Kraft Recalling 36,000 Cases Of Cheese Due To Packaging Choking Hazard

(Jeepers Media)

True story: I had a friend in college who often wanted a snack while we were out and about on weekend nights guzzling Milwaukee’s Best Light. To curb her cravings, she’d often stick a few Kraft singles cheese slices in her purse, conveniently wrapped in plastic for individual snacking opportunities. Alas, that same convenient packaging is at the heart of a new voluntary recall from Kraft, over concerns that people could choke on the plastic wrapping.

The Kraft Heinz Company announced in a press release that it’s calling back 36,000 cases of Kraft Singles, because the plastic wrap on individual slices might be a choking hazard, due to its tendency to stick to the cheese.

“A thin strip of the individual packaging film may remain adhered to the slice after the wrapper has been removed. If the film sticks to the slice and is not removed, it could potentially cause a choking hazard,” Kraft says in a press release about the recall.

So far, there have been 10 consumer complaints about the packaging, three of which included reports of consumers choking.

The recall applies to 3-pound and 4-pound sizes of Kraft Singles American and White American pasteurized prepared cheese product with a Best When Used By Date of December 29, 2015 through January 4, 2016. Check the list here.

“Consumers who purchased this product should not eat it,” the company advises. “They should return it to the store where purchased for an exchange or full refund.”

Consumers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico can also contact Kraft Heinz Consumer Relations for a full refund, at 1-800-432-3101, Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm ET.

“We deeply regret this situation and apologize to any consumers we have disappointed,” Kraft says.

Anyone toting around cheese in your bag for a night on the town, take note.

Forget Listening To That Voicemail, Soon Siri Might Transcribe It For You

(Vincent Lee)

In an age of instant messaging and e-mail, some people still prefer to pick up a phone and leave a voicemail. But for the growing number of consumers who are voicemail-averse, Apple is testing out a new voice-text hybrid.

Business Insider reports that employees of the tech giant are already experimenting with iCloud Voicemail, which uses Siri to answer, transcribe and send users a text of voice messages.

The new system – which could be released next year if all things go well – aims not only to tap into consumers’ love of text messages, but also level the playing field for older consumers who continue to prefer voice messages.

The voicemail-to-text network works when someone using iCloud Voicemail is unable to take a call. At that point Siri will answer instead of letting the call go to a standard digital audio recorder, Business Insider reports.

iCould Voicemail then relays standard information – who you are, where you are, why you can’t answer – to the caller. Once the message has been left, Siri will transcribe the content into a text message for you to read.

If a lot of this sounds familiar, it’s because Google Voice has been trying to do voice-to-text transcription for years, but with little luck. Between callers’ accents, speech patterns and phone connections, it’s not always easy for a computer to figure out exactly what’s being said.

Apple is preparing to launch a voicemail service that will use Siri to transcribe your messages [Business Insider]

Walmart, Sears, Amazon & Other Retailers Agree Not To Sell Realistic-Looking Toy Guns In NY

A prohibited toy gun from Amazon, via the NY AG’s office.

Almost eight months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent cease-and-desist letters to several retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Sears and Kmart, those companies have agreed not to sell realistic-looking guns in the state.

The retailers have agreed to stick to New York City laws governing the sale of toy guns — they can’t be blue, black, silver or aluminum and must be brightly colored or translucent — as part of settlements with Schneiderman’s office to be announced on Monday. Federal law requires toy guns to have an orange stripe near the tip as well.

The A.G.’s office found that more than 6,400 toy guns violated New York laws from 2012 to 2014.

“Police officers can’t tell in a split second if it’s a real gun or toy gun,” Schneiderman told NBC News’ Today show (warning, link has video that autoplays) on Monday. “We’ve had 63 people shot in New York because law enforcement officers thought the toy gun was a real gun — that’s not acceptable.”

It’s also an issue elsewhere in the country: in November, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun when he was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland.

“There have been instances in states around the country in which police officers have mistaken toy guns for actual guns,” Schneiderman told the New York Times. “It’s an absolutely unnecessary risk, because toy guns, as New York law requires, can be easily distinguishable.”

Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Nebraska and New York all introduced legislation to create or amend toy gun laws, while about a half dozen others already have laws on the books, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Walmart will be on the hook for the bulk of the civil penalties, because it was found to have violated terms of a 2003 agreement to keep the toy guns in question out of the state. None of its physical stores sold illegal toy guns, but Schneiderman’s office said consumers bought 149 of them through Walmart.com.

“Once the New York attorney general expressed concern with certain items sold at Walmart.com we blocked the shipment of those items into the state,” a Walmart spokesman told the NYT, noting that Walmart beefed up its policies to keep the toys from being sold in the future. “We are pleased we were able to resolve this matter, along with several other retailers.”

Sears Holdings said through a spokesman that the company is “pleased” to resolve the AG’s concerns, while Amazon did not comment.

320K Dodge Chargers Recalled Because Airbags Shouldn’t Deploy When The Door Shuts

(Bill Binns)

For the past year, car makers have been plagued with airbag issues of some kind. Over the weekend Fiat Chrysler announced it was the latest company to encounter problems with the safety devices: unintended deployment when shutting a vehicle’s doors. 

The latest recall for Fiat Chrysler, which has recently faced increased scrutiny and a $105 million fine from federal regulators regarding its recall practices, involves 322,000 model year 2011 to 2014 Dodge Chargers that may have airbags that can deploy unexpectedly when the door is slammed or kicked with excessive force.

According to a notice [PDF] from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the vehicles’ side impact sensor calibration may be overly sensitive, and as a result, the side airbag inflatable curtains and seat airbags may unexpectedly deploy and the seat belt pretension may activate.

If the airbags deploy without warning, it can increase the risk of crash or injury.

Owners of the affected vehicles will be notified by Fiat Chrysler and a local dealer will update the Occupant Restraint Control module calibration.

Comcast Still Screwing Up Discount For Elderly Customers In St. Paul

Broadband competition (or specifically, its absence) in the Twin Cities.

Weeks after we told you about Comcast’s apparent ignorance of its mandated discount for elderly residents in the Minnesota city of St. Paul, customers there say the company still has its head in the sand and is refusing to properly honor requests from eligible consumers.

A quick refresher for those not up-to-date on Minnesota cable news, for 15 years Comcast’s franchise agreement [PDF] with St. Paul has required that the cable company, which dominates the pay-TV and broadband market in the city, offer a discount of 10%/month on service for “Senior citizens, Persons with disabilities and Persons who are Economically disadvantaged.”

Approximately 24% of the St. Paul population lives in poverty and 9% of the population are senior citizens. Taking into account the overlap of these two groups, around 1-in-4 residents could be eligible for the discount.

But even though the savings were available for more than a decade, many St. Paul residents weren’t aware — and neither were a lot of Comcast reps. After the local media mentioned the discount, numerous consumers complained that Comcast told them they were misinformed or mistaken and that the program didn’t exist.

After the public humiliation of being called out for failing to know about its own agreement with the city, Comcast apologized and said it was “communicating with all customer care representatives to make certain they are aware of the discount and the qualification process for St. Paul customers.”

Alas, the latest report from the Pioneer Press indicates that Comcast continues to turn away customers or provide them with confusing or incorrect information.

One 66-year-old customer says she tried to get the discount but was told it only applied low-income seniors. Since she’s not considered low-income, she was told she was not eligible.

Paperwork mailed to the customer only backed up Comcast’s lack of understanding about its own discount program.

Instead of paperwork asking the customer to confirm her age, she instead received a form titled, “Low Income Discount Affidavit: Seniors or Disability,” which required her to prove her adjusted gross annual income totaled less than $17,500.

Additionally, the form compels the signer to agree that “I will not be eligible for the discount if I am receiving any promotional offer or my services are incorporated into a digital value package.”

And a rep for Comcast confirms that “Yes, customers who have bundled packages are ineligible for the discount because the bundled package already is offered at a discounted rate.”

However, there is nothing in the St. Paul franchise agreement that seems to give Comcast the ability to invalidate the discount if a customer bundles her cable/Internet/phone services. The Pioneer Press reports that the city is looking into this clause of the Comcast document.

This seems to be a problem hitting several elderly St. Paul residents.

One woman says she was told she couldn’t get the discount because she was already receiving one and “you have to have certain equipment in your home.”

A 69-year-old man likewise had no luck at the Comcast store. “I was told I wasn’t eligible because I already receive a discount for bundling cable, phone and Internet,” he told the Pioneer Press.

The most ridiculously Comcastic experience comes from a woman who was told she could only get the discount through her local Comcast — sorry, Xfinity — store. When she explained that she had no car and asked for the number of that store so she could call, “The rep told me ‘because of security reasons’ he could not give that number out. I politely thanked him and hung up.”

Package Of Spinach From Sam’s Club Comes With Free Frog

Frogs: keep out. (Jess)

A woman in California was not pleased when she prepared a salad for dinner and saw a small, speckled frog nestled between the spinach leaves. Sure, people sometimes pay good money to have frog legs for dinner, but those frogs are usually, you know, purpose-raised. And cooked.

The factories that process salad greens put a lot of effort into ensuring that a minimum number of frogs end up in our salad bowls. The woman who found this frog (warning: giant dead frog picture at top of article) purchased the affected bag of salad at Sam’s Club, and the spinach came from Taylor Farms. (If that name sounds familiar, it was bags of Taylor Farms lettuce that PBS and NPR found piled up in a landfill in a recent story on food waste.)

“I’m just really disgusted. I don’t think I can ever eat a salad again,” the woman told a local newspaper. “How could they miss a dead frog?”

Someone at Taylor Farms explained in some detail how a frog could have ended up in the container of spinach: the company uses vibration tables and laser sorters to remove insects, animals, and any other debris that might have been harvested along with the greens.

It’s possible, they explained, that the little frog had been concealed behind a leaf when this batch was sorted, or and the laser was not working properly when this batch was processed. The company didn’t respond when a reporter from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune asked whether there have been other reports of frogs in other containers of spinach.

While the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t get involved unless there’s a widespread frogs-in-food trend, you should still consider giving the agency a call: it’s through reports from consumers that they’re able to spot trends.

Dead frog found in packaged spinach, Covina woman says [San Gabriel Valley Tribune]

Newly Married AT&T/DirecTV Unveil Underwhelming Combined Wireless/TV Plans

The AT&T/DirecTV combo platter saves money, but only for new customers, and after 12 months, it’s really just a $10/month bill discount.

Now that the merger of AT&T and DirecTV has cleared regulatory hurdles, the newlyweds are going public with their first combo platter offering that pairs of AT&T wireless phone service with DirecTV satellite TV. Unfortunately, the more than 20 million current DirecTV customers are going to be left out in the cold on this announcement.

Starting on Aug. 10, new DirecTV (and, where available, AT&T U-Verse) customers can bundle together pay-TV and AT&T wireless service for a promotional price of as little as $200/month. That’s for the entry-level DirecTV Select service and a 10GB/month AT&T wireless plan that can be shared across four different lines. It’s effectively a $10/month discount off of getting the two services separately.

For TV service with more channels, you’ll obviously be expected to pay more, with the DirecTV Premiere tier bringing the total promotional cost up to $275/month.

And, to repeat, all these prices are promotional. After a year, they will go up by around $35-40/month.

Current DirecTV or U-Verse customers who are thinking about changing their phone service to AT&T can get up to $300 in bill credit, but only if they buy a new phone through the AT&T Next installment plan and trade in their old phone.

Customers in areas served by U-Verse can get AT&T Internet service with promotional pricing starting at $30/month for up to 6Mbps, or $40/month for up to 24Mbps. But again, remember that these are promotional prices that will go up after a year. At this point, AT&T isn’t even saying what that price will be, other than saying that the “prevailing standard rate” will apply after the 12 months are up.

Today’s announcement is a bit underwhelming, as the deals boil down to little more than slight discounts for bundled services. But the combined companies pledge that more is to come.

“Today is the first of many planned moves to enable our customers to enjoy a premium entertainment experience almost anywhere,” said Brad Bentley, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment and Internet Services. “We’re going to deliver more TV and entertainment choices to more screens – when and where our customers want it.”

As part of the merger process, AT&T promised that it could bring affordable wireless broadband service to rural Americans. A review of FTC documents in March turned up some details on that plan, like the fact that it’s not going to be satellite broadband, but instead what’s known as Wireless Local Loop (WLL) technology, which basically uses dedicated wireless spectrum to carry broadband back and forth between a box on the user’s home and one on a nearby cell tower.

No word yet on when AT&T will be prepared to provide more details on that service, but let’s hope it’s more inventive than just a $10/month discount.