Fitbit accuracy questioned in lawsuit

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(CNN)Your favorite fitness tracker may not be totally accurate, according to a study used in an amended complaint filed Thursday against Fitbit.

The class-action lawsuit, filed earlier this year, argues that the PurePulse technology used in the Fitbit trackers that measure your heart rate doesn’t do it as well as the company’s marketing material promises, a claim Fitbit denies. The technology is used in the more expensive models of the device, the Surge, Blaze and Charge HR.
    The lawsuit was filed on behalf of people who bought these Fitbits specially to help them track their heart rate, whether for health reasons or to make sure they are getting the most out of their workouts.
    “We are not arguing that it is a medical device. I think that is irrelevant,” said Jonathan Selbin, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit. “This is about the way they market it and that they charge a premium for the heart rate monitor, but it’s not giving a meaningful measurement.”

    Stand

    People who buy them, though, may have higher expectations.
    Montoye says some people in his campus exercise program have complained that they went to the grocery store but didn’t get credit for their steps because they were pushing a cart. The device relies in part on a change in motion, and for the motion pattern to recognize a step, it must be large enough. Pushing a cart or even walking on a soft surface like a plush carpet may undercount your movement. It can also overcount your steps if you are riding on a bumpy road, according to Fitbit’s website.
    Montoye said for participants who need to track their heart rate he advises using a different device that is more specific.

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    “If they had just been honest,” Selbin said, “and said it can give you a ballpark figure most of the time, or if the marketing emphasized that you can use these when you are aspiring to be healthier, that would have been OK, but that’s not how they market it, and they charge a premium for it.”
    Fitbit was worth more than $8 billion right after it went public in June. The devices are enormously popular, with everyone from President Obama to Britney Spears and Ryan Reynolds spotted wearing them, so the lawsuit is bound to be watched carefully.

    Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/health/fitbit-accuracy-questioned/index.html

    NFL To Pay Over $700,000 Back To Taxpayers For Sponsored Patriotism

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    The NFL is finally giving taxpayers back what’s morally owed to them: Their money.

    On Thursday, ESPN reported that the league agreed to pay $723,734 back to the government for inappropriate instances of “sponsored patriotism” at NFL games.

    The decision comes almost exactly one year after Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake tossed out government skeletons by revealing that the the New Jersey Army National Guard spent $377,500 over three years to recognize military members at New York Jets games. 

    “[The NFL’s refund] was great,” Flake told The Huffington Post on Capitol Hill on Thursday. “They did exactly what they should have done and it was refreshing to see.”

    Up until May 2015, the public was unaware that commonplace patriotic scenes at NFL games like military flag rollouts, national anthem performances and welcome home tributes were actually paid-for marketing efforts on behalf of the Department of Defense for recruiting purposes. 

    By October, Flake was able to get the National Defense Authorization Act passed in Congress, thereby banning professional sports teams and leagues from profiting off of game day military celebrations. The following month, Flake and fellow Arizona Sen. John McCain released a 145-page report revealing that as much as $6.8 million of taxpayer money had been “inappropriately ”paid out to professional sports teams over the past four years. 

    “Americans deserve the ability to assume that tributes for our men and women in military uniform are genuine displays of national pride, which many are, rather than taxpayer-funded DOD marketing gimmicks,” the report said.

    Mark Zaleski/AP
    You don’t have to pay for this anymore.

    Between 2011 and 2014, NFL teams pocketed a reported $5.4 million. All told, $53 million was spent from 2012 to 2015 on marketing and advertising contracts with 122 professional sports teams, including those in the NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS.

    Flake said he had not heard from the other leagues named in the report, but that the NFL had set “a great example of what ought to be done.”

    “In all the years I’ve spent rooting out egregious federal spending, the NFL is the first organization to perform due diligence, take responsibility, and return misspent funds to the taxpayers,” Flake added in a statement released by his office.

    NFL commissioner Roger Goodell responded to the November report by saying that the league would audit its teams’ government contracts and refund any money made inappropriately. Goodell has indeed followed through with that promise, writing in a Wednesday letter to McCain and Flake:

    In assessing whether a payment could be construed as being made for honoring our troops, rather than for recruitment activities, the auditors erred on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion of any payment that might fall into this category.

    Goodell added that the NFL’s government contracts will be included in the league’s regular internal audits moving forward. 

    McCain also applauded the NFL in a statement provided to The Huffington Post, but called upon the NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS to do the same due diligence and audit their DOD contracts.

    He added, “We’ll be working to once again include language in the defense authorization bill that would fully ensure the Defense Department never again spends American tax dollars to honor our troops.”

    Laura Barron-Lopez contributed reporting to this story. 

    Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/05/19/nfl-to-pay-over-700000-back-to-taxpayers-for-sponsored-patriotism_n_10053718.html

    George Zimmerman sells gun used to kill Trayvon Martin on auction site

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    Gun appeared to gone for $138,900 on United Gun Group website in auction disrupted by fake bidders, including one under the name Racist McShootface

    George Zimmerman appears to have sold the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin four years ago, bringing an end to the latest controversy to swirl around the notorious former neighbourhood watch leader.

    Zimmerman, who shot and killed the unarmed black teenager during an altercation at his Florida housing estate in February 2012, looks set to collect $138,900 for the Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun after bidding closed midday on the website unitedgungroup.com.

    But the final hour of the auction was disrupted by the reappearance of the type of fake bidders who wrecked Zimmermans two previous attempts to cash in on the firearm during auctions last week on a rival website. At one stage on Wednesday the highest offer of $137,600 was in the name of a user called Racist McShootface, whose profile was quickly deleted.

    The eventual top bidder was a user named John Smith, whose successful offer was made in the auctions final minute. No further details were listed for him on the website other than that he claimed to be based in Alabama.

    For most of the final morning of the two-day auction the top bidder was a user named David Thorne, whose profile featured a photograph of a man in full military combat fatigue and helmet clutching an automatic rifle.

    Zimmerman, who was acquitted of all charges over the death of Trayvon, 17, at his 2013 trial, attracted heavy criticism for his efforts to sell the weapon, which he called an American Firearm icon in an accompanying description on the auction site.

    Leonard Pitts, a Pulitzer-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, wrote on Wednesday that the auction was a national shame.

    The marketing of the gun that killed him by the man who pulled the trigger does not feel like simply another example of flagrantly bad taste. No, it feels like a victory lap on a dead boys grave, Pitts wrote.

    So when this thing is sold it really wont matter who writes the check. We all will pay the price.

    Zimmerman has repeatedly defended his right to sell the weapon and in an extraordinary rant published by the Daily Beast on Tuesday he accused Trayvons parents of profiting from his death. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin did everything they could to capitalize on her sons death, Zimmerman said.

    They didnt raise their son right. He attacked a complete stranger and tried to kill him.

    A portion of the proceeds from the sale, Zimmerman said on the auction website, would be used to fight BLM [Black Lives Matter] violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Coreys persecution career and Hillary Clintons anti-firearm rhetoric. Corey was the Florida state prosecutor who led the unsuccessful attempt to convict Zimmerman.

    In a statement issued through civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, Tracy Martin refused to comment on the auction, saying he preferred to focus on the work of the Trayvon Martin Foundation, set up partly to support other parents who had lost their children to violence.

    Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/18/george-zimmerman-sells-gun-trayvon-martin