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The BMW i8 was the company’s first plug-in hybrid. When it hit the showroom floor as a concept vehicle, it was a stunner, and the consumer version was surprisingly similar to the prototype. The clean lines of the chassis hid an advanced combination of a lithium-ion battery and a three-cylinder engine that could accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometers in just 4.4 seconds. But after six years of success, the…

Tax season is in full swing — and that means it’s hunting time for scam artists hoping to rip off taxpayers. The Internal Revenue Service expects to receive around 150 million tax returns during this filing period, which began Jan. 27 and runs through April 15. Americans need to remain vigilant to guard against tax fraud, which picks up around this time of year as crooks prey on taxpayers’ anxiety…

Apps available at the Apple App Store can now send ads and other promotions as push notifications, as long as the user authorizes them. The updated guidelines, announced Wednesday, mean that users who choose to opt in will see ads show up on their Apple devices alongside text messages and breaking news alerts. Apple also announced Wednesday that apps categorized as “dating” or “fortune telling” would be rejected “unless they…

This is an identity theft scam email. In the scam, criminals use a fake form W-8BEN, Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (form downloads as a PDF) to gain personal and bank identification from taxpayers. Some versions of this scam have been circulating for more than ten years (downloads as a PDF). The IRS issued several warnings about the fraud over the…

Yesterday, I received a slightly garbled voice mail advising me that I had a serious delinquency that needed to be resolved. I was told to call a 1-800 number to resolve the matter. I didn’t even have to check my Caller ID to know that it was a scam involving Social Security. This wasn’t my first call like this – but the frequency has definitely picked up. Friends and colleagues…

Johnson & Johnson has announced a new Heartline health study in collaboration with Apple, as it seeks to discover whether an iPhone app and Apple Watch can reduce the risk of strokes. As reported by CNBC, a press release states: Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced that the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, in collaboration with Apple, opened enrollment for the Heartline Study. The study is designed…

Who says you can’t teach a tax scammer new tricks? One of the hottest new scams out there involves fraudsters who file phony tax returns in the hopes of getting a relatively skimpy tax refund. They’re no longer just out to steal thousands of dollars by tapping into generous tax credits. “For at least the last two years, we’ve seen fraudsters try to lodge low dollar refund claims hoping that…

PRIOR TO THE PASSAGE OF the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, some newly married couples received an unpleasant surprise at tax time. Spouses who earned similar amounts of money – especially those considered high earners – often found themselves subject to a marriage tax penalty. “The marriage tax penalty means that when you’re married, you lose some of the tax benefits you’d have if you were single,” says…

Got your driver’s license nearby? Check to see if it has either a gold or black star in the upper-right-hand corner (if you’re in California, your star will be inside the outline of a bear). Mine does, because I got my most recent driver’s license in 2017; if yours does not, get a new driver’s license as soon as possible. Why? Because these gold-or-black-star licenses are what’s called “Real ID…

Popular photo printing app PhotoSquared has exposed thousands of customer photos, addresses and orders details. At least 10,000 shipping labels were stored in a public Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage bucket. There was no password on the bucket, allowing anyone who knew the easy-to-guess web address access to the customer data. All too often, these AWS storage buckets are misconfigured and set to “public” and not “private.” The exposed data…

Clover, one of the popular point of sale systems made for small businesses, has come out with a new feature that makes paying the bill a lot faster at restaurants. Reported by 9to5Mac, the company announced a new feature called “Scan to Pay” that allows iPhone owners to scan a QR code on their receipt and securely pay their bill, even adding the tip, using Apple Pay. Clover announced the…

General Motors has confirmed it’s resurrecting the Hummer nameplate for a new all-electric truck that will have 1,000 horsepower on offer and go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in three seconds, according to new teaser images and videos released today. The new electric Hummer truck will break cover during a Super Bowl ad this coming Sunday, and will be treated to a full reveal on May 20th. It’s…