Aurelia Butler

People are really unhappy about auto warranty scam calls, filing more complaints with the FCC last year than the other four leading topics, like phishing and credit card scams.Now the FCC has named the people and organizations responsible and said other voice service providers have to block traffic from these sources or they might be considered guilty as well.Meanwhile, don’t give out personal information to anyone who calls you when you’re not expecting them to, even if they know what kind of car you drive, the FCC recommended.We’ve been trying to reach you concerning your car’s extended warranty.If you immediately felt frustrated upon reading those words, you’re not alone. The Federal Communications Commission has announced that it is going to block a massive auto warranty robocall scam campaign, and there’s little question why.People have been complaining to the FCC more about these warranty robocalls over the past two years than any other topic. These scam calls are in both English and Spanish, and the FCC said the people responsible are still sending out millions of illegal calls every day.”We are not going to tolerate robocall scammers or those that help make their scams possible,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “Consumers are out of patience and I’m right there with them.”

The FCC’s new order forces all U.S. voice service providers to “take all necessary steps” to make sure robocall traffic doesn’t reach our cellphones. If they can’t do that, the providers have to tell the FCC what steps they’re taking to mitigate the traffic. If the FCC thinks that the voice service provider isn’t doing enough to stop the calls, the companies “may be deemed to have knowingly and willfully engaged in transmitting unlawful robocalls,” it could force other providers to block traffic from the ineffective voice service provider.The FCC named the two main people it said are responsible for these scam calls, Roy Cox, Jr., and Aaron Michael Jones, and said their work was part of the “Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama Operation.” The FCC said the operation has been making scam calls since at least 2018. The Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama Operation ramped up operations in late 2020, when it purchased lists of nearly 500,000 numbers from at least 229 area codes so that it could make its calls appear to come from a local number. The FCC said Cox has already entered into a settlement with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to a permanent ban on all telemarketing activities. On top of the new order issued last week, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and the Ohio Attorney General are also taking action against the Sumco Panama Operation.Simple Steps to Protect YourselfThe FCC offers a few basic tips to protect yourself if you do answer a call from someone you don’t know about auto warranties. Don’t provide any personal information when someone calls you unexpectedly, and be aware that scammers might have some real information about you or your car that can make you think they’re legitimate. To be sure that you’re dealing with the organization you think you are, hang up and call the company using a phone number from previous legit interaction with them (like a bill) or one you find on their website.American telephone usage has changed over the years. A 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center found that more than 80 percent of Americans no longer answer phone calls from numbers they don’t recognize. Pew didn’t assign any particular cause to this behavior, but the first potential reason cited in the announcement was that people might be “overwhelmed by robocalls.”Complaints about auto warranty scam calls resulted in over 1000 complaints each month last year, other than four dips into three-digit territory in July, August, November, and December. Consumers complained to the FCC about scams regarding credit cards, insurance or health care, legal issues, and phishing less than 400 times each throughout 2021, except for March, when there were around 450 complaints about phishing. In 2020, people filed more complaints about auto warranty scam calls than the other four categories put together. If you would like to file your own complaint, visit the FCC’s Consumer Complaint Center.
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• The Daytona SP3 is the latest Ferrari model Lego’s brought to its Technic line.• The miniature Ferrari features functioning doors, working shift paddles, and a V-12 engine with moving cylinders.• The 3778-piece set is priced at $400.At nearly two feet long and awash in a sea of red and rubber, all of the moving parts in Lego’s Ferrari Daytona SP3 are hard to notice at first. This is not some convenience store die-cast replica of the limited-run 829-hp Daytona SP3, but a model marketed under Lego’s Technic line. As such, this miniature Ferrari has to do more than just look good on a shelf (though it does that, too); it also has to help its builder understand the engineering that resides beneath its plastic-brick shell. And to teach those lessons, Lego had to design a bunch of new parts.

Lego

In celebration of Lego’s 90th anniversary, we met with Technic designers at the brand’s headquarters in Denmark to talk about the moving parts behind the prancing horse decals. From the start of the two-year-long project, Lego knew the Dayton SP3 set would be one of the most challenging to date. And that didn’t account for the COVID-19 pandemic making it difficult for Lego’s team to travel to Maranello, Italy, to see the full-size Daytona SP3. In fact, Ferrari’s designers were tweaking the car at the same time Lego was trying to make a replica of it.

Ferrari Daytona SP3

lego
lego.com

$399.99

“So many times you spend two to three weeks on a small detail and [Ferrari] said ‘Yes, it’s good,’” Aurelien Rouffiange said. “And then the week after, ‘By the way, we changed it. It’s not like that anymore,’ and then you have to go back and do something new.”

Lego

Rouffiange served as the model lead and senior designer for the 1:8-scale Daytona SP3. Previously, he worked on Lego’s interpretations of the Bugatti Chiron and Lamborghini Sián FKP 37. You assemble the Lego set in a similar schedule that Ferrari builds the Daytona. First, the V-12 engine, eight-speed gearbox, and rear suspension, then you move on to the front suspension and steering. You finish up with the red body panels that give the model the organic flow of the real car, which takes its design cues from the sumptuous lines of the Ferraris that won the 1967 Daytona 24-hour race.

Lego

Despite relying on a handful of specially developed pieces, Lego’s Ferrari Daytona SP3 shares a number of other features with the Danish toymaker’s other sets. The small Ferrari’s tires spin; its steering wheel turns; and its hood, doors, and trunk open. While Lego’s team tells us the car’s butterfly doors required a bit more thought to bring to life, they say it was the Daytona SP3’s targa roof that was a particularly big challenge, as it threatened the model’s structural capability. “Technic is known for strong models that do not fall apart easily,” Rouffiange said. “But here the roof can be removed, and usually [the roof] helps us add a lot of stability. But the way this model is assembled, you can hold the car with one hand, from the front or rear, and it will not bend at all.”

Lego

Lego ultimately created 12 new parts during the development of the Daytona SP3 Technic kit. This included aesthetic pieces, such as the model’s exterior panels and wheels, as well as more mechanical ones, including new plastic gears designed to improve the functional feel of the scaled-down Ferrari’s moving parts. Even a part as simple as the wheels proved a challenge, as the real Daytona SP3’s wheels are asymmetrical in order to better manage airflow. Due to this, Lego had to design two versions of the same wheels (a set for the left side and another for the right) to ensure its model kept true to the real car.

Lego

Like the real Daytona SP3, the Technic car features paddle shifters mounted aft of its steering wheel. Though such a shifting mechanism may be common across the automotive industry, it’s less so among Lego models. Tapping the paddles works through the model’s eight gears, and like a real car, each cog affects the top speed of Lego’s Ferrari Daytona SP3. You can even see the mechanical motions at work, from the spinning of the model’s plastic gears to the up and down motions of its mid-mounted engine’s pistons.Such authenticity doesn’t come cheap, and the Lego Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3 stickers for $400. The set is currently available through Lego’s website or at its stores, with retail sales set to begin on August 1.

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Ford is working on a robotic charging station that could help disabled drivers with the electric-vehicle charging process.The robots are custom-made by Dortmund University in Germany but are just a research project at the moment.Ford claims that developing the system could lead to more powerful charging to reduce overall charge times in the future.Many of us often forget as able-bodied people that for significant portions of the population, daily tasks such as filling up a gas tank, or getting an electric vehicle plugged and unplugged at a charging station, can be difficult or impossible. Ford is testing a robotic charging station that would allow drivers to park near the robot, as at any other pump or charger, and allow the camera-guided robot to guide itself into the charge port.
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The automaker also mentioned a study in Europe that showed 61 percent of disabled drivers would only buy an EV if it were made easier to charge. Ford says its robotic charging station could potentially be installed in parking ramps, installed in disabled parking spaces, used to power fleets, or be installed at customers’ homes. It’s a research project for now, but Ford intends to do a “follow-up project” with Ionity, a European charging network, to make further improvements to the idea, and that sounds promising. It’s not the first effort by an automaker to roboticize the charging process. A company called EV Safe Charge is working to deploy a robot charging station named Ziggy to dominate EV charging in parking ramps. Unlike the Ford, Ziggy does not have the ability to plug in or out on its own. And both Tesla (with a metal “snake charger”) and Volkswagen have piloted similar robotic setups in the past.”Looking ahead, the process could become fully automated, with minimal or no driver involvement,” said Ford. “The driver would simply send the vehicle to the charging station, with the infrastructure ensuring it reaches and returns from its destination autonomously.” Although the automaker makes it clear that this is not intended for production and sale, it does show the focus is on making the EV operation process more accessible to more future customers.

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