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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NSA Director nominee wants every branch of the military to have a dedicated cyber attack force

It seems like President Obama was pretty serious about that cyber attack list he drew up last year -- his nominee candidate for NSA Director, Admiral Michael Rogers, just told the Senate that the military is building several new cyber combat units. Rogers, who is slated to both take over at the NSA and head the United States Cyber Command, spent several hours answering to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, explaining his views on national security and his desire to be "as transparent as possible with the broader nation about what we're doing, and why." This included a detailed account of the need to create dedicated cyber attack divisions to supplement traditional ground, naval and air forces, which he says will help act as a deterrent to countries that see the United States as an easy target. "Clearly, Cyber will be an element of almost any crisis we're going to see in the future," he told the Senate. "It increasingly is becoming a norm."
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Source: New York Times

Tags: cyberattack, cyberwar, military, nsa, senate Next: Starbucks app to let you pre-order your coffee later this year .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Residents force ice cream truck chimes to be replaced by texts

Residents of the Swedish town of Eslov complain about the cheery jingles emitted by an approaching ice cream truck. So silence and text messages are the answer.

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Obama’s NSA Task Force May Recommend Meaningful Changes

President Obama’s surveillance task force will reportedly recommend that a civilian should direct the National Security Agency and that it should reform its mass data collection practices. An overview of the non-binding recommendations were described to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, giving the eager public a glimpse of what might be in store.

Unfortunately, the headlines offer conflicting interpretations. If you bother reading multiple news outlets today, you’ll conclude that the president’s spying reform task group is going to recommend a “modest” but complete “overhaul” of the National Security Agency, and “continue” with mass data collection, but in a way that protects privacy.

Here’s what we know:

Last August, President Obama promised that a task force would review the NSA’s Internet and telephone spying practices. According to The Journal, the task force will make a few key suggestions:

1. Put a civilian in charge of the NSA. Right now, that position is held by the hawkish General Keith Alexander, who says there’s no other way to “connect the dots” on terrorist interactions than with vast spying. A civilian, in theory, might be more concerned with civil liberties.

Fox News confirmed today that the Obama administration does not plan on splitting the NSA director’s position into a separate Cyber Command unit; so if a civilian does get appointed, he or she will likely oversee the controversial spying program

2. Leave bulk collection to the telephone companies. Instead of warehousing call records in a military database, the panel will recommend that the telephone companies hold it for safe keeping. Now, since the NSA still needs a judge’s approval to query the information, we don’t know whether this would actually reduce the number of people surveilled

The Wall Street Journal writes that the task force report “aligns very closely” with a bill from House Judiciary member and co-author of the 9/11-era Patriot Act, James Sensenbrenner. Sensenbrenner has been on an NSA-reform tear, claiming that the spy agency is “criminal” and has supported big changes under the Freedom Act, including the end of bulk data collection.

The New York Times reports, however, that “a program to collect data on every phone call made in the United States should continue, though under broad new restraints that would be intended to increase privacy protections”.

There may be some nuanced recommendations to make these seemingly conflicting reports consistent. But until the actual recommendations are made public, we think it’s better that you read some other news. Or maybe this joke.

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