Ford facing class action lawsuit for Fiesta and Focus faulty dual-clutch transmission issues

Ford is facing international pressure for tranmission issues in its Focus and Fiesta models. "We've accumulated almost 3,000 registrations from people wo've experienced terrible problems with their vehicles," said lawyer Ted Charney, who is leading the $825-million Canadian class action

Canada isn't the only country facing the issue. The Australian government is starting action against the automaker for alleged "unconscionable and misleading" conduct. At the same time, Ford has agreed to a proposed class action settlement in the United States.

 The Ford PowerShift transmission is a dry dual-clutch transmission as opposed to the wet DCT found in vehicles from the Volkswagen Golf to the Bugatti Chiron. Dry DCTs can't handle high torque loads like a wet DCT, but they do produce better fuel economy since there isn't a pumping loss from moving the fluid around.

The lawsuit says that despite more than 20 recalls and technical service bulletins, Ford has failed to fix the problems with the PowerShift transmission. Look for more news as the lawsuit progresses.

Source: Autoblog

Popular distraction-free writing app Ulysses to follow subscription model

If you write on a Mac or on an iPad, Ulysses is one of the most well-rounded and feature-rich distraction-free word processors. It has personally been my choice for years now and one of the reasons I just can't switch to Windows from MacOS. Ulysses has announced that it is now going to a subscription based model.

"As of today, we're switching Ulysses to subscription payment. This is the result of a of a long-lasting discussion about how to put Ulysses’ development, and the future of our company, on a sustainable foundation.

It’s still the same Ulysses, same features, same distribution, we’re just switching to subscription. There are yearly, monthly, and students plans available, and they all unlock Ulysses on all devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad). To encourage existing customers to switch to the new model, we are offering special migration deals," the spokesperson for Ulysses said.

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Consumer Reports: Microsoft Surface has worst failure rate in the industry

Independent consumer advocacy group Consumer Reports has pulled their recommendation of Microsoft's Surface products stating they have the 'worst failure rate in the industry."

According to a Consumer Reports survey of over 90,000 tablet and laptop owners, an estimated 25 percent of those with Microsoft Surface devices will experience “problems by the end of the second year of ownership.” This failure rate is the worst in the industry by far among mainstream PC makers, the publication says, this has resulted in them pulling its “recommended” designation for all Surface products. 

This is an alarming development for Microsoft, who has evolved its Surface devices over the years and aggressively added to the model lineup with the Surface Book, Surface Studio and most recently, the Surface Laptop.

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OneDrive for iOS gets major update with improved scanning and sharing

The OneDrive app from Microsoft for iOS has gotten significantly better. Now with improved image scanning as well as sharing features, OneDrive for Office 365 users offers the ability to scan multiple images and output them as PDFs, it is now easier to share folders and add expiration dates to those folders. Users now have more options with offline folders and a new Discover View makes it easy to find recent and shared files.

Source: Thurott.com