5 totally unacceptable Apps that will never exist

 

The iPhone is a device that’s built its reputation upon being able to do seemingly anything. On the other hand, we all know that Apple are quite particular about what gets sold through their App Store. Here are 5 App concepts that would make innovative – albeit unacceptable – use of the iPhone technology and that probably won’t ever see the light of day.

1. iSpank iSpank: The perfect accompaniment to a boozy British Friday night. OI OIIII I don’t suppose anyone has noticed that the iPhone makes quite a good spanking tool? Clearly not, for if they had then iSpank would definitely be available for purchase on the App Store. iSpank is the perfect supplement to a good Friday night out with the lads, as it allows you to use the iPhone to spank unsuspecting women (‘they love it really’) and have your it rated. The spanks get rated based on how much of the iPhone screen makes contact with the victim’s posterior and how hard you hit it. Immediately after the spank you’d have the option to take a snapshot of the victim’s immediate reaction and post it on all your favourite social networking sites. To add a sense of accomplishment to your actions, the perfect spank would be accompanied by a loutish ‘OI OIIIIIIIIIII’. Such is the potential of this App that it could even become the latest anti-social Urban Sport; a natural successor to popular pastimes like Happy Slapping and Acid Throwing.

2. Rub ‘n’ Tug Rub 'n' Tug: Develop from a hopeless fumbler to the perfect fondler Rub ‘n’ Tug is a game that revolves around intimately pleasing males and females, depending on your gender/sexual orientation. The iPhone touch-screen is perfectly suited to the rubbing motion required for satisfying a woman, while the motion-sensitive Accelerometer means that the iPhone would respond to the wrist-action required for… tugging. Rub ‘n’ Tug would have a basic story mode where you progress through levels of increasingly difficult-to-please males and females of all shapes and sizes; eventually, fingers would cramp and wrists would sprain but this would be part of the valuable learning experience. Indeed, Rub ‘n’ Tug could also pass as educational software for the (probably under-age) teens out there wondering what to do when they reach that ‘special place.’ Alternatively, it’d deceive sexually-stunted geeks into thinking that stimulating digital privates is a valid replacement for the real thing, encouraging them to retreat further into their technology-based realities.

3. Snuff Booth Snuff Booth: Want to know what you look like when you're dead? No? Well now you can anyway. We already have an Old Booth, Zombie Booth and Fat Booth. Why not take the Booth concept to the next level? Snuff Booth does this by showing you what you look like when you kick the bucket, snuff it, whatever you want to call it. Snuff Booth would let you choose how far gone you look, anywhere from freshly dead all the way through to a 50-year-old skull, which of course would be based on your facial proportions! The adjustable settings would give Snuff Booth an infinite amount of appeal to those willing to face their own mortality, giving it an edge over the current crop of clichéd Booth Apps.

4. G.Pedo.S Tracking Service G.Pedo.S: Sex Offenders are everywhere and we need to know about it! Sex offenders are on the rampage in our country! No woman or child is safe from the raging hordes of depraved perverts running free among us! We need to know where they are and who they are AT ALL TIMES! If honest papers like the Daily Mail and The Sun are to be believed, then this is a problem that needs an immediate solution. Thankfully, electronic tagging of our substantial Sex Offender population means that they can now be tracked using GPS technology, a technology that’s contained in our own iPhones! With G.Pedo.S Tracking Service, users have constant real-time access to their local sex offenders’ whereabouts, complete with mugshots and details of their sick wrongdoings. If you’re walking home late at night, wouldn’t you like to know if there’s a convicted rapist down a side-street you’re thinking of taking? Don’t parents have a right to know that the reason the man two doors down the street lost his job as a P.E. Teacher is because he has a deviant attraction to kids in Speedo’s? There is a slight chance that this App would lead to angry mobs of fear-crazed parents going on violence campaigns against convicted offenders, but who’ll miss them? Best of all, since any parent would agree that their child’s safety is priceless, I’d say that £59.99 on the App Store would be a more than reasonable asking price.

5. Black Market Direct (BMD) Black Market Direct (BMD): A user-friendly way to do dodgy dealings Below the radar of our fragile economy exists a bustling underground market filled with guns, drugs and counterfeit goods. Considering that attempting to crack down on the black market appears to be a lost cause, the iPhone would be a perfect platform to create an online community for it. With Black Market Direct users submit the details – phone number, mugshot, general vicinity – of their black market contacts into the App database, giving all users access to the traders’ goods. So if you find yourself in sudden need of a pirate DVD, a submachine gun, or any other not-so-legal goods, you simply log in to BMD and see what your options are in the local area. There would be a ratings system for all the traders on the database as well as the possibility of leaving comments on your experiences; so if a bootleg copy of the new Harry Potter turns out to be a warped Japanese porn film, or if the guy posing as a weed dealer knifed you and ran off with your money, this would work against the culprit trader’s feedback score. Should someone receive too much negative feedback from users, then they risk being removed from the BMD database. With a dedicated enough community, rankings and ‘Top 10′ lists would eventually arise, making users fully aware of who the best and safest black market traders are in the UK. Thanks to this system, Black Market Direct could make underworld trade in this country as safe and user-friendly an experience as shopping on eBay.

All pictures by: Joe London

Hundreds Of Toys For Tots Donations Stolen

BURLINGTON (CBS) — $15,000 worth of toys were stolen Saturday from the Toys for Tots program.

UPDATE: Donation deadline extended until 6 p.m. Tuesday

State police say the toys were being stored in a POD container at a warehouse facility in Burlington from where they would be distributed to charities.

The program, coordinated by the United State Marine Corps with help from Massachusetts State Police, collects and distributes toys for needy families.

Police say about 1,500 toys were stolen from the locked POD between 2:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday. It appears the toys were sorted through and only toys valued between $15 and $30 and for children 8 and up were taken, police say.

WBZ-TV’s Paul Burton reports

They add a break-in of a second POD was attempted, but unsuccessful.

“This is not just a crime against the PODs company or the Massachusetts State Police or the United States Marine Corps or even the administrators of this wonderful program who have worked so hard to collect these toys,” said Colonel Marian J. McGovern, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police. “More importantly, this is a despicable crime against the generous people who donated these toys and against the hundreds of children in need who would have received these gifts and who now will not. The State Police and the Burlington Police will do everything we can to find who did this and try to recover these toys.”

The Toys for Tots collection ended last week, and organizers say new donations may not make it to families by Christmas. But they are still accepting replacement donations at any State Police Barracks. Checks can be made out to “Toys for Tots.”

State police are also asking anyone who has information about the theft or if they are suspicious of a sudden large quantity of toys to call either state police at 508-820-2121 or Burlington police at 781-270-1914.

THE UK Government is to combat the early sexualization of children by blocking internet pornography

THE UK Government is to combat the early sexualization of children by blocking internet pornography unless parents request it, it was revealed today.

The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet. It follows warnings about the hidden damage being done to children by sex sites.

The biggest broadband providers, including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, are being called to a meeting next month by Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, and will be asked to change how pornography gets into homes.

Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called "opting out" - the tap will be turned off at source. Adults will then have to "opt in."

The new initiative is in advance of the imminent convergence of the internet and television on one large screen in the living room.

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It follows the success of an operation by most British internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent people inadvertently viewing child porn websites. Ministers want companies to use similar technology to shut out adult pornography from children. Pornography sites will be blocked at source unless people specifically ask to view them.

TalkTalk, which includes Tiscali and the British version of Aol.com, is already introducing a new free service early next year called "bright feed," which allows people to control the internet so that all devices are automatically covered without the need to set up individual controls.

Homeowners can either specify which adult sites they want to receive or put a cinema-style classification on their feed to restrict what is received according to age ranges, such as U, 12 or 18. A survey by Psychologies magazine this summer found that one in three children aged 10 in Britain had viewed pornography on the net.

Mr Vaizey said: "This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that it's the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children.

"I'm hoping they will get their acts together so we don't have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years."

Claire Perry, the Tory MP for Devizes and a keen lobbyist for more restrictions, said: "Unless we show leadership, the internet industry is not going to self-regulate. The minister has said he will get the ISPs together and say, 'Either you clean out your stables or we are going to do it for you'."

"There is this very uneasy sense for parents of children that we do not have to tolerate this Wild West approach. We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don't want them to see."

Previously the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) has told MPs that such a blanket ban would be expensive and technically difficult to operate.

But Miranda Suit, co-founder of the charity Safermedia, which held a conference on internet porn at the Commons last month, said: "Technically we know it can be done because the ISPs are already removing child porn after the government put pressure on them.

"In the past, internet porn was regarded as a moral issue or a matter of taste. Now it has become a mental health issue because we now know the damage it is causing. We are seeing perverse sexual behavior among children. Legislation is both justifiable and feasible."

She quoted the example of two underage brothers sentenced to at least five years' detention this year for a sadistic sex attack on two other boys in South Yorkshire. The brothers were said to have had a "toxic" home life where they were exposed to pornography.

This weekend some ISPs appeared ready to introduce an "opt in" clause voluntarily. Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation for TalkTalk, said: "Our objective was not to do what the politicians want us to do but to do what was right by our customers.

"If other companies aren't going to do it of their own volition, then maybe they should be leant on. Legislation is a sledgehammer but it could work."

A spokeswoman for Virgin Media said: "We already have an opt-in approach on mobiles. We've taken this approach as mobiles are taken out of the home - and kept in a pocket - whereas parents can control what happens within the home and online "We're able to block sites, so it would be possible to do the same on the internet. It is just about finding the right approach."

A spokesman for BT, which has a "clean feed" system to block access to illegal sites, said: "We do what we can to protect children."

The ISPA did not return calls to London's Sunday Times.

The FCC's Threat to Internet Freedom

By ROBERT M. MCDOWELL

Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government's reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.

How did the FCC get here?

For years, proponents of so-called "net neutrality" have been calling for strong regulation of broadband "on-ramps" to the Internet, like those provided by your local cable or phone companies. Rules are needed, the argument goes, to ensure that the Internet remains open and free, and to discourage broadband providers from thwarting consumer demand. That sounds good if you say it fast.

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David Klein

 

Nothing is broken and needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.

Analysts and broadband companies of all sizes have told the FCC that new rules are likely to have the perverse effect of inhibiting capital investment, deterring innovation, raising operating costs, and ultimately increasing consumer prices. Others maintain that the new rules will kill jobs. By moving forward with Internet rules anyway, the FCC is not living up to its promise of being "data driven" in its pursuit of mandates—i.e., listening to the needs of the market.

It wasn't long ago that bipartisan and international consensus centered on insulating the Internet from regulation. This policy was a bright hallmark of the Clinton administration, which oversaw the Internet's privatization. Over time, however, the call for more Internet regulation became imbedded into a 2008 presidential campaign promise by then-Sen. Barack Obama. So here we are.

Last year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski started to fulfill this promise by proposing rules using a legal theory from an earlier commission decision (from which I had dissented in 2008) that was under court review. So confident were they in their case, FCC lawyers told the federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., that their theory gave the agency the authority to regulate broadband rates, even though Congress has never given the FCC the power to regulate the Internet. FCC leaders seemed caught off guard by the extent of the court's April 6 rebuke of the commission's regulatory overreach.

In May, the FCC leadership floated the idea of deeming complex and dynamic Internet services equivalent to old-fashioned monopoly phone services, thereby triggering price-and-terms regulations that originated in the 1880s. The announcement produced what has become a rare event in Washington: A large, bipartisan majority of Congress agreeing on something. More than 300 members of Congress, including 86 Democrats, contacted the FCC to implore it to stop pursuing Internet regulation and to defer to Capitol Hill.

Facing a powerful congressional backlash, the FCC temporarily changed tack and convened negotiations over the summer with a select group of industry representatives and proponents of Internet regulation. Curiously, the commission abruptly dissolved the talks after Google and Verizon, former Internet-policy rivals, announced their own side agreement for a legislative blueprint. Yes, the effort to reach consensus was derailed by . . . consensus.

After a long August silence, it appeared that the FCC would defer to Congress after all. Agency officials began working with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman on a draft bill codifying network management rules. No Republican members endorsed the measure. Later, proponents abandoned the congressional effort to regulate the Net.

 

Still feeling quixotic pressure to fight an imaginary problem, the FCC leadership this fall pushed a small group of hand-picked industry players toward a "choice" between a bad option (broad regulation already struck down in April by the D.C. federal appeals court) or a worse option (phone monopoly-style regulation). Experiencing more coercion than consensus or compromise, a smaller industry group on Dec. 1 gave qualified support for the bad option. The FCC's action will spark a billable-hours bonanza as lawyers litigate the meaning of "reasonable" network management for years to come. How's that for regulatory certainty?

To date, the FCC hasn't ruled out increasing its power further by using the phone monopoly laws, directly or indirectly regulating rates someday, or expanding its reach deeper into mobile broadband services. The most expansive regulatory regimes frequently started out modest and innocuous before incrementally growing into heavy-handed behemoths.

On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of a long winter's night for Internet freedom.

Mr. McDowell is a Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission

Android GPS Mobile Vehicle Tracking App Launched Alongside Fleet Tracking Management Software

 

 

Deer Park, NY (PRWEB) December 19, 2010

Vehicle Tracking Solutions, a leading provider of GPS fleet management services, has introduced a free downloadable “app” for the Android phone that interacts with the fleet supervisor’s Vehicle Tracking Solutions account. Called Silent Passenger, this GPS tracking Android app offers flexibility and mobility to fleet and operations management enabling them to modify settings, get reports, or monitor vehicle status, all from their smart phone.

The Silent Passenger Android App is an extension of VTS’ Silent Passenger web-based vehicle tracking system, a cutting edge application that integrates detailed, current maps from Microsoft BING! with up-to-date traffic information and turn-by-turn driving directions. Because it is web-based, it has always been available on any computer, anywhere. But with the introduction of Silent Passenger for Android, this indispensable fleet management application is now available in the palm of the customer’s hand when using an Android Mobile Cell.

According to Kerri Allmer, of Vehicle Tracking Solutions, “The Silent Passenger Android App is the easiest way to monitor vehicles while on-the go. Available to all Vehicle Tracking Solutions customers, this app will allow viewing of a fleet’s up-to-the-minute whereabouts and run historical stop reports, all from the Android mobile phone. Our goal has always been to maintain technological dominance in this rapidly evolving market, thus offering our customers the best product out there. Every advancement we incorporate places more power and efficiency into the business owner’s hands.”

Once the app is downloaded, the current status of the entire fleet of vehicles is displayed. The app enables the user to zoom in and zoom back out in both map view and satellite view, depending on requirements. The user can also touch an individual vehicle on the screen and view details such as what road the vehicle is currently driving on, or run a status report on that vehicle. The setting tab allows management to track a subgroup of vehicles as well.

The landmarks tool creates a set of driving directions by accessing a database of landmarks -- customer locations, employee addresses and any other frequently visited addresses. Directions can be easily accessed from landmark to landmark via touch screen. The user simply searches for the start point landmark, sets it, then searches and sets the end point landmark. The directions will appear for the most efficient route, utilizing up to the minute traffic and routing information.

With Silent Passenger, historic reports can be accessed literally at your fingertips. These reports can contain such information as: stops, route, speed, odometer, mileage, engine idling and start/end of day. Text alerts can be set up to notify the manager when drivers start their day, exceed speed limits, enter unauthorized areas, or use the vehicle during off hours. These alerts, as well as vehicle maintenance alerts and speed alerts can be accessed via the reports feature of the app. The vehicle maintenance program in Silent Passenger allows the monitoring of oil changes, inspections and other routine vehicle maintenance. And the industry’s first and only true speed notification system is also available in the Silent Passenger system.

A GPS tracking system like Silent Passenger and the accompanying Silent Passenger app enables companies to run their fleet operations as efficiently as possible, reducing operating costs while increasing the number of service calls/deliveries completed each day. Customers who have used this system have experienced such benefits as: lower fuel costs, reduced overtime pay, boosted profits, increased employee productivity, efficient dispatching, and improved customer service, as well as eliminated personal use of vehicles.

The real-time GPS tracking, routing and historical reporting technology provided by VTS allows companies to track the whereabouts of their vehicles in order to reduce costs, increase profits and productivity.

For more information on Silent Passenger from Vehicle Tracking Solutions, please call 631 339-7188 or visit http://www.silentpassenger.com/

"We help you Drive Productivity". Vehicle Tracking Solutions, LLC.

Contact Info:

Kerri Allmer
Phone: 631.339.7188
Email: contact(at)silentpassenger(dot)com

Vehicle Tracking Solutions is located at 10 E. 5th street, Deer Park, Long Island, New York. Providing Vehicle Tracking services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

About Vehicle Tracking Solutions

Vehicle Tracking Solutions is a Long Island based company and a leading provider of Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) devices and fleet management solutions for the New York Metro Area. VTS tracks more than 16,500 vehicles for over 1,100 clients and is the largest GPS tracking provider in the New York metro area. Operating since 2002, VTS was named to the 2008 and 2009 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. For more information, visit http://www.vehicletrackingsolutions.com/.

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Happy Mid-Life Crisis, Christina Aguilera

It seems like only yesterday that she was a teen-pop star, but Christina Aguilera turns 30 on Saturday, facing an uncertain commercial and personal future as a middle-aged "Dirrty" girl. How happy is this birthday for her?

She won't be spending it alone, at least. There's a new guy in the life of this suddenly single superstar, and if he weren't around to ease her through her divorce, she'd still have the paparazzi to keep her company. Still, there are other factors that might make the candles look a little dimmer as she faces her fourth decade:

* Burlesque, her debut as a movie star, is going down as a box-office bomb. It had a $55 million budget—before many millions more in marketing costs—making it the most expensive gamble in Screen Gems' history. After three weeks in theaters, the movie has edged up to a $34 million gross, only about half of which is headed back to the disappointed studio's coffers.

Reviews weren't much kinder to her performance than to the overall film, which got a 38% approval rating among the critics surveyed at Rottentomatoes.com. (Among "top critics," it was an even lower 26%.) USA Today called her "clearly not at ease in front of a camera." The New York Times said Aguilera is "a serviceable screen presence" who gives "a dutiful, stolid performance in a movie that quickly proves achingly dull." "Aguilera can dance like nobody's business," opined the New York Post, "but her acting debut isn't going to keep Anne Hathaway

awake at night."

* When Aguilera canceled her summer tour just after tickets went on sale last May, she cited the need to do interviews promoting Burlesque, among other factors. "With both the album press and film press I am booked the entire summer and need the time to focus on the work at hand... I realized there was not enough time to put together and rehearse for a proper show," she said in a statement. Which most people took as code for: I realized my dignity could not bear the sight of half-empty arenas.

* The album she was also supposedly canceling the tour to further promote, Bionic, was an unmitigated bust. It debuted on the Billboard chart at No. 3 with 110,000 copies sold, less than a third the opening-week total of her previous studio album. It dropped out of the top 20 after two weeks. That wasn't altogether surprising, given that lead single "Not Myself Tonight" had peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Further singles did nothing to revive the album's fortunes. By the end of November, Bionic had sold a career-low 252,000 copies, and by December it had dropped off the list of the hundred best-selling albums of 2010.

* Amid all these career travails, there is the personal turmoil, of course. Aguilera filed for divorce from her husband of five years (and romantic interest since 2002), Jordan Bratman, in October. She subsequently revealed in interviews that they are not on the most amicable terms, which is particularly difficult for a couple with a 2-year-old child. Although she was the one who initiated the split, Aguilera spoke in interviews about "days when it feels impossible to even get out of bed, much less function as a mother."

But what if we were to look at the glass as one-third full?

Aguilera has enough still going for her that she's unlikely to fall into a George Bailey-like funk this Christmas. Consider these factors:

* That $34 million gross for Burlesque may look paltry weighted against the budget and other expectations. But how many other current music stars could drive even that many people into theaters, headlining their first movie? Given the reviews and generally derisive atmosphere into which it was released, it could have done a lot worse. And the fact that it was still No. 6 at the box office at the end of its fourth week says... well, it says something about the weakness of the Thanksgiving-time competition, but also speaks to how moviegoers didn't completely abandon the film after the first weekend.

* Moreover, a lot of those people who did see Burlesque liked it. Inexplicably, given the awfulness of its faux-Fosse-ness, but still... Cinemascore's exit polling produced a surprisingly favorable A- grade from opening-night attendees, and the approval rating from rank-and-file voters at Rottentomatoes.com is at an okay 77%. It's understood that this was a movie only for Girls 'n' Gays, but the representatives of those particular demographics apparently downed enough cosmopolitans before hitting the multiplex that they didn't hate it. 

* Don't cry for her personal life, Argentina. Aguilera did not divorce her husband to live life as a spinster. She has gone public with new boyfriend Matt Rutler, a set assistant on Burlesque (saying she kept things platonic with him before the divorce filing). The singer-actress is likely to become much more a fixture of the tabloid press, now that she can be photographed alongside someone other than her former partner of nine years. And while she probably has no desire to fall into the "famous for being famous" camp, the interest in her as an icon and subject of gossip may not be much affected by how she is or isn't doing on the charts.

Can the Good Ship Xtina be turned around and put back on course?

Speaking just about her divorce, Aguilera told an interviewer, "Of course, it is impossible to redefine yourself, and your life, overnight." But redefinitions are just what Aguilera has specialized in over the years, professionally speaking. The question may be whether she has an indefinite number of reincarnations in her or, like a cat, only a finite number of lives.

When she appeared on the scene in the late '90s, Aguilera was a family-friendly teen star, and though she could be seen bristling at the idea that she needed to re-record the "rub me the right way" lyrics to get on Disney Radio, she played the part to get in the door. Album No. 2 (not counting a Christmas release) was the most serious reinvention, as she got as provocative as possible with the "Dirrty" video. That led to the kind of widespread "skank" jokes that might drive a less secure personality into hiding. Instead, she rebounded with "Beautiful," a ballad that established her as a still sexy but potentially deeper star.

That peak has been followed by still more reinventions, some of them less successful. Back to Basics was her bid to be taken seriously as a singer for (or at least influenced by) the ages, with its '40s and '50s jazz-R&B touches, though she wisely hedged her bets with some modernistic arrangements. After that, though, she went electro-pop, first with a couple of new tracks on a 2008 greatest-hits CD, then on the entirety of this year's Bionic.

 

Musically, going electro wasn't a bad direction for her. But it had the unfortunate effect of making her look like a follower—lagging behind Britney, her once and future Mouseketeer rival, and the suddenly far huger Lady Gaga. And if it comes down to a contest between Xtina and Gaga, as fans and the media have been prone to positioning things, then Aguilera is going to lose right now.

In strictly musical terms, she's done retro and she's done futuristic—so where can she go from there? In terms of personal image, she may also be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Aguilera has always projected steely resolve. That made her attempt in Burlesque to play a simple Midwestern gal who becomes a bumper-and-grinder with a heart of gold feel only about half-right: The dance moves totally worked, and the warmth and relatability didn't, quite. In her initial post-divorce interviews, it seemed as if Aguilera was trying to come off as vulnerable, but the quick rebound with a new beau kind of scotched the idea of her as anything other than queen bee.

It's unlikely we'll really be seeing—or hearing—the softer side of Aguilera any time soon. Can she continue to be that cool and brassy into her 30s and still captivate the public imagination through sheer force of will and siren-like voice? Or will the indomitable act ultimately make her... domitable? As the last of the true divas turns 30, we can only watch, and wait.

13M get unexpected tax bill from Obama tax credit

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 13.4 million taxpayers may be getting unexpected tax bills because they were awarded too much money under President Barack Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit, a government audit said Thursday.

The tax credit, which expires Jan. 1, was designed to increase take-home pay by about $8 a week through new tax withholding tables. The credit was capped at $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples filing jointly.

However, the credit put millions of taxpayers at risk for not having enough taxes withheld from their paychecks, resulting in a tax bill when they file their returns, said the audit by J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.

Those at risk included people with multiple jobs, married couples who both work, Social Security recipients who also work, and young workers who are also claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns.

"The Making Work Pay credit is a key tax credit designed to increase spending and stimulate the economy," George said. "However, many taxpayers who are accustomed to receiving refunds when they file their tax returns may have owed taxes and incurred penalties in 2009, and may yet again in 2010, because they were advanced more of the credit than they were entitled to claim."

The Internal Revenue Service reported that the average tax refund was $2,892 in the 2010 filing season, up from $2,663 in 2009. However, the number of refunds dropped by 3.5 percent, to 93.3 million.

The audit says the Making Work Pay credit could have been a factor in the reduced number of refunds.

The credit was Obama's signature tax break in the massive economic recovery package passed in 2009. The IRS moved quickly to start getting the new tax credit to workers, issuing new tax withholding tables four days after Obama signed the law.

About 122 million families and individuals have benefited from the credit, according to the agency's written response to the audit.

The IRS says it undertook an aggressive campaign in 2009 and 2010 to warn at-risk taxpayers that they might not be withholding enough money from their pay, including public service announcements and YouTube videos.

The agency regularly advises taxpayers to check their withholding so they don't get a surprise tax bill when they file their returns.

"This provision was specifically intended to help taxpayers through the severe economic downturn by putting more money into their hands right away, in each paycheck," wrote Richard Byrd, commissioner of the agency's wage and investment division