In a brazen bid to attract more customers, United Continental (remember when the two airlines merged?) announced today a slew of customer upgrades ($550M worth of them to be exact), which comes as a bit of good news for the thousands of travelers who are destined to get stranded at the airline's biggest carrier, Newark Liberty Airport. more ›

Time to start setting aside some of those counterfeit bills we ordinarily unload at the peep shows and save them for the subway! The MTA is reportedly "in a mad dash" to update more than 1,600 MetroCard machines throughout the city because they soon won't be high-tech enough to spot the newest generations of rubber money. A new MTA report warns that without an upgrade, the machines "have the potential of accepting up to $60 million in counterfeit bills annually." And then once the machines become self-aware, who knows what they'll accept as payment? The MTA board will vote soon on a plan to fix obsolete machines electronically, which is expected to cost $3.3 million dollars. The Post reports that physically replacing the slots would cost more than three times as much. And a spokesman for NYC Transit tells us the upgrade isn't just about anti-counterfeiting measures, but also intended to accomodate new bill designs issued by the federal government. more ›