Truth be told, however, chances are most of you will end up surrendering your unlimited plans the next time you pick up a new Verizon smartphone. Unless you have at least $400 handy to spend on a new phone, that is.

Verizon Said What?

On Thursday, Fierce Wireless reported that Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told the audience at an investor conference that Verizon was getting rid of its unlimited plan for 3G users. “A lot of our 3G base is unlimited,” Shammo said, according to Fierce Wireless. “As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan.”

Then Verizon Said…

It appears that Shammo may have been offering a prediction rather than a corporate policy. Unlimited data users will have to give up an unlimited data plan only if they purchase a subsidized phone when renewing a two-year contract. In other words, if later this year you go into Verizon to upgrade to the latest iPhone and buy the phone for $200, you can kiss your unlimited data plan goodbye.

But if you shelled out the non-subsidized price for the device, about $650 for a 16GB iPhone 4S from Verizon, you keep your unlimited plan.

What about 3G vs. 4G Phones?

Raney says it doesn’t matter what kind of phone you get. If you pay full price for your handset you can keep your unlimited plan, even if you get an LTE phone such as the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.

When Does Verizon’s Policy Take Effect?

Unlimited data users who are eligible for an upgrade right now should run to their closest Verizon store to get a new phone at the subsidized price. Once the carrier introduces its multi-device shared data plans, expected midsummer, the new policy of paying full price for a phone to keep your unlimited data plan will take effect.

Verizon’s tiered data plans include 2GB, 5GB, and 10GB monthly allowances for $30, $50, and $80 respectively. Pricing for the carrier’s multi-device data share plans has not been announced.

Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) on Twitter and Google+, and with Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

What it’s about: After his parents rob a bank and are imprisoned, a 15-year-old boy must forge a new life that takes him across the Canadian border.

The buzz: The first novel in six years by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sportswriter and its sequels. Canada is the No. 1 “Indie Next” pick for June recommended by independent booksellers.

2. Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown by Eric Blehm (WaterBrook Press, $21.99, non-fiction, on sale May 22)

What it’s about: Tells the true story of Brown, who overcame a crack cocaine addiction to become a Navy SEAL, only to be killed in action.

The buzz: Ever since the killing of Osama bin Laden, books about the elite forces known as SEALs (fiction and non-fiction titles including SEAL Team Six) have done well on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.

3. Dan Gets a Minivan: Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad by Dan Zevin (Scribner, $24, non-fiction, on sale May 22)

What it’s about: With Father’s Day looming, Zevin, in his latest humor book documenting the stages of growing up (or not), takes a crack at fatherhood.

The buzz: Sports a blurb from Dave Barry: “This is the funniest book about parenting I’ve read in a long, long time. Dan Zevin is a major talent. I want to kill him.”

4. The Rock Star in Seat 3A by Jill Kargman (William Morrow, $19.99, fiction, on sale May 22)

What it’s about: Thirty-year-old Hazel has a great job and a great boyfriend, and then she sits next to her celebrity crush — rock star Finn Schiller — on a business trip. A rock ‘n’ roll fantasy come true?

The buzz: What better way to kick off the beach-reading season than with sassy chick lit from Kargman, author of The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund?

5. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson (Bloomsbury, $26, fiction, on sale May 22)

What it’s about: A debut novel that interweaves the story of two women, one in present-day London, the other a missionary in 1923 on China’s Silk Road.

The buzz: “Beautifully written … highly recommended,” says Library Journal. And it’s an Indie Next pick recommended by independent booksellers.

“What else can I do to help my son or daughter get a job?” a lot of parents ask me.

• COLUMN: Best job chances may be under the radar

• MORE: Andrea Kay’s column index

While the number of people getting a career position right out of college has dropped in recent years, the outlook is better this year. Employment for college grads is up from last year. And surveys say employers plan to hire more graduates this year.

It depends on your field.

Even last year and before that, companies had entry-level jobs. Like then, and now, getting them is competitive. But new grads are getting hired.

And if you’re a parent, the best thing you can do to help your new grad be one of those hires is to help them deal with the two issues they control.

Issue No. 1: Their minds.

Among many issues on the minds of new grads is how future employers will perceive short-term jobs unrelated to their degrees. Some grads tell me it will “ruin my chances of getting into the line of work I want” or that it just “looks really bad.”

That’s just silly.

Help them understand this: No career path is perfect. Many, many people from generations before them have taken short-term jobs and positions unrelated to their ultimate career. They did it for various reasons. They needed — like them — to pay bills.

Taking an unrelated job doesn’t make you hopelessly flawed. It’s a circumstance.

Help them see that they not only get to decide how they will view this circumstance but also how they’ll talk about it to potential employers.

Let’s say your daughter goes to work for a home-improvement center after graduation.

The job may not have been her ideal, but she learned about operations and customer relations. So instead of feeling bad about the experience, she can talk about how it helped her understand the way a business functions — or how customers think.

She received an opportunity to improve her skills in dealing with people. The retail job helped prepare her to be a better contributor in her career position.

Help any graduates understand that seeing a job this way will put them in a better frame of mind for interviewing — less desperate and panicked. It will make them more confident.

And that makes them more effective when talking to employers. All that enhances their chances of getting hired for a career position.

Issue No. 2: Their activities.

New graduates are like most job hunters who spend most of their time sending out resumes. They sit in front of their computer and look for online applications to fill out.

Help them understand that most jobs aren’t listed on the Internet. In fact, many openings don’t get advertised at all.

Many jobs are still brewing in the minds of employers.

The employers may know that particular projects will be ramping up. Or they’re expanding into a new market and thinking about hiring in a few months.

Help your graduates see that if they are initiating meetings, networking and talking to business owners, your acquaintances and others, they will be the first to know about such openings.

Help them see that sending out resumes all day may keep them busy but it is not a strategic way to find a career position.

Help them understand that most people get hired because they connected with a live human, more than once. They followed up. They persevered.

And they stood out from their competition because they did these things.

And if your graduates are like most sons and daughters that parents tell me about — ones who don’t listen to them — you always can leave a copy of this column on their nightstands.

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 steps to get out of your funk and on to your future.” Click here for an index of At Work columns. Send questions to her at 2692 Madison Road, #133, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208; www.andreakay.com or www.lifesabitchchangecareers.com. E-mail her at andrea@andreakay.com.

NPR News and Shows

Over the last couple of years, Samsung has enjoyed significant success with its Android line of tablets and smartphones and a huge part of the company’s business is centered around the OS. It’s no surprise then that the company has decided to launch a customer service application for its Android devices. 

Available for all Android devices running Android 2.1 or higher, Samsung is rather fittingly calling the app ‘Samsung Cares.’ The application offers FAQ’s, as well as how to guides, videos, and troubleshooting guides for Samsung-branded products. There’s also the ability to contact Samsung through Facebook, Twitter or Live Chat if the FAQ’s and how to guides aren’t helping you solve your problem.

Right now the app has an average rating of 3.1 on Google Play store and seems to be either a love it or hate it app. There’s 21 five star reviews, 17 one star reviews, and just six reviews in the two, three, and four star categories. Download it for free here and see for yourself.

_{Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter.}           

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Eatocracy Editors
(CNN) — The New England Journal of Medicine has just released a study indicating that increased coffee consumption is linked to longer lifespans. The Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics funded the research, which tracked 400,000 healthy men and women between the ages of 50 and 71 for up to 13 years.

Researchers found that people who consumed two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to die from certain diseases than people who drink little or no coffee. But before you grab your mug and fight off the hordes stampeding to the break room, here are a few things you should consider.

Q: What about coffee did the researchers find beneficial?

A: Researchers didn’t actually figure out what the specific benefits of coffee were – though it does contain unique compounds and antioxidants that may defend against various diseases.

The big news was that coffee drinkers didn’t die as early from heart or respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, injuries, accidents or infections. Once researchers adjusted for bad habits – coffee drinkers tend to smoke and drink more – they found that coffee drinkers lowered their risk of death from these factors by 10 to 16 percent.

Q: If you drink six cups a day, are you getting greater health benefits than someone who drinks just two?

A: Women who drank two or three cups of coffee a day were 13 percent less likely to die at any age than those who drank no coffee at all. Bump that up to four or five cups, and the percentage jumped to 16. Male coffee drinkers seemed to decrease their risk by 10 percent. The research indicates that every cup – and they studied people drinking up to six a day – upped the chances of living longer.

Q: So, if I hook up an IV bag of coffee to my veins under the light of a full moon, will I cheat death and transform into a coffee vampire, impervious to death and decay?

A: Yes. That is exactly what will happen.

Okay, no. The study didn’t definitively prove that coffee will extend longevity – just that there seemed to be a link. It was observational rather than clinical, but it definitely gives researchers reason to delve further into the causality.

It’s also worth noting that coffee should be filtered rather than boiled because the process strips out compounds that raise the “bad” LDL cholesterol that increases risk of heart attacks from sudden blood clots in narrowed arteries. So make sure there is at least one outlet for your coffeemaker in your crypt or coffin.

Q: Are researchers indicating that this study suggest that benefits outweigh the negative effects of coffee?

A: There is risk in overconsumption of anything, and the high blood pressure associated with caffeine is still a risk. Luckily for caffeine-averse immortality seekers, decaf coffee was just as effective.

People also increase their dairy and sugar intake when they’re drinking coffee, and that packs its own risks including obesity and stupidity.

Q: Uhhh…stupidity? What the what?

A: In a recent UCLA study, researches studied two groups of rats, trained on a maze twice daily for five days. Then one group consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for the next six weeks, and the other ingested the same – with the addition of omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). DHA is crucial for essential for synaptic function, or making brain cells communicate with each other, learn and remember.

After the feeding cycle, the rats that had consumed the omega-3-amped diet navigated the maze much faster than those that hadn’t. The non-DHA group also developed signs of resistance to insulin, which regulates blood sugar. This may disrupt learning and cause memory loss, and the researchers believe that fructose is the culprit.

A: But I’m not pouring sugar into my 57 cups of coffee per day, so I should be good on that front, right?

Q: Sugar is a sneaky critter. Even if you’re not chowing down on little chocolate donuts or mainlining jelly, you may be taking in more than you bargained for – especially if you eat a lot of pre-packaged food. Many low-fat and fat-free dressings, canned soups, jarred sauces, those supposedly healthy smoothies and even breads are loaded with fructose. It’s up to you, the consumer, to stand in the aisle and squint at the labels.

A: The omega-3 stuff sounds like a sweet deal, then. How might I ingest some?

Q: : Flax seeds and oil, beans, mustard greens, wheat germ, olive and canola oils and winter squash are all smashing sources of omega-3, but the very best dish is fish. Mackerel, lake trout, herring, bluefin tuna and salmon contain the greatest amount, while haddock, red snapper, swordfish and sole are better than nothing, but don’t boast much of a benefit.

So consider having a butternut squash and walnut muffin with your deep, dark, sugarless cup(s) of coffee. And some garlic to ward off the vampires.

Good news, Verizon customers: You can keep your $30 per month unlimited data plan after all, but it’ll cost you in another way. Longtime Verizon fans got a shock Thursday when a Verizon executive reportedly said customers must give up their unlimited data plans for a tiered data option when switching to 4G LTE phones. But that’s not entirely accurate, Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney confirms to PCWorld.

Truth be told, however, chances are most of you will end up surrendering your unlimited plans the next time you pick up a new Verizon smartphone. Unless you have at least $400 handy to spend on a new phone, that is.

Verizon Said What?

On Thursday, Fierce Wireless reported that Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told the audience at an investor conference that Verizon was getting rid of its unlimited plan for 3G users. “A lot of our 3G base is unlimited,” Shammo said, according to Fierce Wireless. “As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan.”

Then Verizon Said…

It appears that Shammo may have been offering a prediction rather than a corporate policy. Unlimited data users will have to give up an unlimited data plan only if they purchase a subsidized phone when renewing a two-year contract. In other words, if later this year you go into Verizon to upgrade to the latest iPhone and buy the phone for $200, you can kiss your unlimited data plan goodbye.

But if you shelled out the non-subsidized price for the device, about $650 for a 16GB iPhone 4S from Verizon, you keep your unlimited plan.

What about 3G vs. 4G Phones?

Raney says it doesn’t matter what kind of phone you get. If you pay full price for your handset you can keep your unlimited plan, even if you get an LTE phone such as the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.

When Does Verizon’s Policy Take Effect?

Unlimited data users who are eligible for an upgrade right now should run to their closest Verizon store to get a new phone at the subsidized price. Once the carrier introduces its multi-device shared data plans, expected midsummer, the new policy of paying full price for a phone to keep your unlimited data plan will take effect.

Verizon’s tiered data plans include 2GB, 5GB, and 10GB monthly allowances for $30, $50, and $80 respectively. Pricing for the carrier’s multi-device data share plans has not been announced.

Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) on Twitter and Google+, and with Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

Higher stocks prices would be a relief for investors. The Dow has fallen 11 of the past 12 trading days, including a loss of 156 points Thursday. It’s now down 6% this month.

• MORE: Today’s most active stocks

Europe could still hurt investor enthusiasm. Representatives of the G-8 group of nations are headed to Camp David this weekend, looking for assurances that leaders in Europe can contain damage from a potential collapse in Greece.

After the recent election in Greece brought in political parties opposed to bailouts and austerity for the beleaguered country, the Fitch ratings agency dropped the nation to the lowest possible grade for a country not in default Thursday.

Stock trend

Dow Jones industrial average, five trading days

Fitch said if elections next month do not reverse political trends in Greece, the country’s departure from the euro “would be probable.”

Also, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded 16 Spanish banks late Thursday, three days after downgrading Italy’s, noting they are vulnerable to huge losses on government debt.

In the U.S., shares of Salesforce.com jumped 11% after the maker of web-based business software reported better-than-expected earnings and raised its guidance for the year.

Gap fell 1.6% despite higher guidance for the year.

What does travel insurance do?

If something goes wrong on your vacation, you can recover some or all of your costs, depending on the kind of insurance you buy. Most policies cover trip interruptions and cancellations and even acts of terrorism. They can also pay for emergency medical and dental care and, if necessary, a medical evacuation.

What kinds of policies are out there?

A standard travel insurance policy lets you cancel your trip for a covered reason and has significant limitations; the most frequent “gotcha” is an exclusion for any preexisting medical conditions. A “cancel for any reason” policy pays for a percentage of your trip if you decide to stay home.

How much does insurance cost?

A standard policy typically costs 4 to 8 percent of your trip’s prepaid non-refundable price. A “cancel for any reason” policy, however, can run you 10 percent or slightly more. Your policy may be more expensive if you’re older or are engaging in a risky activity that makes a claim more likely.

Do I need insurance?

Maybe. Experts recommend it if your vacation costs $10,000 or more. Also consider a policy if you’re cruising or taking a package tour. (Both have unforgiving cancellation policies, which could result in your losing the entire value of your trip.) If you have a complex or lengthy itinerary, insurance can protect your investment. And you should always think about a policy when you’re leaving the country, when your medical insurance might not cover you.

Where can I buy insurance?

You can buy directly through the insurance companies. The largest are Allianz Global Assistance (formerly Access America), CSA Travel Protection and Travel Guard. You can also buy through a travel agent or a third-party Web site such as Squaremouth, Travel Insurance Review, TripInsuranceStore.comand InsureMyTrip.com. Those sites also make it easy to compare policies.

How do I shop for a policy?

Consult at least two of the three travel insurance sellers. By checking with multiple sources, you won’t just find better terms or prices, you might also avoid buying a potentially useless policy. If you have a question about a policy, check the US Travel Insurance Association Web site or your state insurance commissioner to make sure that it’s legit.

What do I do after buying?

Read the policy immediately. If there’s missing or incorrect information, call your insurance company right away. Many companies offer a 10-day “free look” period. If after reviewing the policy, you decide that it doesn’t meet your needs, you can cancel it and get a full refund as long as you haven’t left on your trip.

What if I have to file a claim?

Your travel insurance company will tell you how. Claims typically take two to four weeks to process, but some complicated ones can take longer. Expect a final decision within roughly a month and no more than two.

What if my claim is rejected?

A rejection isn’t the company’s final word. It means that it can’t honor your claim based on the information provided. Send the company a brief, polite written appeal with any new information you believe is relevant to your case. Most insurance companies have several adjusters at a more senior level review appeals.

If my appeal is rejected, am I out of luck?

No. You can ask the travel agent who sold you the policy for help, contact your state insurance commissioner or, as a last resort, take your case to small claims court. If you strike out there, your claim is probably a lost cause.