Remember when gaming hardware company Razer decided it was a good idea to launch a face mask with RGB lighting effects, a clear window that let people see your face while you talk, and “N95 grade filters?” And remember how it turned out the Razer Zephyr face mask didn’t actually filter out 95% of airborne particles?
Well, now the company has to pay the price… literally. The US Federal Trade Commission has announced a settlement that requires Razer to pay $1-million dollars into a fund that will be used to provide full refunds to customers who bought Zephyr face masks. Razer also has to pay a $100-thousand fine on top of that.
According to the FTC, Razer “never even submitted” its masks to the FDA or NIOSH for testing, and its masks were never certified as N95, and only stopped making those claims “following negative press coverage and consumer outrage at the deceptive claims.”
Razer came under scrutiny shortly after launching the Zephyr face mask, with YouTuber Naomi Wu providing a rather detailed analysis and the story picking up steam a few months later after Razer announced plans to launch a “Zephyr Pro” version, and eventually removing all references to “N95 grade” filters from its website.
At that point Razer tried to fix things by noting that its face masks “are not medical devices, respirators, surgical masks, or personal protective equipment (PPE),” but that kind of raises the question of why anyone would buy this thing in the first place. It was clearly launched during the COVID-19 pandemic as an alternative to disposable N95, KN95, and similar masks… and if it’s not supposed to do the same thing as those masks, why would you want one?
In addition to the fines, the FTC settlement bars Razer from falsely claiming (or even implications) in the future that any protective goods or services have meet certification standards or have government approval.
via The Verge
I would have bought this if it had some sort of built in injection probe that kept you up to date by the minute with all of your boosters. Something like those handy diabetic insulin patches that constantly measure your blood sugar and apply more insulin when needed.
but in all seriousness, wait until people find out that not even n95 filters have a long term impact when it comes to stopping the spread of coronaviruses.
There has already been legit research done years ago that show masks ultimately do not prevent the spread of coronaviruses. I didn’t see this on a meme, I read it for myself somewhere on the CDC website I believe (it’s been a couple of years, sorry I don’t have a link).
Not to mention the long term cardiopulmonary damage. That’s it fellas…take that big deep breath of Co2…again and again and again.
Not good for the heart.
Steven B.
That’s why life expectancy of medical and surgical staff is greatly reduced /s
Stop being silly ffs
Stop being hysterical.
Gee, if only they’d applied a requirement to submit all those other things we were forced to wear all day every day to the FDA and NIOSH or whatever agency handles stuff like that in your country. Or, made people wear stuff that had. It might make taking away the right of the people to decide what is and what is not misinformation seem like less of a blatant power grab.
Man, I know in the end most of recent FTC decisions will be taken to court where it´ll end up killed, or the corporation will find some way of escaping punishment… but I´m sure glad to see a regulatory agency finally doing it´s job, instead of bickering with other agencies on whose responsibility it is to address a problem that moles coming from big corporations don´t wanna deal with. Don´t care if my opinion is unpopular or not.
They went after Amazon monopoly, went against bog standard noncompete clauses in contracts, hidden and junk fees, abusive microtransactions, social networks selling underage private data, spam calls, badvertising, bs copyright applications, data brokers, fake review industry, illegal surveillance, crypto crap, AI data stealing…. there has been a whole ton of stuff accumulated over the past couple of decades or so that is being churned out of FTC that it´s kinda overwhelming. 😛
It´s like, if only those were followed to the letter, there are so much stuff wrong going on in the US right now that would be at least partially corrected.
Of course Razer will complain about this decision, but this is what they get for trying to profit over something as serious as a pandemic. Get f*cked and die, assholes.
Good.
Razer really is not what it used to be. Something has clearly changed in their management or leadership. They cancelled actual legitimate like the Project Linda and JungleCat, and instead greenlit useless things like the Razer Edge, Kishi, and this Zephyr garbage. Even their laptops have slid down in terms of value, quality, and competitiveness. They’re pretty obscure now, and if things continue like this…. well, Razer as a company may actually declare bankruptcy, get bought out, or just fade into a has-been.
I hope for our sakes, that is not what happens. We need good quality, innovative, fair, and good value services, products, and companies to be actually competing in the market.
I agree with you on most points there, but I’m surprised you hold the JungleCat in higher esteem than the Kishi. I also like the JungleCat more personally, but I feel like most people like the Kishi (especially the V2) far more than the JungleCat as the latter requires one of three proprietary cases/ 3D printed cases (or a silly elastic band contraption I made that makes it more portable and completely universal :^) )
The Razer Kishi is nothing special, there are alternatives to it. The JungleCat is unique and has no alternatives. Also it is superior to the Kishi for a couple reasons.
Firstly, both joysticks are at the top. This makes it easy and ergonomic for playing modern games, and prevents accidental button presses. The “Sony format” (joysticks on bottom) is superior for Classic Gaming (D-Pad and Action on top). The “Microsoft format” is the most popular and is actually the worst type, as it is inferior for modern and classic (Offset joysticks). The most superior for Modern Gaming is “Newtendo style” like that of the WiiU Protroller (both joysticks on top). There are millions of complaints from NSwitch users for accidentally moving the camera/joystick in the game with their palms when they had their right thumb hovering over the Action Buttons. On a full controller this isn’t too bad, but on a mobile controller it makes a big difference due to the smaller spacing.
Secondly, the Razer JungleCat is the only pocketable controller out there. You can slide out both units, put them together in your hand, and slide it down into a standard jeans pocket. You can’t quiet do that with the Kishi, at least not comfortably, which means it requires you to stow it away in a backpack. But if you bring a backpack then why are you bringing the Kishi in the first place. You can bring an AYN Odin2, or Valve SteamDeck OLED, or maybe even the GPD Win-Max-3 with you. Or you can bring in a full controller like the DS5 or XSX, and maybe an accompanying tablet.
The Razer Kishi is great though? Out of all the clamp on smartphone controllers out there it’s the best one.
Try the GameSir G8 controller (aka Galileo). That’s cheaper, more comfortable, and far superior.
Size wise, they are the same. Neither option will fit in your pocket, and both take up some room in a backpack. I’ve seen people use the G8 controller with the iPad Pro (11in M1) and it looks great. I want something similar but with the 9in iPad Mini, hopefully with the next iPadOS we should see a lot of Sideloading and Emulation hit that market. But it also hinges on the iPad Mini 7 being a decent tablet, hopefully a “premium” one so we can have more options and keep the iPad Mini 6 as a cheaper option.
This mask worked very well preventing disease, especially when the filter is reinforced with toilet paper and duct tape.