Category: News and Views

Nokia Android phones are coming early next year | Mashable

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Fallen mobile phone giant Nokia is about to (attempt to) rise again next year with new phones — this time based on Android.

The plan has been known for a while, but it’s now official, as the company itself confirmed it in a press release Thursday.

The new Nokias will be manufactured by Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile and sold by a Finnish company called HMD Global, which will have an exclusive global license for the Nokia brand for the next ten years. This means another Android player has emerged in the overcrowded market, albeit one with a familiar brand name.

The story of the new, new Nokia is somewhat complex, so here’s a little background: Microsoft bought Nokia’s struggling mobile phone division in 2013 for $7.2 billion but it ditched the Nokia brand the following year, instead calling its mobile phones Microsoft Lumia.

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New Overtime Rules Suspended for Now | Payroll link

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112316_thinkstock_502182102__lores_kwMany employers have been wrestling with plans to comply with new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) overtime rules since last May. That’s when the rules were finalized, with a December 1 compliance deadline. Those new rules included raising the minimum salary overtime exemption to $913 per week from $455. A little more than a week before the deadline for the rules was to take effect, a federal court has issued an injunction, at least temporarily blocking implementation of the changes.

In its decision, the court stated it believes the DOL exceeded its authority in promulgating the rule. In addition, the court said the DOL failed to follow Congress’s intent, which was to reexamine the duties test of the overtime rules, and not to focus solely on the salary level, as the final rules do.

The DOL’s initial response was to state that it “strongly disagrees” with the ruling, and is “currently considering all of our legal options.” A couple of short-term legal scenarios remain possible: The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which issued the ruling, could drop its temporary injunction.

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Here’s Why Hostility Could Be Harmful to Women’s Hearts | Live Science

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NEW ORLEANS — Hostility is linked to poor heart health, and a new study reveals what may happen in women’s bodies that may explain this link.

Scientists have known that, in women, optimism is associated with a reduced risk for heart disease, and that “cynical hostility” — or a general mistrust of other people — has been linked to a higher risk for heart disease, according to a previous study.

What has been unclear, however, is what mechanism optimism and hostility act through to influence women’s heart health. In other words, why do these traits have such effects on heart disease risk?

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Warren Buffett says economy is weaker than people think | Money CNN

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Warren Buffett is worth $70 billion. He is the second-most wealthy person in the world. But he recognizes that the growing income inequality gap in the United States is a big problem. And it may have helped Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

“The Forbes 400 had $93 billion in 1982, and they got $2.4 trillion now. And that’s 25 times as much,” Buffett told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an exclusive interview in Omaha on Thursday.

“If you’ve been working 40 hours a week, maybe holding a second job, and, you know, you work with the Little League and you’ve been a good parent, and you’re really struggling, you think, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?'” he added.

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Um, why am I being targeted with Australian anti-refugee ads on Facebook? | Mashable

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Those “No Way: You will not make Australia home,” campaign ads from the country’s government have made it to Facebook, and they’re targeting…Australians.

Earlier in the week, the government proposed a lifetime ban on refugees who arrive by boat. Now, some Australians are being served the same anti-immigration campaign as people in other parts of the world are seeing. Including myself.

The anti-immigration ads have been around since 2014, aiming to deter would-be asylum seekers from making their way to Australia by boat.

They’ve been translated into 16 different languages, including Tamil, Arabic and Vietnamese. The format has even been copied by far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

I have a Vietnamese background, but as someone born and raised in Australia, I’m not really sure why I’m being served the ads.

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There Is A Major Climate Issue Hiding In Your Closet: Fast Fashion | Co.Exist

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This month as world leaders meet in Morocco to discuss implementation of the Paris climate agreement, which recently entered into force as most major economies began committing to some kind of carbon emissions reduction, there is little talk about one major contributor to climate change: fast fashion.

Fashion has been largely left out of the Paris climate talks. There’s lots of chatter about the more . . . fashionable low-hanging fruit: energy efficiency, conservationism, or the ramp up of renewables. But there’s little talk about textiles and what we’re wearing.

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What’s Pushing the Tech Giants to Make an $8,500 Smart Fridge? | Bloomberg

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The Note 7 isn’t the only Samsung product with problems. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is also working with the Korean company to address safety issues with its washing machines. Customers who bought certain top-load Samsung washers should use only the delicate cycle for bulky items such as sheets to reduce the risk of “impact injuries or property damage,” the CPSC warned in late September following a series of consumer complaints, including a class action contending that Samsung’s machines “explode during normal use.” The company declined to comment.

What’s bad for Samsung may be good for homegrown rival LG, which has been promoting appliances loaded with the latest technology. In September the company unveiled a fridge with a 29-inch touchscreen powered by Intel equipment and running Windows 10; an onboard computer can store recipes and send alerts about needed ingredients to a mobile app. A few weeks later, LG set up an exhibition in New York’s Rockefeller Center to show off its current slate of high-end appliances, including a Signature fridge with doors that open when you wave a foot near a floor sensor. Tap the door twice, and a glass panel goes from opaque to transparent, revealing what’s inside.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and the Future of Disaster Response | WIRED

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DAVID MORAN WAS all set to go out that Saturday night. He thought he might hit Parliament House, Orlando’s oldest gay nightclub, or maybe make it over to Pulse, another mainstay. But after he and a friend ended their shift at the restaurant where they both worked, car trouble kept them marooned in the parking lot for an hour. So Moran went home and fell asleep watching Bob’s Burgers on Netflix instead.

He was awakened just before 5 am by the sound of his phone buzzing next to him on his bed. He fished it out from between the covers and found a text message asking if he had heard the news about Pulse. “Mass shooting,” said the message that arrived next. Now wide awake, Moran instinctively thumbed his way to Facebook.

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Born-Again Debt: What Is Re-Aging, and Is It Legal? | The Simple Dollar

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The world of credit is filled with terms that can sound quite foreign to most people who don’t work in the industry. Once such term is “re-aging.” And, if you currently have the unfortunate experience of collection accounts appearing on your credit reports, it’s a term you should definitely understand.

Re-Aging Defined

Credit problems are not allowed to haunt your credit reports forever. This is great news if you’ve made credit mistakes in your past. Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) there are very strict limitations regarding how long derogatory information is permitted to remain on your credit reports.

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