Jeff Gelles covers consumer topics and writes the Consumer 11.0 column for The Inquirer. He welcomes comments in this blog - he hopes it will become a forum for reader conversations - as well as calls and e-mails about consumers' concerns. Contact him at 215-854-2776 or jgelles@phillynews.com.
Email Jeff at jgelles@phillynews.com
- A touch of Siri for those without an iPhone
- Apple in China: Shades of the 19th century?
Siri is intended to allow you to speak naturally and get stuff done - send texts, plan meetings. So, how’s she doing?
Jeff Gelles: Life with the iPhone's "intelligent assistant" is fun, frustrating and useful.
- Apple in China: Shades of the 19th century?
As he touted his latest idea for home refinancing, aimed at helping up-to-date homeowners benefit from low interest rates even if the value of a home has fallen, President Obama showed off a simplified mortgage-disclosure form - one of the initial goals of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau he championed.
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Marrying search and social networking to enhance commerce
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A new Philadelphia company, Cliqsearch, links you to recommendations from people you're especially likely to trust: friends, and friends of your friends, who have mentioned a business on social networks.
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Consumer protection bureau hits the ground running
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Here's a confession: Occasionally, I miss the Wild West days of consumer reporting, the ones before the new sheriff came to town.
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Obama hails Intel's manufacturing plant
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The chip maker literally is the brain that powers many devices today, and it has some products aimed at making computers faster and smaller.
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Health-club contracts can cause aches and pains
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Jeff Gelles: When LA Fitness acquired Bally Total Fitness, they didn't welcome all Bally members with open arms, a class-action lawsuit says.
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Closed Net not so far-fetched
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Jeff Gelles: The underlying issues - and the threat to the Internet from bad legislation - are hardly overblown.
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Standing out in a crowd at CES
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The "wow" factor isn't enough at the Consumer Electronics Show. Useful and available count for a lot.
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Phone outage complicates a tragic situation
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Viola Mason knew she faced a hard path over the holidays as her husband, Richard, lay dying from the end stage of a painful, inoperable cancer. She never imagined how much harder it would prove because of what usually might seem a small quirk of fate: a phone outage.
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Group wants more digital privacy
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Jeff Gelles: If you and I can get information anytime, so can the most intrusive government investigators.
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How to double-check on charities
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Mike Hardy doesn't have vast sums to donate to charity. But he and his wife, Marion, give as much as they can, and they want their money to count. So Hardy has found himself increasingly upset by signs of waste and deception.
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Typo on Web can bring big problems
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Jeff Gelles: A slip of the finger when typing a URL can put you in the hands of "typosquatters"
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