeed SDK -- Foursquare. The location-based social network will pop up suggestions for lunch spots while you're out and about. Of course, the company will have to convince other big names to hop on the bandwagon if BlinkFeed is going to really take off.

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Tags: android, blinkfeed, breaking news, fitbit, foursquare, htc, htc one, m8, mobilepostcross, one, one m8, sdk, sense Next: The new HTC One vs. the competition: the battle of Android flagships rages on
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Fitbit has received nearly 10,000 reports of skin irritation from Force owners

Fitbit kicked off a refund program last month after learning its Force activity tracker caused skin irritation in a "small percentage" of users, and now we're finally getting a better sense of the situation. According to the official recall notice from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the company received around 9,900 reports of skin irritation and around 250 reports of blistering. The notice also points out that the recall affects about 1 million of the wearables in the United States and about 28,000 more in Canada. So what happens next? Well, the CPSC's stance is clear: contact the company and take the money.

"Whether you hear about this recall from the CPSC or Fitbit directly, take advantage of the refund right away," CPSC communications director Scott Wolfson told Engadget. "It's actually somewhat rare for firms that we deal with to provide a refund, especially a full refund."

The Commission also wants the company to inform as many of its customers of the recall as possible, and it doesn't seem thrilled with what Fitbit has accomplished so far. At time of writing, Fitbit's popular Twitter (77,700 followers) and Facebook (250,000 likes) accounts make no mention of the recall. That's not to say Fitbit is just sitting around though: a representative confirmed to us that it'll email all Force owners "over the next few weeks" to make sure they're aware of the situation.

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Source: CPSC

More Coverage: Consumerist

Tags: cpsc, fitbit, fitbitforce, force, recall, refund, skin Next: New HTC One sold on eBay in Verizon packaging for $500
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