AT&T, Sprint and Verizon and nine other telecommunications companies teamed up with attorneys generals of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia to announce a new pact to eradicate a common scourge in America: illegal robocalls. The agreement, which amounts to a set of anti-robocall principles, is aimed at combating …
When a dear friend’s teenage daughter was killed in a car accident, she understandably could not bring herself to erase her daughter’s message from the family phone. That was seven years ago. My friend still hasn’t changed the message, and I find it very discomforting to hear the deceased girl’s …
A large log dug up in Cambodia has drawn thousands of visitors who believe it has healing powers and can predict winning lottery numbers. Some 4,000 to 5,000 people have already been to see the 13-metre-long log (42 feet) that was discovered earlier this month when a family excavated a …
If you own a smartphone, you know what it’s like to be trapped in a two-year contract. You probably also know that breaking that contract results in a staggering cancellation fee. That’s why some people prefer prepaid phone plans. According to one tech research firm, no-contract phones now account for …
Research In Motion can’t catch a break. A tweet sent out Wednesday meant to promote its BlackBerry brand has backfired on the Canadian company, with many people using the campaign to bash RIM’s phones. The company tweeted from its @BlackBerry account “Fill in the blank: BlackBerry helps me ________.” However, many of …
Every day, Bureau of Labor Statistics interviewers ask Americans to detail how they spent the previous 24 hours, how many minutes and hours they devoted to everything from shopping to child care to phone calls. The results, culled from 12,500 respondents, make up the American Time Use Survey. It began …
Amazon is developing an Android-based smartphone to compliment its Kindle Fire tablet and Kindle e-readers, according to a new report. Two unnamed sources told Bloomberg that Amazon is working with China-based factory Foxconn to build the device. The retail giant is also acquiring patents related to wireless technology that would …
I’M heading into another vacation, and I’m nervous. I don’t want to kill again. I pretty much did in my last break, this past March. Not an act of premeditation so much as passion. I got so jacked up. Seven days in Hawaii. It was going to be the best …
As people depend more and more on their smartphones, they’re forgetting to take some basic equipment — like maps and flashlights. Who needs a who needs a flashlight when you have a flashlight app? Actually, tough guy, you do. Across the U.S., park rangers are dealing with the increasingly common …
PAIMPONT, France — A faint trail of mud and manure leads from the door of Yves Denais’s barn-floor office, overlooking the pens for his Holstein calves, to a cluttered desk atop which sits a compact beige plastic box that once placed Mr. Denais at the cutting edge of information technology. …
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — With their elderly parents seated across the octagonal oak table, Donna and Jim Parker were back in the kitchen they knew so well – the hutch along one wall crammed with plates, bells and salt-and-pepper shakers picked up during family trips; at the table’s corner, the …
To bring home the message that smoking is bad for you, Ogilvy Thailand turned the tables on cancer stick suckers: Rather than try and convince them to quit by telling them how bad smoking is, the ad agency instead tricked smokers into telling themselves how bad smoking is by having …