Questões de Concurso

Smartphone app inquiry launched in Australia

    Australia’s Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said he would be inviting smartphone owners to “name and shame” apps they were unhappy with.
    The inquiry will ask whether users are given enough information about the costs associated with apps before and after they are downloaded.
    “In a very short period of time, new mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have changed the way consumers engage in commerce,” said Mr Bradbury in a statement. “At the same time though, some consumers have raised concerns about aspects of mobile commerce, particularly when purchases can be made without much difficulty using stored credit card data.”
    Mr Bradbury said he was particularly concerned about apps aimed at children, and that encourage the purchase of virtual goods and subscriptions.
    “We have strong consumer laws in Australia that protect the rights of consumers and place clear obligations on businesses,” he said. “This inquiry is an opportunity to look at the adequacy of existing measures to address any consumer concern.”
    The inquiry, which will start soon, will be carried out by the government’s Consumer Affairs Advisory Council.

Internet: <www.bbc.co.uk> (adapted).

Based on the text above, judge the following items.

Smartphone app inquiry launched in Australia

    Australia’s Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said he would be inviting smartphone owners to “name and shame” apps they were unhappy with.
    The inquiry will ask whether users are given enough information about the costs associated with apps before and after they are downloaded.
    “In a very short period of time, new mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have changed the way consumers engage in commerce,” said Mr Bradbury in a statement. “At the same time though, some consumers have raised concerns about aspects of mobile commerce, particularly when purchases can be made without much difficulty using stored credit card data.”
    Mr Bradbury said he was particularly concerned about apps aimed at children, and that encourage the purchase of virtual goods and subscriptions.
    “We have strong consumer laws in Australia that protect the rights of consumers and place clear obligations on businesses,” he said. “This inquiry is an opportunity to look at the adequacy of existing measures to address any consumer concern.”
    The inquiry, which will start soon, will be carried out by the government’s Consumer Affairs Advisory Council.

Internet: <www.bbc.co.uk> (adapted).

Based on the text above, judge the following items.

Injury and insult

Is it possible for cancer to develop as a result of an injury?

    “It’s a common myth that injuries can cause cancer,” the American Cancer Society informed on its Website. Until the 1920s, some doctors believed trauma did cause cancer, “despite the failure of injury to cause cancer in experimental animals.”
    But most medical authorities, including the Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, see no such link.
    The more likely explanation, the society suggests, is that a visit to the doctor for an injury could lead to finding an existing cancer.
    Other possibilities are that scar tissue from an old trauma could look like a cancerous lesion and that an injured breast or limb would be more closely watched for cancer to develop.
    A single interview-based study of breast cancer in England found that 67 women with breast carcinoma were more likely to report physical trauma to the breast in the preceding five years than 134 women in a matched control group without cancer. The study was criticized because of its size and methodology.
    Published in 2002 in The European Journal of Cancer Prevention, the study has not been duplicated. Its authors suggested that it was plausible that models of epithelial cell generation could be a mechanism. But the case is far from proved, even for a single type of cancer.

Internet: <www.nytimes.com> (adapted).

Based on the text above, judge the following items.

Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension

    A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.
    Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of thirdparty developers use to __[VERB]__ a variety of interactive programs on Windows.
    The service pack for the .NET Framework, like other updates, was pushed out to users through the Windows Update Web site. A number of readers had never heard of this platform before Windows Update started offering the service pack for it, and many of you wanted to know whether it was okay to go ahead and install this thing. Having earlier checked to see whether the service pack had caused any widespread problems or interfered with third-party programs − and not finding any that warranted waving readers away from this update − I told readers __[A]__
    I'm here to report a small side effect from installing this service pack that I was not aware of until just a few days ago: Apparently, the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult − if not dangerous − to remove, once installed.
    Annoyances.org, which lists various aspects of Windows that are, well, annoying, says "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly
install software on your PC." I'm not sure I'd put things in quite such dire terms, but I'm fairly confident that a decent number of Firefox for Windows users are rabidly anti-Internet Explorer, and would take umbrage at the very notion of Redmond monkeying with the browser in any way.
    Big deal, you say? I can just uninstall the add-on via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface, right? Not so fast. The trouble is, Microsoft has disabled the "uninstall" button on the extension. What's more, Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry, an exercise that − if done imprecisely − can cause Windows systems to fail to boot up.
    Anyway, I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but it's probably infuriating to many readers nonetheless. Firstly − to my readers − I apologize for overlooking this..."feature" of the .NET Framework security update. Secondly − to Microsoft − this is a great example of how not to convince people to trust your security updates.

(Adapted from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html)

Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension

    A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.
    Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of thirdparty developers use to __[VERB]__ a variety of interactive programs on Windows.
    The service pack for the .NET Framework, like other updates, was pushed out to users through the Windows Update Web site. A number of readers had never heard of this platform before Windows Update started offering the service pack for it, and many of you wanted to know whether it was okay to go ahead and install this thing. Having earlier checked to see whether the service pack had caused any widespread problems or interfered with third-party programs − and not finding any that warranted waving readers away from this update − I told readers __[A]__
    I'm here to report a small side effect from installing this service pack that I was not aware of until just a few days ago: Apparently, the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult − if not dangerous − to remove, once installed.
    Annoyances.org, which lists various aspects of Windows that are, well, annoying, says "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly
install software on your PC." I'm not sure I'd put things in quite such dire terms, but I'm fairly confident that a decent number of Firefox for Windows users are rabidly anti-Internet Explorer, and would take umbrage at the very notion of Redmond monkeying with the browser in any way.
    Big deal, you say? I can just uninstall the add-on via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface, right? Not so fast. The trouble is, Microsoft has disabled the "uninstall" button on the extension. What's more, Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry, an exercise that − if done imprecisely − can cause Windows systems to fail to boot up.
    Anyway, I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but it's probably infuriating to many readers nonetheless. Firstly − to my readers − I apologize for overlooking this..."feature" of the .NET Framework security update. Secondly − to Microsoft − this is a great example of how not to convince people to trust your security updates.

(Adapted from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html)