I know most of us here aren’t exactly fans of touchscreens and how they’ve so vigorously and brutally taken over the dashboards of every modern car, but I think we all have to respect the touchscreen. We should at least admit that for those of us still beholden to knobs and switches and buttons, the touchscreen has proven to be a most worthy adversary, and there’s no denying its popularity. But where did it start? I think it may have started with a clever little concept hybrid city car called the Microdot.
The first production car to feature touchscreen controls was the 1986 Buick Riviera which used a green phosphor cathode ray tube (CRT) display, as fitting for the era, and this was a pretty comprehensive implementation of what we understand touchscreen controls to be: a sceen with changing displays and on-screen buttons and controls.
GM called it the Graphic Control Center, and just look at it:
It ended up in cars other than the Riviera, too, like in this Buick Reatta, which you can see in action here:
Incredibly, this doesn’t seem to be the very first implementation of an automotive touchscreen, though, at least in some form. A solid decade earlier, though, there was a concept car, one that was hoped to make production, one that was designed by the man behind some of the most famous Aston Martins, a hybrid city car, and, yes, what I believe to be the first automotive implementation of a digital touch screen.
The Microdot was first shown at the 1976 British International Motor Show and was a true hybrid, with an eight horsepower electric motor – giving it a top speed of about 40 mph – powered by lead-acid batteries stored under the three-abreast seats, and recharged by a 400cc engine driving a 3.5 kW generator. The design was pretty radical and quite appealing: lots of glass (nice and flat, to keep things cheap) for great visibility, along with a sleek, wedgy design and fantastic green-plaid-1970s-Lutheran-church-rec-room-couch upholstery, all in an interior designed by the same people who designed the spaceship interiors for Star Wars, which was released the very next year.
Around back, the license plate housing revealed a removable little cart that could be used like the trunk of the car, except it was a trunk you could take with you on its own little wheels. It’s pretty damn clever, and I was able to get Jonee Eisen, Associate Curator over at the Petersen Automotive Museum, where the car is now on display, to show me just how that works, live on a video call:
You can see it in use in this film from the era, which shows the Microdot in action and explains the hybrid drivetrain:
That’s pretty great. Actually, Jonee made a whole video with this car that you really should watch, too:
It’s all fascinating, and it’s a shame it never made it into production, even though there were certainly plans; Towns worked with Mallalieu Engineering in 1978 to develop a production-ready prototype of the Microdot in 1978, based on a cut-down Mini chassis and using a Reliant engine instead of the hybrid drivetrain, but for a variety of reasons and lack of funding the project fizzled out.
But! We have to talk about this touchscreen, because whether or not anyone realized it at the time, that may be this car’s real legacy. The touch screen didn’t have a full matrix display like modern touch screens or even the 1980s CRT-based Buicks; it was a panel with what I believe were red LEDs behind it, and silkscreened text and icons on the face of it to indicate what the buttons did. There may have been a numeric seven-segment type of display on there, too, but honestly I haven’t seen enough of it in action to know. All I know is that Jonee told me there are red lights that illuminate in the panel when you touch the controls, and I think this meets the minimum requirements of a “display.”
Now, the real question I have here is how did this work? Back in 1976, what sort of touch-based technology was around? Looking at the display, we don’t have that many clues; there is a bit of a rougher texture on the surface where you actually touch things, and when touched, the whole display recesses into the housing, giving a sort of early haptic feedback.
My best guess about how this could work comes from looking at a roughly-contemporary touch-sensitive device, the old Apple Graphics Tablet from 1979:
This was a pretty amazing device for 1979, and used graphics software created by, surprisingly, musician Tod Rundgren. I believe the tablet worked by using that grid of wires you see there inside the pad, and when there was pressure on the pad, a horizontal and vertical wire would make electrical contact, telling the computer the X,Y location of the contact. There must have been some sort of compressible layer above the wires and possibly below, and the wires must have been under enough tension to not make contact until pressed upon.
Could the Microdot’s touchscreen worked in a similar manner, with the wire grid behind an outer skin and the (presumably) LED lights below? I’m not really sure, but I think we should all speculate, wildly, in the comments. The Microdot’s controls do currently still work, incredibly, so I don’t think anyone is eager to pull it apart to see, so our speculating seems to be the best option, as actual documentation does not seem to exist.
Whatever you think about touchscreen controls, don’t be mad at the Microdot. It was just a little car full of many good ideas ahead of their time. You can’t blame it for how absurd touch screen interfaces have gotten, with glove boxes and vent controls being doomed to be on screens.
Among the decades-old Windows apps to get renewed attention from Microsoft during the Windows 11 era is Notepad, the basic built-in text editor that was much the same in early 2021 as it had been in the '90 and 2000s. Since then, it has gotten a raft of updates, including a visual redesign, spellcheck and autocorrect, and window tabs.
Given Microsoft's continuing obsession with all things AI, it's perhaps not surprising that the app's latest update (currently in preview for Canary and Dev Windows Insiders) is a generative AI feature called Rewrite that promises to adjust the length, tone, and phrasing of highlighted sentences or paragraphs using generative AI. Users will be offered three rewritten options based on what they've highlighted, and they can select the one they like best or tell the app to try again.
Rewrite appears to be based on the same technology as the Copilot assistant, since it uses cloud-side processing (rather than your local CPU, GPU, or NPU) and requires Microsoft account sign-in to work. The initial preview is available to users in the US, France, the UK, Canada, Italy, and Germany.
If you don't care about AI or you don't sign in with a Microsoft account, note that Microsoft is also promising substantial improvements in launch time with this version of Notepad. "Most users will see app launch times improve by more than 35 percent, with some users seeing improvements of 55 percent or more," reads the blog post by Microsoft's Windows apps manager Dave Grochocki.
Microsoft is also adding generative fill and erase features to Paint in this update; the Paint app has already picked up several AI-powered image-generation and editing features. The generative fill addition allows users to select part of an existing image and type a prompt to fill in that area of the image with something AI-generated. Generative erase does the opposite, removing objects from a selected area of the image and attempting to recreate the background. The difference between the two is that generative fill is only available on Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Elite chips in them, while generative erase will work on any Windows 11 PC.
On the technical end of things, a new Windows Insider Canary channel build released yesterday adds some new features to Prism, Microsoft's rebranded x86-to-Arm app translation layer for Arm-powered Windows PCs like the Snapdragon X Elite-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.
This Prism update adds support for newer x86 CPU instructions important for running games and high-end professional apps, including support for the AVX and AVX2 extensions. Microsoft says these extensions are already available in Windows 11 24H2 specifically to support Adobe's Premiere Pro app, but this new update will enable these extensions (among others) for all apps.
Prism still doesn't support AVX512 extensions, though even modern Intel processors have mostly dropped support for these over the last few years. The new extensions are only available to fully 64-bit Intel apps, and not 32-bit apps or "a 64-bit app that uses a 32-bit helper to detect CPU feature support."
Since 1966, Hertz and Shelby have worked on some very cool Ford Mustangs and many are worth a pretty penny today. Hertz is now trying to offload some of its latest Shelby Mustangs as we speak. Unlike most ex-rental cars, don’t assume you’re going to get a great deal.
It’s no secret that sports cars designed for Hertz can carry a premium. Examples of the Shelby Mustang GT350 Hertz from the 1960s regularly garner six figures. Beyond that though, the rest of the Hertz sports car family tends to trade for five figures. That’s what makes this trio of GT500s look like a pretty bad investment. (Disclaimer: Do not take financial advice from me as I have a habit of buying cars that require far too much money to maintain.)
For example, this 2022 Shelby GT500 coupe has an asking price of $150,000. For that cool $150k, the buyer will get a car with over 22,000 miles on the odometer, a lot of gold accenting in the cabin, and (I wish I were joking), some Mucho Macho tires at each corner.
Don’t get me wrong. This is unquestionably a potent sports car. It still has a 760 horsepower supercharged V8 under the hood (with a gold-painted intake plenum), a seven-speed automatic gearbox, and rear-wheel drive. At the same time, there is zero accounting of how renters treated it for the 22,000 miles it’s lived.
Notably, all the cars we’re seeing here are “Hertz Certified” so they come with a 12-month 12,000-mile limited powertrain warranty on top of whatever factory coverage could remain. Still, how many people want to see how ragged out a rental Mustang can be after just 22k miles? Now, how many of you with your hand still up are willing to drop $150,000 to find out?
If Hertz wants $150k for this car then shouldn’t it in theory want more for the other ones it’s selling with less mileage? One example has 15,142 miles on it and the other features just 12,346. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic about Hertz-branded Mustangs. Let’s take a look at valuations from third parties.
Over on Cars & Bids, it would seem that the general value of a Shelby GT500 from similar years is lower than $150,000. More specifically, the last time that a GT500 of this ilk went for that kind of cash was… never.
The closest happened back in early 2023. That particular example, a Heritage Edition Shelby GT500 with the Carbon Fiber Track package, featured just 70 total miles at the time of sale.
Credit: Cars&Bids
Since that example, only two others have even reached six-figure bidding but neither sold. Interestingly, one is of special note. It’s a 2022 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-H Coupe. That’s right, it’s a Hertz-edition Mustang and bidding reached $105,313. If it went that high then surely a GT500 version is worth more right?
Credit: Cars&Bids
Well, no, not necessarily. First, this auction happened back in January and pricing is different today. Secondly, that car had just 750 miles which inherently adds significantly more value.
Perhaps the issue with these values is that we’re talking about Cars & Bids though. Maybe another auction website will garner higher bids for such a car. If you’re thinking of Bring A Trailer then you’ve come to the right paragraphs.
Alas, values aren’t much different there though. For example, the last GT500 to come anywhere close to $150,000 or more was a KR with just 443 miles on the odometer.
Credit: Bring A Trailer
The most expensive late-model Hertz-branded Mustang to sell on the platform traded hands in April for $126,313. It had 3,400 miles on it and was allegedly one of two factory-supercharged examples.
Circling back to the Mustangs on Hertz’s website, let’s take a quick look at one more detail. The KBB plugin that Hertz uses to entice buyers that they’re getting a good deal is broken for these three cars. Well, it says that the range is “unavailable.” That said, when you hover over the little blue “Why?” nothing happens. At least, that’s the case for me. Maybe you’ll get different mileage there.
Considering all of this weirdness, I went ahead and reached out to Hertz to ask if they could explain their pricing strategy here. First, the company shot me a message telling me “Vehicles are selling quicker than usual because of our great offers!” I hereby promise to follow up on this claim by checking on these Mustangs in the not-too-distant future.
Really though, what I wanted was some reasoning for how they came to this specific figure. Perhaps the cars have some special lineage or features? When pressed, a Hertz employee just told me that “We do not negotiate on pricing. All our cars are marked with a no-haggle price that is often below market price.”
Suffice it to say, if you’re in the market for a Shelby GT500 Mustang, now you know what the market looks like.
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar and 2K Games, has sold its boutique publishing label Private Division to an undisclosed buyer for an undisclosed sum. The buyer has bought the rights to “substantially all” of Private Division’s live and unreleased titles. The sale was revealed in Take-Two’s latest financial report.
The news comes a few months after reports that Take-Two was moving to close two studios owned by Private Division — Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games and London-based Roll7, developer of the OlliOlli skating series. The majority of Private Division’s staff was also said to have been laid off at that time. Take-Two has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that both studios were shuttered before the sale.
Take-Two retains one Private Division game: No Rest for the Wicked, an action role-playing game by Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios. The game is still in early access, and Take-Two says it will continue to support it.
Alongside Kerbal Space Program 2, Private Division’s mystery buyer has acquired the publishing rights to cozy Lord of the Rings game Tales of the Shire (which looks pretty good, actually), and Project Bloom, an action-adventure game from Pokémon developer Game Freak.
Private Division was formed by Take-Two in 2017 with the idea that it would support independent studios to make more ambitious and expensive projects that exist somewhere between traditional indie games and mainstream, AAA productions. Initially, it made a splash by publishing Obsidian’s sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds and acquiring popular physics sim Kerbal Space Program from its original developer Squad. But it has had few hits since. The much-touted Kerbal Space Program 2, released in 2023 and still in early access, has “mostly negative” user reviews on Steam — and, after Intercept Games’ closure, no current developer.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told GamesIndustry.biz that the publisher wants to focus on big-budget games, like Rockstar’s forthcoming Grand Theft Auto 6. “We’re really best at these big AAA experiences,” he said. “The team of Private Division did a great job supporting independent developers and, almost to a one, every project they supported did well. However, the scale of those projects was, candidly, on the smaller side, and we’re in the business of making great big hits.”
T-Mobile promised users who bought certain mobile plans that it would never raise their prices for as long as they lived—but then raised their prices this year. So it's no surprise that 2,000 T-Mobile customers complained to the government about a price hike on plans that were advertised as having a lifetime price lock.
"I am still alive and T-Mobile is increasing the price for service by $5 per line. How is this a lifetime price lock?" one customer in Connecticut asked the Federal Communications Commission in a complaint that we obtained through a public records request.
"I am not dead yet," a customer in New York wrote bluntly, saying they had bought a plan with a "guarantee for life."
Both of those customers said they purchased T-Mobile's senior plan marketed to people aged 55 and up. While the price hikes apply to customers on various plans regardless of their age, many of the complaints to the FCC came from people in the 55+ age group. Some pointed out that if T-Mobile simply waits long enough, the carrier won't have to serve 55-and-up customers forever.
"What happened to my price lock GUARANTEE?" a Massachusetts resident wrote. "You can charge more to new customers, but do not change the terms of our contract!! Eventually we will age out..." A California resident on the 55+ plan, who reported being a T-Mobile customer for over 18 years, wrote, "We want that rate back for the remainder of our lives."
Many customers have two or more lines. Some people complaining to the FCC even reported having 8, 9, or 10 lines, all of which get the price increase. "I got a text message stating my monthly rate will increase $5 per line, that is [a] $50 increase because I have 10 lines," a New York resident wrote.
A Pennsylvania resident told the FCC that T-Mobile "straight up lied to millions of people." A North Carolina resident wrote, "This is not the deal we signed up for and to change our price after guaranteeing it would be locked for life is fraudulent and a direct breach of contract."
FCC says it got over 2,000 complaints
An FCC spokesperson told Ars on September 28 that the agency had "received over 2,000 complaints" about the T-Mobile price hikes of $2 to $5 per line. The agency declined to comment on whether it is conducting a formal investigation.
"If this is allowed to stand, then words have no meaning, businesses are able to lie directly and blatantly to the American people, and the FCC is apparently unable to protect the citizen[s] of this county from the unethical practices of business[es] they are charged with regulating," an Indiana resident told the FCC.
A Texas resident who said they used to work in T-Mobile customer service said in a complaint that the "company's attempt to backtrack on their promises through obscure caveats in FAQs should not be allowed to stand. As a former employee and long-time customer, I feel deeply betrayed by T-Mobile's conduct and strongly advocate for regulatory intervention to protect consumers."
The FCC complaints started right after T-Mobile, which has said it is "passionate about winning customers for life," announced the rate increase in late May. We sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the FCC on June 24, seeking all of the complaints.
The FOIA process often takes months, and the results, which are based on searches for keywords identified in the records request, can be unpredictable. But in the end, we received over 900 of the roughly 2,000 complaints filed to the FCC, with names redacted. You can read all of them here, and we will quote more of them in this article.
We also obtained about 60 complaints regarding T-Mobile's price hike to the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces laws against deceiving consumers. The FTC declined to comment on any potential investigation.
State attorneys general could also take action. Nearly every US state was involved in a lawsuit that alleged the big three carriers falsely advertised wireless plans as "unlimited" and phones as "free." The carriers settled the lawsuit this year, with T-Mobile agreeing to pay $4.1 million. (Verizon also agreed to pay $4.1 million, while AT&T agreed to pay a little over $2 million.)
If the government doesn't take action, there's at least one other potential avenue of recourse. A class-action lawsuit filed against T-Mobile in July is seeking "restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation," plus interest, along with statutory and punitive damages.
The class action in US District Court for the District of New Jersey seeks to represent T-Mobile users nationwide and was filed on behalf of plaintiffs by law firm Nagel Rice. T-Mobile is asking the court to force the lead plaintiff into arbitration and dismiss the claims of other plaintiffs because they don't live in New Jersey.
“T-Mobile will never change the price you pay”
We explained in previous coverage that in January 2017, T-Mobile brought its "Un-contract" promise to T-Mobile One plans. "Now, T-Mobile One customers keep their price until THEY decide to change it. T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan," the company said in a pledge that enticed many people to switch plans or even switch from another carrier to T-Mobile.
In a separate FAQ, T-Mobile revealed a caveat that essentially nullified the price-lock promise. The FAQ described the Un-contract as "our commitment that only you can change what you pay and we mean it! To show just how serious we are, we have committed to pay your final month's recurring service charges if we were to raise prices and you choose to leave. Just let us know within 60 days." That big caveat wasn't mentioned in the primary announcement.
John Legere, then-CEO of T-Mobile, at an event on March 26, 2013, in New York City.
Credit:
Getty Images | John Moore
The Un-contract was introduced for other plans in 2015, and marketing of the supposedly price-locked plans went on for years. "We're the Un-carrier. Everything the carriers do, we un-do," T-Mobile's then-CEO John Legere said in March 2015. "The other guys have been throwing out all kinds of desperate, short-term promotions to suck you in and lock you down—only to jack up rates later. We're not playing that game. The Un-contract is our promise to individuals, families and businesses of all sizes, that—while your price may go down—it won't go up."
T-Mobile discontinued the Un-contract in 2022 but makes the same pledge about currently offered plans with what it calls "Price Lock." Just like the Un-contract, T-Mobile's Price Lock only gives customers the right to cancel and get a refund for one month if the price rises.
Last year, T-Mobile notified some customers that it would automatically switch them to newer, more expensive plans unless the customers called the company to opt out of the change. T-Mobile customer service reps were instructed to tell users, "We are not raising the price of any of our plans; we are moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost."
T-Mobile backtracked on that unpopular 2023 move within weeks but has stood firm on this year's price hike on price-locked plans. T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment.
T-Mobile answered complaints with form letter
The FCC complaint process can be exasperating. T-Mobile has responded to complaints with a form letter explaining the limits of the price guarantee, in which it claims there was never a promise to never raise prices.
"With Un-contract, T-Mobile committed to its customers that if we were to increase prices and customers chose to leave as a result, T-Mobile would pay the customers' final month's recurring service charge, as long as we are notified within 60 days... Customers simply need to request reimbursement within 60 days of the price increase," the letter said.
Customers aren't buying that explanation. Some of the FCC complaints quoted Legere's promise and other statements in which T-Mobile made what seemed to be a clear guarantee that prices would never be raised.
"I am under the T-Mobile One Plan which was marketed to me as a guaranteed rate lock plan," a New Jersey resident told the FCC. "I just received information that my plan would increase by $25 per month ($5 per line x 5 lines). How can this price increase happen if the plan was guaranteed and 'price locked'? This is marketing deception at the highest level and a flat out lie to consumers. Please help!"
"They are reeling in customers like me with a promise to never raise the monthly rate, but then they... raise my rate? If this is not fraud, I don't know what is," a Wyoming resident wrote.
Another person complained about T-Mobile not honoring the final-bill promise. The complainant, a Kansas resident, said they had eight lines that were all getting $5 price increases. There is "not enough wireless provider competition for me to switch" and "even if I switch, they refuse to pay the final bill," the FCC complaint said.
Customer: T-Mobile response “factually incorrect”
We heard recently from T-Mobile customer John Bradshaw, who lives in Maryland. After getting T-Mobile's response to his complaint, he wrote to the FCC that "T-Mobile has not addressed my specific issue in the complaint but rather submitted a general letter of explanation that is factually incorrect."
Bradshaw's email to the FCC on October 2, which he shared with Ars, points to terms of conditions that were active when he signed up in February 2019. He quoted a section that said, "If you are on a price-lock guaranteed Rate Plan, we will not increase your monthly recurring Service charge ('Recurring Charge') for the period that applies to your Rate Plan, or, if no specific period applies, for as long as you continuously remain a customer in good standing on a qualifying Rate Plan."
Contrary to T-Mobile's response, "there is nothing in the Ts & Cs stating that T-Mobile could increase prices, and if I chose to leave, they would pay the final month's service charge," Bradshaw told the FCC. "We remain in good standing (we use their auto-pay service) and have remained on our original plan since we first signed up with T-Mobile. Therefore, T-Mobile cannot raise our prices nor can they terminate our service and pay our final month."
Bradshaw, who has a T-Mobile One business plan, said he has called T-Mobile each month and convinced an agent to credit his account for the amount of the price increase. This has allowed him to pay the previous price of $215 instead of $232 on his four-line plan, he told Ars.
"I've had to call T-Mobile each billing cycle to have them credit my account for the difference (which after time and escalation to a supervisor they have done) and intend to stand firm that I will not pay the increase nor will I terminate service and accept their final month payment as 'settlement,'" he told us.
Customers blast T-Mobile/Sprint merger
Numerous FCC complaints said T-Mobile's behavior was enabled by its 2020 acquisition of Sprint, a merger that was approved by the FCC and other regulators. "This is what happens when the government lets companies swallow the completion (the latest being Sprint). We have antitrust laws in the country that are being ignored and ultimately the consumer loses," a New York resident told the FCC.
A California resident wrote that T-Mobile is guilty of false advertising and that the price hike shows "why Sprint never should have been allowed to merge with T-Mobile." The person asked the FCC to "re-investigate the merger and require one or more of the current mobile telecom corporate behemoths to split up."
A Texas resident wrote, "This is what happens when mergers are not blocked; T-Mobile never should have been allowed to acquire Sprint. Now, they have no lower-price competitors... T-Mobile lied out of pure greed, and false advertising cannot be allowed to go uncorrected."
Many complaints described how the users contacted T-Mobile customer service after receiving notification of the price increase. An Ohio resident who signed up for the 55+ plan in 2020 wrote, "When I spoke with a customer service rep, I was told that the price lock was a special program that began in 2022 and was time-limited. This is obviously bull puckey, but the company seems quite satisfied with its revisionist history."
A California resident who reported getting a $20 price increase ($5 over four lines) wrote, "I talked to T-Mobile and they said it's because my plan is a 'retired' plan, which makes no sense. All that means is that I am not on of their more expensive plans. The T-Mobile buyout of Sprint has created a monopoly in the market and they are taking advantage of customers by raising prices, knowing customers have fewer choices."
A Colorado resident wrote, "I called customer service and was told by a rep and the rep's supervisor that they made such a promise, but their board and CEO have decided to no longer honor the promise. I told them this is fraudulent."
An Idaho resident told the FCC, "I spoke to T-Mobile and they recognized that these price lock promises do exist and were advertised to customers but that T-Mobile is increasing rates anyway, with the justification of 'we have raised rates less than other carriers.'"
Users feel trapped by device payment plans
Some customers feel locked into T-Mobile because they agreed to device installment plans. A T-Mobile support page says that if a customer closes an account, the entire device installment plan "will be charged in full on your final bill."
"I was told that we had T-Mobile's Price Lock Guarantee and now I'm being told that my price will go up by $5 per line for a total of $35/mo. for the exact same service I'm currently getting," a Utah resident told the FCC. "This is dishonest and deceptive marketing and should not be allowed. I can't even switch carriers because I have device installment plans and T-Mobile will require me to pay off the phones before leaving."
A Utah resident wrote, "My husband is a Disabled Veteran. I am his caregiver. We live on an incredibly fixed income. We signed up for the Magenta Military plan years ago. I would love to switch to a different provider, but we just bought phones with T-Mobile in November on an EIP [Equipment Installment Plan] promo for 24 months. We feel trapped and discouraged."
T-Mobile's explanation that it's raising rates because the company's costs have risen hasn't appeased customers. "I am in my late 70s and my Social Security already doesn't come close to covering my monthly expenses, let alone the continual price increases on all fronts. Is there any recourse with T-Mobile?" a New Mexico resident wrote.
“Immoral, deceitful, and illegal”
A South Carolina resident urged the FCC to rule that the price guarantee is "an irrevocable contract from which they cannot remove themselves, nor can they breach that contract by changing my plan at all."
"I called reps at T-Mobile and they confirmed that the 'forever prices' that they promised us was, in fact, untrue," the customer's complaint said. "One representative actually said that the price lock promise was true at the time, but now they find it necessary to raise the price!"
Some customers who complained about the price hike are also mad about a previous decision to require a debit card or linked bank account to set up automatic payments and receive the company's AutoPay discount. The requirement is worrying to users in light of T-Mobile's history of data breaches.
"I signed up with T-Mobile based on their advertisement that they would never raise rates on my plan. Now they have raised rates twice—once charging me if I don't leave a debit card on file and once again simply just raising my bill by $10. I don't appreciate their false advertising," a Colorado resident told the FCC.
One North Carolina resident stated that T-Mobile will "get a little more from the millions of customers (that will add up to big profits) and deal with the few complaints and loss of customer base. In the end, what they will profit will outweigh the loss. So sad—and immoral, deceitful, and illegal."
No relief for people we interviewed in June
In a June 27 article, we detailed the experiences of three T-Mobile customers who contacted Ars and filed complaints with the FCC and other regulators. We reached out to them again before writing this article.
One of them, Rhode Island resident Kathleen Odean, told us that she had several recent conversations with a T-Mobile employee who "seems to have been appointed to contact people who filed complaints with the FCC and/or their state attorney general. During our contacts, her argument kept changing and finally settled on telling me that the press release [announcing the Un-contract deal in 2017] was essentially a broad overview and not to be taken literally."
In 2017, Odean and her husband switched from Verizon to get the T-Mobile price-lock deal that cost a total of $60 a month for two lines. Odean said they are still on the same plan but added, "I will look around at other options once I have the energy and accept that they won't keep their promise."
Another customer we spoke to for the previous article, Georgia resident Michael Moody, had switched his business and family accounts from T-Mobile to Verizon upon learning of the price hikes. Moody tried to get T-Mobile to cover his final month's bill, but the carrier told him that he didn't act fast enough. An email from T-Mobile to Moody said the carrier wouldn't pay the final bill because "notification of cancellation from your end came after the cancellation had already been processed."
Moody told us recently that T-Mobile never changed its stance and has "continue[d] to deny and deflect, including in their response to the BBB." On the plus side, Moody is satisfied with his new carrier.
"I'm very glad I switched to Verizon. Their customer service has been far more responsive, and they uphold their commitments, unlike T-Mobile," Moody told us.
Customer’s goal: “Make T-Mobile feel the pain”
We also previously talked to T-Mobile customer John Schlatter in South Carolina, who filed complaints with the FCC and FTC. He told us on September 23 that he hasn't received any further follow-up from T-Mobile and isn't going to change carriers "because of the hassle involved."
"I figure if the [class-action] suit is successful, I'll get some communication about a settlement," Schlatter said. "I'm not interested in money, although it would be nice if they're forced to roll back the price increase. My goal has always been to make T-Mobile feel the pain for their shady actions."
Although T-Mobile hasn't reversed the price hike yet, Schlatter said the many complaints to federal regulators and the class-action lawsuit should inflict "a good bit of pain."
For Cherise Irons, chocolate, red wine, and aged cheeses are dangerous. So are certain sounds, perfumes and other strong scents, cold weather, and thunderstorms. Stress and lack of sleep, too.
She suspects all of these things can trigger her migraine attacks, which manifest in a variety of ways: pounding pain in the back of her head, exquisite sensitivity to the slightest sound, even blackouts and partial paralysis.
Irons, 48, of Coral Springs, Florida, once worked as a school assistant principal. Now, she’s on disability due to her migraine. Irons has tried so many migraine medications she’s lost count—but none has helped for long. Even a few of the much-touted new drugs that have quelled episodes for many people with migraine have failed for Irons.
Though not all are as impaired as Irons, migraine is a surprisingly common problem, affecting 14 percent to 15 percent of people. Yet scientists and physicians remain largely in the dark about how triggers like Irons’ lead to attacks. They have made progress nonetheless: The latest drugs, inhibitors of a body signaling molecule called CGRP, have been a blessing for many. For others, not so much. And it’s not clear why.
The complexity of migraine probably has something to do with it. “It’s a very diverse condition,” says Debbie Hay, a pharmacologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. “There’s still huge debate as to what the causes are, what the consequences are.”
That’s true despite decades of research and the remarkable ability of scientists to trigger migraine attacks in the lab: Giving CGRP intravenously to people who get migraines gives some of them attacks. So do nitric oxide, a natural body molecule that relaxes blood vessels, and another signaling molecule called PACAP. In mice, too, CGRP and PACAP molecules can bring on migraine-like effects.
All these molecules act as “on” switches for migraine attacks, which suggests that there must be “off” switches out there, too, says Amynah Pradhan, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis. Scientists have been actively seeking those “off” switches; the CGRP-blocking drugs were a major win in this line of research.
Despite the insights gleaned, migraine remains a tricky disease to understand and treat. For example, the steps between the molecular action of CGRP and a person experiencing a headache or other symptoms are still murky. But scientists have lots of other ideas for new drugs that might stave off migraine attacks, or stop ongoing ones.
“It’s important to have an expanded toolbox,” says Pradhan.
Complicating the picture further, there’s not just one kind of migraine attack. Migraine can cause headache; nausea; sensitivity to light, sound or smell; or a panoply of other symptoms. Some people get visual auras; some don’t. Some women have migraine attacks associated with menstruation. Some people, particularly kids, have “abdominal migraine,” characterized not so much by headaches as by nausea, stomach pain, and vomiting.
Initially, the throbbing nature of the head pain led researchers to suspect that the root problem was expansion of the blood vessels within the membranes surrounding the brain, with these vessels pulsing in time with the heartbeat. But, as it turns out, the throbbing doesn’t really match up with heart rate.
Today, scientists wonder if both in-brain and beyond-brain factors, including blood vessels releasing pain-causing molecules, play a role, as may other contributors such as immune cells.
What all these proposed mechanisms ultimately point to, though, is pain created not in the brain itself but in the meninges—a multilayered “plastic bag around your brain,” as described by Messoud Ashina, a neurologist at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Human Migraine Research Unit at Rigshospitalet Glostrup in Denmark. These membranes contain cerebrospinal fluid that cushions the brain and holds it in place. They also support blood vessels and nerves that feed into the brain. The brain itself cannot feel pain, but nerves in the meninges, especially the trigeminal nerve between the face and brain, can. If they’re activated, they send the brain a major “ouch” message.
Physicians and pharmacists already possess a number of anti-migraine tools — some to prevent future attacks, others to treat an attack once it’s started. Options to stop a current migraine attack in its tracks include over-the-counter painkillers, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, or prescription opioids. Triptans, developed specifically to counter migraine attacks once they’ve begun, are drugs that tighten up blood vessels via interactions with serotonin receptors.
However, scientists later recognized that constricting blood vessels is not the main way triptans relieve migraine; their action to quiet nerve signals or inflammation may be more relevant. Ditans, a newer class of migraine drugs, also act on serotonin receptors but affect only nerves, not blood vessels, and they still work.
For migraine attack prevention, pre-CGRP-era tools still in use today include antidepressants, blood pressure medications, epilepsy drugs, and injections of botulinum toxin that numb the pain-sensing nerves in the head and neck.
Most of these medicines, except triptans and ditans, weren’t designed specifically for migraine, and they often come with unpleasant side effects. It can take months for some preventive medicines to start working, and frequent use of triptans or painkillers can lead to another problem, the poorly understood “medication overuse headache.”
A powerful new player
The CGRP drugs provided a major expansion to the migraine pharmacopoeia, as they can both prevent attacks from happening and stop ones that have already started. They also mark the first time that clues from basic migraine research led to an “off” switch that prevents migraine attacks from even starting.
CGRP is a small snippet of protein made in various places in the body. A messenger molecule that normally clicks into another molecule, called a receptor, on a cell’s surface, CGRP can turn on activity in the receiving cell. It’s found in pain-sensing nerve fibers that run alongside meningeal blood vessels and in the trigeminal ganglia near the base of the skull where many nerves are rooted. The molecule is a powerful blood vessel dilator. It also acts on immune cells, nerve cells, and the nerve-supporting cells called glia.
All of these features—a location in the meningeal nerve fibers with several actions that might be linked to migraine, like expanding blood vessels—pointed to CGRP being a migraine “on” switch. Further research also showed that CGRP is often found at higher levels in the body fluids of people who get migraines.
In a small 2010 study, 12 out of 14 people with migraine did report a headache after receiving intravenous CGRP; four of them also experienced aura symptoms such as vision changes. Only two out of 11 people who don’t normally get migraine attacks also developed a headache after CGRP infusion.
CGRP also caused mice to be extra sensitive to light, suggesting it could have something to do with the light sensitivity in humans, too.
The steps between CGRP in the bloodstream or meninges as a trigger and migraine symptoms like light sensitivity aren’t fully understood, though scientists do have theories. Ashina is pursuing how CGRP, PACAP, and other substances might trigger migraine attacks. These molecules all stick to receptors on the surface of cells, such as the ones in blood vessel walls. That binding kicks off a series of events inside the cell that includes generation of a substance called cyclic AMP and, ultimately, opening of channels that let potassium ions out of the cell. All that external potassium causes blood vessels to dilate—but it might also trigger nearby pain-sensing nerves, such as the trigeminal cluster, Ashina hypothesizes.
It’s a neat story, but far from proven. “We still don’t really know what CGRP does in the context of migraine,” says Greg Dussor, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Dallas.
In one possible model for migraine, various molecules can activate blood vessel cells to release potassium, which activates nearby neurons that send a pain signal to the brain. Various strategies that seek to interfere with this pathway, including the anti-CGRP drugs, are of great interest to migraine researchers.
“It’s a good drug,” says Dan Levy, a neurophysiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who recently described the role of the meninges in migraine for the Annual Review of Neuroscience.
Questions remain, though. One is whether, and how well, CGRP blockers work in men. Since three to four times as many women as men have migraine, the medicines were mostly tested in women. A recent review found that while CGRP blockers seem to prevent future headaches in both sexes, they haven’t been shown to stop acute migraine attacks in men as currently prescribed. (Notably, men made up less than a fifth of those included in the studies as a whole, making it more difficult to detect any low-level effects.)
More data may settle the question. Hsiangkuo Yuan, neurologist and director of clinical research at Thomas Jefferson University’s headache center in Philadelphia, says he’s been tracking the effects of CGRP blockers in his patients and hasn’t seen much difference between the sexes so far in terms of CGRP-blocking antibodies, though there may be a difference in how people respond to small molecules that block CGRP.
Access to CGRP inhibitors has also become an issue. Many insurers won’t pay for the new drugs until patients have tried and failed with a couple of other treatments first — which can take several months. This led Irons, the Florida patient, to try multiple medications that didn’t help her before she tried several CGRP blockers. In her case, one CGRP drug didn’t work at all; others worked for a time. But eventually they all failed.
Searching for new “off” switches
Her case illustrates the need for still more options to prevent or treat migraine attacks, even as the CGRP success story showed there’s hope for new medicines.
“CGRP has really paved the way,” says Andrew Russo, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City who described CGRP as a new migraine target for the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology in 2015. “It’s a very exciting time for the field.”
Physicians have a number of therapies that can treat migraine — from familiar painkillers such as acetaminophen to the newer ditans and CGRP blockers. Yet, many patients still struggle to find consistent symptom relief, motivating scientists to continue to search for new medications.
Russo and Hay, of New Zealand, are interested in building on CGRP action with a potential novel therapy. It turns out CGRP doesn’t hit just one receptor on the surface of cells, like a key that matches only one lock. In addition to the traditional CGRP receptor, it also binds and activates the AMY1 receptor—which itself can be activated by another molecule, amylin.
AMY1 receptors are found at key sites for migraine pain, such as the trigeminal nerves. In a small study, Russo and Hay found that injecting a synthetic version of amylin creates migraine-like attacks in about 40 percent of people with migraine. The researchers also discovered that in mice, activating AMY1 causes sensitivity to touch and light.
Again, that sounds like a migraine attack “on” switch, and Russo believes there’s a good chance that researchers can develop a drug that acts as an “off” switch.
Another promising “on” switch contender is PACAP. Like CGRP, it’s a small protein and signaling molecule. PACAP also appears in the trigeminal nerves that transmit migraine pain and seems to be elevated in some people experiencing a migraine attack. In rodents, PACAP causes expansion of blood vessels, inflammation in the nervous system, and hypersensitivity to touch and light. In a little over half of people with migraine, intravenous PACAP kicked off a fresh, migraine-like attack.
But, Russo says, “PACAP is more than just a CGRP wannabe.” It appears to work at least somewhat differently. In mice, antibodies that block PACAP do nothing against the light aversion activated by CGRP, and vice versa. That suggests that PACAP and CGRP could instigate two alternate pathways to a migraine attack, and some people might be prone to one or the other route. Thus, PACAP-blocking drugs might help people who don’t get relief from CGRP blockers.
Clinical research so far hints that anti-PACAP treatments indeed might help. In 2023, the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck announced results of a trial in which they dosed 237 people with an antibody to PACAP. Those who received the highest dose had, on average, six fewer migraine days in the four weeks following the treatment than they did before receiving the medication, compared to a drop by only four days in people who received a placebo.
Then there’s Ashina’s work, which unites many of the “on”-switch clues to suggest that PACAP, CGRP and other molecules all act by triggering cyclic AMP, causing blood vessel cells to spew potassium. If that’s so, then drugs that act on cyclic AMP or potassium channels might serve as “on” or “off” switches for migraine attacks.
Ashina has tested that hypothesis with cilostazol, a blood vessel dilator used in people who have poor circulation in their legs. Cilostazol boosts production of cyclic AMP and, Ashina found, it caused attacks in a majority of people with migraine.
He also tried levcromakalim, another blood vessel opener that lowers blood pressure. It’s a potassium-channel opener, and this, too, caused migraine attacks for all 16 people in the study.
To Ashina, these experiments suggest that medicines that turn off migraine-inducing pathways at or before the point of potassium release could be of benefit. There might be side effects, such as changes in blood pressure, but Ashina notes there are potassium-channel subtypes that may be limited to blood vessels in the brain. Targeting those specific channels would be safer.
“I personally really like the potassium-channel track,” says Russo. “I think if we can find drugs targeting the ion channels, the potassium channels, that will be fruitful.”
Hopeful for opioids
Russo is also upbeat about work on a new kind of opioid. Traditional opioids, whether from poppies or pharmacies, work on a receptor called mu. Along with their remarkable pain-dulling abilities, they often create side effects including constipation and itching, plus euphoria and risk for addiction.
But there’s another class of opioid receptors, called delta receptors, that don’t cause euphoria, says Pradhan, who’s investigating them. When delta-targeting opioid molecules are offered to animals, the animals won’t self-administer the drugs as they do with mu-acting opioids such as morphine, suggesting that the drugs are less pleasurable and less likely to be habit-forming.
Delta receptors appear in parts of the nervous system linked to migraine, including the trigeminal ganglia. Pradhan has found that in mice, compounds acting on the delta opioid receptor seem to relieve hypersensitivity to touch, a marker for migraine-like symptoms, as well as brain activity associated with migraine aura.
Encouraged by early evidence that these receptors can be safely targeted in people, two companies—PharmNovo in Sweden and Pennsylvania-based Trevena—are pursuing alternative opioid treatments. Migraine is one potential use for such drugs.
Thus, the evolving story of migraine is one of many types of triggers, many types of attacks, many targets, and, with time, more potential treatments.
“I don’t think there’s one molecule that fits all,” says Levy. “Hopefully, in 10, 15 years, we’ll know, for a given person, what triggers it and what can target that.”
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