Latest news with #ConsumerReports
CTV News
4 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
How to make cleaning much easier
Cleaning tasks can take a lot of effort in ways that can be hard on your joints and muscles. Fortunately, there are now robots that can do the vacuuming for you, mops that save you the trouble of filling up a heavy bucket of water, and sponges that cut down on the scrubbing needed to get pots grime-free. In fact, Consumer Reports experts have tested a wide variety of tools and products and have plenty of advice about making cleaning painless. Here's what to try to make a variety of cleaning tasks easier. Keep helpful tools handy A long-handled grabber can be useful for picking up items on the floor without having to bend down. Microfibre dusters with extendable handles will allow you to dust the top of your ceiling fan blades or objects on high shelves without needing a step stool. Keep your balance Whatever household chores you have ahead of you, protect yourself from slips and trips. Getting regular exercise, including strength training, can not only help you stay up to the challenge of various tasks but also help you improve your balance and avoid falls. It's also wise to wear sturdy shoes with nonskid soles, light the space you'll be cleaning brightly, and keep high-traffic areas free of tripping hazards such as stray cords, loose rugs, and clutter. Make mopping a cinch If mopping feels like an ordeal, consider an electric steam mop. With these, hot water from the mop's tank creates steam, which gets floors clean with less effort. Use the right scrubbers A good sponge can significantly cut down on scrubbing. For dishes, our evaluators liked the Skura Style Skrubby Sponge for its flexibility and ability to easily dispatch tough grime. For grimy grout and food spills on stovetops, try a melamine foam sponge (aka a Magic Eraser). These abrasive sponges can take on tough stains and scum. Outsource your vacuuming While an upright or canister vacuum is still a necessity for deep cleaning (particularly for rugs and carpeting), a robotic vacuum can do lighter floor cleanups for you. Many can be programmed to sweep at the same time every day. By Catherine Roberts, Consumer Reports Senior Health & Food Reporter
Forbes
15 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Data Defense Agents For People
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 18: A In a world where AI agents are everywhere, how do we ensure that people still have agency? One idea that's surfacing, albeit in sort of a vague way, is similar to the concept of a service dog or emotional support animal: that a person would have a dedicated personal AI entity that works as their guardian angel in a world of peril. Think about trying to navigate all of the AI stuff coming your way as a human: all of the scams, all of the drama of other people's communications, not to mention government and business messaging churned out in automated ways. 'Consumers are out there trying to navigate a really complex marketplace, and as AI is injected into the marketplace by many companies, it's probably going to become even harder for consumers to understand if they're getting a good deal, to understand the different options out there when they're making a purchase,' said Ginny Fahs of Consumer Reports in a recent panel aimed at an idea very much like this, the idea of personal defense AI. 'And so an AI that is loyal to the consumer, loyal to us as individuals, first and foremost, is really going to be essential for building trust in these AI systems, and for … migrating to a more authentic economy.' Fahs was among a set of expert panelists at Imagination in Action in April, and I found this to be one of the more compelling talks, not least because of past interviews I've seen in the last two years. Take data rights advocate who famously coined the term 'idatity' to talk about the intersection of personal data and technology. Anyway, my colleague Sandy Pentland moderated this group discussion, which covered a lot of thoughts on just how this kind of AI advocacy would work. 'There was a need to reform laws to keep up, to have electronic signatures, electronic contracts, automated transactions,' said panelist Dazza Greenwood of the Internet age, relating that to today's efforts. 'And I helped to write those laws as a young lawyer and technologist.' Panelist Amir Sarhangi spoke about the value of trust and familiarity with a person's AI advocate. 'Having that trust being established there, and having the ability to know who the agent is and who the enterprise is, becomes very important,' he said. 'Part of it is this general problem of, how do you make sure that agents don't break laws, introduce unexpected liabilities, and (that they) represent the authentic interest of the consumer, and (that they can) actually be loyal, by design?' said panelist Tobin South, who got his PhD at MIT. How It Might Work Panelists also discussed some of the procedural elements of such technology. 'In collaboration with the Open ID Foundation, who kind of leads all the standards and protocols keeping our internet safe, we are pushing forward standards that can help make agents safe and reliable in this kind of new digital age,' South said. Fahs talked about something her company developed called a 'permission slip.' 'You could go to a company through the agent, and the agent would say to the company, 'please delete this person's data,' or 'please opt out of the sale of this person's data,'' she said. 'It was a version of an agentic interaction that was (prior to the explosion of AI), but where we really were getting an authorization from a user for a specific purpose to help them manage their data, and then going out to a company and managing that transaction, and then reporting back to the customer on how it went.' On privacy, Greenwood discussed how systems would deal with laws like California's CCPA, which he called a 'mini-GDPR,' and encouraged people to use the term 'fiduciary' to describe the agent's responsibilities to the user. Sarhangi talked about the history of building KYA. 'One of the things we started talking about is KYA which is, 'know your agent,' and 'know your agent' really is about understanding who's behind the agent,' he said. 'These agents will have wallets, basically on the internet, so you know what transactions are being conducted by the agent. And that's really powerful, because when they do something that's not good, then you have a good way of understanding what the history of that agent has been, and that will go as part of their … reputation.' Crowdsourcing Consumer Information Another aspect of this that came up is the ability of the agents to put together their people's experiences, and share them, to automate word of mouth. 'A really key type of a thing I'm excited about is what Consumer Reports does without thinking about it,' said Pentland, 'which is compiling all the experiences of all your millions of members to know that 'these blenders are good' and 'those blenders are bad,' and 'don't buy that' and 'you don't trust that dude over there.' So once an agent is representing you, you can begin doing this automatically, where all the agents sort of talk about how these blenders are no good, right?' Fahs agreed. 'I can so casually mention to my AI agent, 'oh, this purchase, I don't like that one feature'' she said. 'And if that agent has a memory, and has the ability to coordinate and communicate with other agents, that becomes kind of known in the network, and it means that future consumers can purchase better, or future consumers have more awareness of that feature.' South added some thoughts on data tools. 'There are many really cool cryptographic tools you can build to make the sharing of data really safe, right?' he said. 'You don't need to trust Google, to just own all your data, promise not to do anything wrong with it. There are real security tools you can build into this, and we're seeing this explosion right now.' South also mentioned NANDA, a protocol being developed by people like my colleague Ramesh Raskar at MIT. NANDA is a way to build a decentralized Internet with AI, and it seems likely to blossom into one of the supporting pillars of tomorrow's global interface. Agents and Agency The panel also talked about some of the logistics, for instance: how will the agent really know what you want? 'You want the user to feel like they can provide very, very fine-grained permissions, but you also don't want to be bugging them all the time saying, 'Do I have permission for this? Do I have permission for that?'' Fahs said. 'And so … what the interface is to articulate those preferences, and to, even, as the agent, have real awareness of the consumer's intent, and where that can be extended, and where there really does need to be special additional permission granted, I think is, is a challenge that product managers and designers and many of us are going to be trying to thread the needle on.' 'One of the things that current LLMs don't do very well is recognize what a specific person wants,' Pentland added. 'In other words, values alignment for a specific person. It can do it for groups of people, sort of with big interviews, but an agent like this really wants to represent me, not necessarily you, or you. And I think one of the most interesting problems there is, how do we do that?' 'Finally, we have the tools that (resemble) something like fiduciary loyal agents,' Greenwood said. 'There's an expression going around Stanford, which is: the limiting factor on AI is context: not the size of the window, but your ability to structure information, to feed it to the AI, both for understanding consumers, but to also do preference solicitation,' South said. 'If you want the agent to act on your behalf, or an AI to do things you actually want, you need to extract that information somehow, and so both as individuals, making your data available to AI systems, but also as an organization, structuring information so that AIs can know how to work with your systems.' The Race Toward Personal Advocacy I think all of this is very necessary right now, in 2025, as we try to really integrate AI into our lives. This is happening, it seems, pretty much in real time, so this is the time to ask the questions, to find the answers, and to build the solutions.
CBS News
16 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Metro Detroit Kroger stores overcharging customers, investigation finds
A recent investigation by Consumer Reports, The Guardian and the Food & Environment Reporting Network found that some Kroger locations are overcharging their customers for sale items. As part of the investigation, shoppers were recruited to visit 26 Kroger locations in 14 states and Washington, D.C. At half of the locations, they were overcharged for more than 150 items that had expired sale labels. Two of those locations are in Farmington Hills at West 12 Mile Road and Middlebelt Road. "It's really disappointing as a consumer," said customer Janice Ford. "You really expect the prices to be right, especially in this time." Ford said she has experienced this problem many times at Kroger, but not the ones listed in the report. She shops at the Canton Center Road location in Canton. "I've taken it to court a few times and won ... every time I've actually done it," she said. "I think it's a way to educate not only the store, but educate other consumers. We expect the prices to be right and we're counting on them to be right, so the store needs to honor that." In her purse, she carries a copy of the Michigan Scanner Law. It states that once a transaction is complete and the customer has a receipt showing what they paid for an item, they are entitled to report it to the seller within a 30-day period to receive the difference between the displayed price and what they were charged. According to the law, they are also entitled to receive a bonus payment ranging from $1 to $5. "I'll walk back, take a look at the item on the shelf, take a picture, so I have that along with the scanner law to really kind of fight my own battles to say the price was supposed to be this and that's what I'm expecting to pay," said Ford. Tammie Menci says she has encountered the same issue on several occasions. "A lot of times, I grab items that appear to be on sale," said Menci. "When I get to check out, I notice, if I'm paying attention to this certain item, that the item really wasn't on sale." She said that although customer service has paid her back the difference, the burden to double-check prices should not fall on consumers. "When I find out that I've been overcharged for an item that should have been on sale, it's upsetting as a customer because I feel that the store should be doing everything that they can to make sure that the customer sees the exact price of the item that they're getting," said Menci. A Kroger spokesperson provided the following statement to CBS News Detroit: Kroger is committed to affordable and accurate pricing, and we conduct robust price check processes that reviews millions of items weekly to ensure our shelf prices are accurate. The complaint noted by Consumer Reports included a few dozen examples across several years out of billions of customer transactions annually. While any error is unacceptable, the characterization of widespread pricing concerns is patently false. Kroger's "Make It Right" policy ensures associates can create a customer experience and addresses any situation when we unintentionally fall short of a customer's expectations. Connecting regular technology upgrades and our "Make It Right" policy to price accuracy is incorrect. It is also inaccurate to say the company reduced standards or labor hours. We have not done so, and in fact, the standards we set in 2017 remain the same today. We intentionally staff our stores to keep them running smoothly while creating an enjoyable place to shop. Our staffing decisions are data-driven to balance workload and schedules. For nearly two decades, Kroger's business model has been rooted in bringing down prices to attract more customers to our stores – and this is not changing. We respect our associates and our customers, and we conduct our business accordingly.
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
These Are The 3 Safest Cars In The U.S. In 2025
The 2018 Toyota Camry sedan is one of the safest, most reliable cars on the market. (Photo credit ... More should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) Whether you're choosing a car for a first-time owner or a veteran motorist, buying the right vehicle can be a challenge. And by the 'right' car, we mean a safe and reliable car that does not break the bank. To be able to recommend such a prize collection of safe vehicles that are budget-friendly, the highly regarded Consumer Reports (CR) has once again tied up with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) to find the safest and most reliable vehicles in the land. Camry, Forester and Explorer rank as the safest Out of some 260 models on the market today, Consumer Reports says that the following three vehicles are not only the safest and most reliable on sale now, but they offer enough model years to be budget-friendly. For sedans, the safest is the Toyota Camry built from 2018. For small SUVs, the top pick is the Subaru Forester from 2019. For the mid-sized SUVs it's the Ford Explorer from 2020. The Subaru Forester also ranks in the top 3. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images) As a bonus, CR tells us that the highest rated electric vehicle is the Tesla Model Y taking into consideration factors such as speed and ease of charging and range, areas in which the Y excels. Consumer Reports evaluates cars based on four key criteria—road test, reliability, owner satisfaction and safety. To make the list, a vehicle must receive a CR score of at least 3 out of 5 for tests that include acceleration, braking as well as routine and emergency handling and fuel economy. CR also evaluate usability, fit and finish, noise, ride, and safety systems. Ford's Explorer also ranks highly. (Photo by Samuel Corum/) Top rated vehicles must also receive a score of at least 2 out of 5 for their controls and displays— meaning that CR excluded vehicles fitted with the most confusing displays and controls which can be a distraction for drivers. Another critical factor for CR, owner satisfaction is based on whether a CR member would definitely get the same car if they had a chance to do it over again, effectively measuring whether a car lived up to its owner's expectations. In addition, all of the vehicles on the list have electronic stability control (ESC) at standard equipment, a key safety feature in avoiding traffic accidents. Each of these top rated vehicles also boast a high 'G' for Good rating in five different IIHS crash tests including small overlap front test, moderate overlap front test, updated side test and pedestrian front crash prevention test. Vehicles with curb weights of under 2750 lbs do not appear on the list as they are considered too small to provide sufficient crash protection, especially when impacting with larger vehicles. Readers may also realize that full-size SUVs and pickups are not on the list as well as sports cars which are considered by CR to invite excessive risk.
Indianapolis Star
a day ago
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
Hot-car deaths are at their height for the year. How many children have died in Indiana?
With Central and Eastern states seeing temperatures well into the 90s, and high temperatures and humidity intensifying come dangerous health risks for children. Each year, heatstroke claims the lives of nearly 40 children in cars, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to at least 1,132 children have died from heatstroke over the last 35 years because they were forgotten or trapped in a hot vehicle. The most hot-car incidents occur from May through September. Children have died in cars every month of the year, although June, July, and August are the most common months. Being stressed can increase your likelihood of memory lapses that lead to leaving your child in a car, according to a prominent cognitive neuroscience expert who has researched the function of memory in such tragedies. David Diamond, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, told Consumer Reports recently, "Forgetting a child is not a negligence problem but a memory problem." 'The most common response is that only bad or negligent parents forget kids in cars,' Diamond says. 'It's a matter of circumstances. It can happen to everyone.' Texas leads the nation with 160 hot car deaths, according to There were 16 cases of vehicular heatstroke deaths reported from 1990 to 2024. Cars can heat up quickly; interior temperatures can rise 20 degrees in 10 minutes. Even if it's only in the 60s outside, the temperature inside a car can reach 110 degrees. Examples of interior heat based on a 95-degree day: To prevent putting children at risk, Kids and Cars recommends the following safety tips: ◾Create a visual cue: Place a favorite toy in the car seat when it's empty. When you put your child in the car seat, move the toy to the front passenger seat as a reminder to check the back seat before leaving the car. ◾Create a reminder to check the back seat. ◾Make sure you have a strict policy in place with your child care provider to call you immediately if your child doesn't show up as planned. ◾Keep vehicles locked at all times, even in driveways or garages. Ask home visitors, child care providers and neighbors to do the same. ◾Keep car keys and remote openers out of reach of children. ◾Teach toddlers how to honk the horn of a car if they become trapped inside. ◾Never leave children alone in or around cars, not even for a minute. ◾If you see a child alone in a vehicle, get involved. Call 911 immediately. If the child seems hot or sick, get them out of the vehicle as quickly as possible.
