Music fans who damage their hearing by cranking up the volume on their iPods cannot blame Apple after a US appeals court ruled that users are responsible for listening to music too loudly.
The judgment is yet more good news for Apple, whose shares hit a record high ahead of the rumoured launch of its “tablet” computer this month with more details leaking out.
Judge David Thompson upheld a 2008 ruling that the iPod was not directly responsible for hearing loss despite users being able to listen to music at a potentially dangerous 115 decibels.
He said that the two claimants did not prove that hearing loss was “actual or imminent” when using an iPod.
The complaint was initially filed by Joseph Birdsong in Louisiana before another complainant, Bruce Waggoner, joined the suit.
They had argued that the iPod’s earphones were designed to be placed in the ear canal rather than over the ears, increasing the prospect of hearing loss, and that the device lacked any noise-isolating or cancelling properties.
I can confirm that Santa Claus will depart the North Pole at 6pm Australian time tonight.
Check out the wonderful work of Santa Claus and the mighty team at Norad.
A little bit about Norad…
For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve flight.
The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.
In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.
Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to Christmas Eve phone calls and emails from children. In addition, we now track Santa using the internet. Last year, millions of people who wanted to know Santa’s whereabouts visited the NORAD Tracks Santa website.
Finally, media from all over the world rely on NORAD as a trusted source to provide Christmas Eve updates on Santa’s journey.
In Memory of Colonel (Retired) Harry Shoup, USAF
NORAD’s First Santa Tracker
September 29, 1917 – March 14, 2009
RIP Harry. What you started is a truly wonderful thing for children all over the world.
BROADCASTERS will be able to air extra advertising on their digital free-to-air channels and erase breaches of the rules governing free-to-air TV if they swiftly correct errors, under significant concessions given by the communications watchdog.
Program classification rules have also been relaxed, enabling the networks to show PG-rated programs throughout the day on their new free-to-air digital channels.
Previously, they were bound by rules governing the main channels requiring children’s and general classification time zones to be observed when children were likely to be watching.
Following the infamous “turkey slap” incident from Ten’s Big Brother program that was shown in online video, rules governing the portrayal of reality show contestants have been toughened to prevent participants from being shown “in a highly demeaning or highly exploitative manner”.
Depictions of sexual activity or nudity and verbal sexual references in MA-rated programs must now “be relevant to the story line or program context and must not be high in impact”.
The changes take effect from January 1 under a new code of practice for commercial TV broadcasters that was approved by the Australian Communications and Media Authority on 18 December.
LONDON – Eurostar has cancelled a January radio sponsorship and is to review its 2010 marketing plans and use of social media as part of a contrite reaction to its ongoing service disruptions.
Speaking to Brand Republic, sales and marketing director Emma Harris said that while Eurostar’s first priority is getting people home for Christmas it has a “big job to do from a brand point of view” after three days of “quite damaging” customer disruption.
The problems started on Friday night after five trains lost power and were stuck in the Channel Tunnel.
Passengers were evacuated from two of the trains in the dark.
Passengers’ experiences of unpleasant conditions, delays and lack of communication from Eurostar staff were extensively reported by the media and in social media, while subsequent attention has focused on those marooned in London and Paris due to the continuing lack of operational trains.
Harris has suspended normal advertising, pay-per-click and direct response activity and taken out apology ads signed by chief executive Richard Brown in today’s broadsheet papers. Continue Reading
WITH his portly belly and a fondness for a brandy-fuelled spin on the sleigh, Santa Claus is hardly the picture of health or safety.
Now his wild ways are catching up with him, with calls for a radical overhaul of his bad boy image. A study by Monash University public health expert Dr Nathan Grills found Santa could be promoting obesity, speeding and drink-driving, and damaging millions of lives.
The childhood legend should be used to promote a healthy lifestyle, the study, published in the British Medical Journal, found.
It suggested Santa slim down by ditching the cookies, mince pies and milk, and instead snacking on his reindeers’ carrots and celery sticks.
Santa also should trade in the sleigh for a bike or throw his sack over his shoulder and hit the global road on foot.
My conclusion? Well, hot on the heels of another Get a Life post, some people simply have too much time on their hands. They should Get A Life.
The cheeky little train and his friends live in a world blighted by a “conservative political ideology” and a rigid class system that stifles self-expression, according to startling new Canadian academic research.
Professor Shauna Wilton also found that women are under-represented in the stories and what few female characters there are tend to have “secondary” roles or be bossy.
What’s more, she has warned that such negative messages about society subconsciously gleaned from the show may drive its young fans off the rails in later life.
Professor Wilton concluded that the themes are not “constructive” after analysing the characters and plots of 23 different episodes of the television show.
Reminds me of what happened a few years back when Australian media of various persuasions actually gave airtime to people condemning Bob the Builder for unsafe work practices by hanging out of a tractor.
Music fans who damage their hearing by cranking up the volume on their iPods cannot blame Apple after a US appeals court ruled that users are responsible for listening to music too loudly.
