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Fitbit Denies Claim Woman’s Device Exploded

7:20 AM
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UPDATE: Fitbit is disputing a woman’s claim that her fitness tracker spontaneously exploded on her wrist earlier this month, in an incident that reportedly caused second-degree burns to her body.
Tests on the device owned by Dina Mitchell of Milwaukee found that “external forces” caused the damage to her Flex 2 band, the company said in a statement on Friday.
“Based on our initial investigation, including testing of her device by a leading third-party failure analysis firm, we have concluded that Ms. Mitchell’s Fitbit Flex 2 did not malfunction. The testing shows that external forces caused the damage to the device,” they stated.
Fitbit went on to say that they have not received any similar complaints. They added, “we want to assure our customers that they can continue to enjoy their Flex 2 and all Fitbit products with confidence.”
A request for comment from Mitchell on Fitbit’s findings was not immediately returned.
PREVIOUSLY:
We’ve heard of exploding cell phones and e-cigarettes. Now, a Wisconsin woman is warning about exploding fitness trackers.
Fitbit owner Dina Mitchell said she was wearing her Flex 2 device last week when it spontaneously exploded on her wrist, leaving her with second-degree burns.
“It didn’t heat up at first, there was no warning, it just, it burst into flames. It exploded,” the Milwaukee resident told WISN News of the April 18 incident.
Mitchell, who said the tracker was a recent birthday present, told ABC News that she received treatment at an urgent care facility for her injury. A doctor there picked pieces of rubber and plastic out of her arm.
Aurora Health Care’s urgent care facility in Waukesha confirmed Mitchell’s visit to WTMJ News.
Fitbit, in a statement obtained by HuffPost, said they’ve since spoken with Mitchell about what happened and are “actively investigating this issue.”

13 NEWS
Mitchell said her Flex 2 device exploded on her wrist.

“We are extremely concerned about Ms. Mitchell’s report regarding her Flex 2 and take it very seriously, as the health and safety of our customers is our top priority,” a spokesperson said. “Fitbit products are designed and produced in accordance with strict standards and undergo extensive internal and external testing to ensure the safety of our users.”
They added that this is the first complaint they’re aware of and “see no reason for people to stop wearing their Flex 2” devices.
According to Fitbit’s website, the Flex 2 trackers run on lithium-polymer batteries.
In the past, lithium batteries have made similar headlines after other devices like cell phones, laptops, hoverboards, and headphones caught fire, in some cases injuring people. The Federal Aviation Administration reports a number of incidents on planes involving both lithium ion batteries and lithium polymer batteries. The two types of batteries are only marginally different, according to website Battery University, which is published by Canadian company Cadex Electronics.
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Tinder Photo Grab Is Latest Scary Warning To Be Careful What You Post

7:17 AM
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Images of Tinder users posting their sexiest selfies were swept up in a massive grab of some 40,000 photos from the dating app.
The photos were sucked up days ago by a dataset collector who plans to use the selfies in artificial intelligence training, reports TechCrunch. They were taken from Tinder users from the San Francisco Bay Area and include 20,000 photos of men and 20,000 of women.
Tinder said in a statement that the photo sweeper “violated the terms of our service” and “we are taking appropriate action and investigating further.” Tinder did not detail what it’s doing.
Though the photo scrape was confined to Northern California this time, it serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of app posts, even those that may be embarrassingly intimate.
Dataset creator Stuart Colianni has uploaded his “Tinder Face Scraper” method on GitHubso others can do exactly what he did. He touts it as a “simple script that exploits the Tinder API [app programming interface] to allow a person to build a facial dataset.” Other Tinder scrapers on GitHub have collected other data, such as the name, birthday, bio, number of photos and last sign-in of users.
Colianni describes himself as a “data science enthusiast” on his page on Kaggle, a site for data science and machine learning. His collected photos were accessible for a time on Kaggle and had already been downloaded some 300 times as of Thursday, TechCrunch reports. Several of the photos highlighted body parts more than faces, and many were sexually suggestive.
Colianni noted on GitHub that he removed the photos from Kaggle, which was recently acquired by Google, following a request to do so from Tinder.
Colianni said he plans to use the photos to help train artificial neural networks to recognize male and female faces. He explained on GitHub that he turned to Tinder to create his dataset because it “gives you access to thousands of people within miles of you.”
“Why not leverage Tinder to build a better, larger facial dataset?” he asked.
It’s unclear whether Tinder users have strong legal protections from such a grab. The app’s terms of use grant Tinder the “worldwide, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free right and license to host, store, use, copy, display, reproduce, adapt, edit, publish, modify and distribute” their posted content. Colianni, however, is not part of Tinder.
Tinder’s statement seems a bit equivocal about privacy. It says the company takes the “security and privacy of our users seriously and have tools and systems in place to uphold the integrity of our platform,” including protections against photo scrapes. But it also adds: “The images that we serve are profile images, which are available to anyone swiping on the app.”
One final caveat for robotic neural networks out there: The dataset of Tinder faces could include an animal or two. The last male northern white rhino on earth joined Tinder earlier this month in his hunt for a mate.
Just swipe right.
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Oldest Man On Earth Dies In Indonesia, Allegedly At Age 146

7:05 AM
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A man who claimed to be the oldest human in the world has died in an Indonesian village, allegedly at the ripe age of 146.
Sodimedjo, aka Mbah Gotho (which translates to Grandpa Gotho) was born, according to papers in his possession, sometime in 1870, the BBC reports.
But the news organization says since Indonesia did not begin recording births until 1900, there’s no definitive way to substantiate the claims made by Sodimedjo’s family.
He was able to produce papers ― including a residency card that indicated he was born on Dec. 31, 1870 ― which local officials told the BBC were valid.
Old. Very old, yes, but was he the oldest person on Earth? That’s still not known for sure.
Sodimedjo, who had a healthy appetite and was a heavy smoker, outlived four wives and 10 siblings, and had five children, 12 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren before he passed away on April 30.
When the BBC asked Sodimedjo in 2016 what his secret was for longevity, he said patience and “a long life because I have people that love me looking after me.”
THE GUARDIAN / YOUTUBE
Longtime Indonesian resident Sodimedjo, aka Mbah Gotho — a former heavy smoker — has died at the alleged age of 146.
Last year, from his Central Java home, Sodimedjo, a former fisherman and farmer, told The Jakarta Post he felt blessed.
“Life is only a matter of accepting your destiny wholeheartedly,” he said. “I have wanted to die for a long time. My wives, children and siblings all have passed away but Gusti Allah [God] has blessed me with a long life. I have to live my life patiently.”
The last person known born during the 1800s, Emma Morano, died on April 15 at the age of 117. In May 2016, Morano was named the world’s oldest person. If research eventually confirms Sodimedjo’s claim of being born in 1870, that would mean he was already 145 when Morano died this year.
In the past 15 years, nobody has come close to the longevity of Sarah Knauss and Jeanne Calment, according to fivethirtyeight.com:
Knauss lived to be 119 years old, while Calment, a chain-smoking Frenchwoman and our modern Methuselah, was 122 years old when she passed away in 1997. (She was the oldest living person in the world for more than nine years.) They are the only two people known to have lived past 118.
The Gerontology Research Group, which keeps an ongoing list of living supercentenarians― those individuals who have reached at least 110 years of age ― never acknowledged Sodimedjo’s claims. 
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Donald Trump Had A No Good and Very Sad Homecoming

6:53 AM
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NEW YORK ― Donald Trump used to love this city, but apart from a minority of voters and (possibly) the wife he left in Manhattan, the city just doesn’t love him back.
The president was late to his own homecoming ceremony Thursday ― he had to make a quick detour to D.C. to celebrate the successful House passage of the American Health Care Act ― which would be his first official visit home since his inauguration. 
But the only constant in New York is change, and if Trump were to walk through the streets he once knew, he’d find a city that had both moved on without him and loathed his return. While hundreds of protesters met him during his visit to an Intrepid museum event, a smattering of a hundred more held court at Trump Tower to boo his return.
BRYAN R. SMITH VIA GETTY IMAGES
President Donald Trump (L) dines with Mitt Romney (R) at Jean-Georges restaurant at Trump International Hotel on Nov. 29, 2016, in New York.
Over at the swanky Jean-Georges restaurant inside Trump International Hotel, he would find no warm welcome. The meal of frog legs and garlic soup he so fondly shared with Mitt Romney last year was no longer on the menu. Did it signal standard menu turnover at a Michelin-starred restaurant, or was it a sign that the president had finally lost all grip on his city? We may never know.
But in all fairness, Trump would be delighted to learn that two of his supporters dined there for lunch, though his glee might be short-lived. Those supporters seemed to worry only for Melania Trump, who, despite braving a transition from private to public life, apparently would not be sharing the night with her husband. After a short visit at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, Trump whisked himself away to New Jersey. 
“Oh, that poor woman!” said Debbie Duggan, 60, of California, fresh off a plate of poached eggs and mushrooms. “We have to give her a break, and God bless her for trying to stay in that marriage ... Why would he do that [become president]? They had such a beautiful life, they had everything.”
To the west, Trump would surely be disgusted to find that the well-done, ketchup-bastardized meat he orders at one of his other highfalutin haunts, 21 Club, was back to its marbled blue glory. An Australian couple vacationing from Melbourne noted ― after dining on “very good, very red lamb chops” ― that Trump’s arrival on Thursday did have at least some impact: His impending speech on the dock-bound aircraft carrier, the Intrepid, would undoubtedly delay their cruise on the Hudson River.
Bartenders, meanwhile, said the restaurant still enjoyed its crowds and celebrities despite Trump’s exodus. 
SEBASTIAN MURDOCK / HUFFPOST
A protester holds a sign outside of Trump Tower on Thursday.
Walking home, the president would have seen his worst nightmare: Trump Tower, his gigantic erection standing in the face of every architect and business owner on Fifth Avenue, was attracting only a smattering of photo-taking tourists and even more protesters three blocks away chanting for his removal from office. Police lined the streets with barricades, and a dozen massive dump trucks filled with sand to act as a barrier in front of the building. 
Oh, and the lying mainstream media was also there, covering the crowd of people expressing their disdain for the “dealmaker.” 
The only welcoming party Trump may have actually seen Thursday was the crowd of protesters across the street from the Intrepid, where he was scheduled to speak after 7 p.m.
“No, he’s not welcome in New York City,” said one of those protesters, Renee Leehim, 31, of Harlem. “We’ve been gentrified, our schools don’t have libraries, and he’s just not here. We feel like this isn’t our president — and he should probably stop going to Florida and, back in New York, stop charging us while we pay already high rent.”
Trump was once hailed as a savior of old New York. But this is New York now. And he’ll never be our savior.
Suggest a correction
Andy CampbellReporter, HuffPost
Sebastian MurdockReporter, HuffPost
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Katy Perry’s Comment About ‘Old Black Hair’

3:59 AM
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Katy Perry had a bad hair weekend after coming under fire for a reference to former President Barack Obama, E! reported.
During an Instagram Live exchange in which a fan commented on the singer turning her black hair blonde, the “Bon Appetit” performer replied: “Oh someone says, ‘I miss your old black hair.’ Oh, really? Do you miss Barack Obama as well? Oh, OK. Times change. Bye! See your guys later.”
Harsh reaction to Perry somehow connecting her formerly dark locks to the former commander-in-chief continued on Twitter into late Sunday. Some also came to Perry’s defense, saying she had done nothing offensive.
Vibe wrote that Perry mentioned Obama because the username of the fan in the online exchange was “MsBarackObamaAsWell.”
People noted Perry’s support for Obama previously, but her hair comment had a part of the internet tressing-out.
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Echoes Of World War II — And A Loud Explosion Or Two — On A Southern Road Trip

3:48 AM
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There’s a moment in an historical re-enactment when you start to question reality.
For me, it came as I stood on the deck of the USS Alabama on a recent Sunday afternoon, watching two vintage Russian Yak aircraft barreling toward us low and menacing over Mobile Bay.
On the deck of the meticulously restored battleship that served during World War II, pandemonium reigned. Sailors dressed in authentic era uniforms scrambled to load their weapons with blanks, tend to the pretend wounded and extinguish simulated fires. They’re part of the USS Alabama Living History Crew, who take this kind of thing pretty seriously.
How seriously? Well, for just a second, I believed the warplanes were going to take the re-enactors and their audience out in a burst of simulated cannon fire. I saw my 12-year-old son flinch. Then the warbirds pulled up and and soared south toward the ocean. The onlookers let out a collective gasp of relief.


There’s no better place to learn about WWII history than a road trip to Alabama and Louisiana. It’s not just Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Ala., that will let you experience the war in a visceral way, the way the American South demands to be experienced. A short two-hour drive away in New Orleans, you’ll also find the finest museum of WWII history, The National World War II Memorial Museum. You wouldn’t expect to find two such opportunities so close together outside perhaps a major world capital, yet here they are.
By itself, Battleship Memorial Park is worth the visit even without its history buffs and re-enactors. (They do their thing every other month, so you have to plan it right.) The USS Alabama, or the Mighty A as they call it here, looks as good as she did the day she was commissioned and is filled with “wow” moments — and plenty of opportunities to lose your kids.
I misplaced mine a time or two.
While the little ones will be fascinated by the weapons, of which there are plenty, there’s also enough to keep the adults occupied. Thoughtful exhibits and displays mark the walking tour of the USS Alabama. You could spend an entire day exploring the ship. The Mighty A has earned its place in history as the vessel that led the American fleet into Tokyo Bay on Sept. 5, 1945.
Most tourists come to this area to experience Alabama’s famous Gulf Coast, but the battleship is a worthy day trip and a sobering reminder of the sacrifices America and its allies made during World War II — explosions and all. For a more immersive experience, though, you have to drive west and visit the World War II museum.


Why would perhaps the world’s finest World War II museum be in New Orleans, of all places? It all started as the D-Day Museum, which wouldn’t have been possible without the amphibious landing vehicles built here and tested on Lake Pontchartrain by Higgins Industries. President Eisenhower credited Higgins and his boats for our winning the war in Europe. From there, the project expanded and was supported by Stephen Ambrose, a New Orleans resident and historian. Ambrose, then a professor at University of New Orleans, and Gordon “Nick” Mueller, the current museum CEO, were looking for a place to house the stories of veterans Ambrose was collecting and the memorabilia the veterans were giving to him.
So it didn’t surprise us when Tom Hanks — the executive producer of the adaptation of Ambrose’s book, Band of Brothers — showed up to narrate the spectacular Beyond All Boundaries, a “4-D” multimedia explanation of the war. This is easily one of the most compelling presentations about war I’ve ever seen. If you’re traveling with kids, you’ll want to take them here first. The fog effects, pyrotechnics and moving seats really convey the drama of the conflict and set the stage for the exhibits that follow.
My middle son, Iden, saw the medical warning that preceded the show, about the possibility of it aggravating “certain medical conditions” and asked me if we were going on a rollercoaster. But after sitting through Beyond All Boundaries he sat in stunned silence as the credits displayed. This was a rollercoaster of the mind.


It’s absolutely worth checking out the signature Campaigns of Courage after you watch the presentation. The Road to Berlin follows the conflict in Germany from the Normandy invasion to Germany’s surrender. A second exhibit, The Road to Tokyo, charts the same course for Japan. The exhibits are highly interactive and deeply compelling. Visitors use special “dog tags” (they’re actually plastic cards) to activate displays, which tell a personal story of someone who lived through the war.


For us, one of the most sobering exhibits was on the power of propaganda, Winning Over Hearts and Minds, a short display of wartime propaganda posters. It prompted a frank discussion with my children about the subtle effectiveness of propaganda and some of its modern-day uses. You can’t walk though these displays without seeing echoes of the current rhetoric used by politicians both in America and abroad.
On a southern road trip, the last thing you would expect is a reminder of the greatest human conflict. But, thanks to a restored ship, a museum built in one of the unlikeliest places, and several loud explosions, you can find one that will stay with you for a lifetime.
If you go …
Where to stayThe International House is a boutique property located a few blocks away from the WWII museum, but also close to New Orleans’ famous French Quarter. The hotel, located in a former world trade center, has been carefully restored with lots of attention to detail.
What to do Check out the Hurricane Katrina exhibit at The Presbytère, the Louisiana State Museum. It’s a moving exhibit that follows this devastating hurricane and its aftermath and a testament to the city’s resilience.
What to eat You mean, what not to eat? With only two days in town, we never got past breakfast. That’s Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee and Brennan’s for one of their famous breakfasts. Try the turtle soup — but don’t forget the Sherry. I’ll discuss the differences between Creole and Cajun in a future story.

Christopher Elliott specializes in solving seemingly unsolvable consumer problems. Contact him with your questions on his advocacy website. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google or sign up for his newsletter.
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