Category: News

Facebook ecommerce platform company Payvment announced that it is shutting down as its team joins a new, unspecified company. The platform will be shut down on February 28.

The company in question is Inuit, according to TechCrunch, though it’s unclear why this piece of information was left out of the announcement, and why Intuit itself did not make an announcement.

On Payvment’s home page, the company says:

As part of this transition, you will have one month to transfer your store to Ecwid, which will allow you to continue selling on Facebook. Ecwid is a global leader in Social Commerce with over 200,000 sellers in 174 countries and a robust Facebook application very similar to Payvment. For details, visit ecwid.com/payvment.

Payvment and Lish stores and the Payvment Dashboard will be active through February 28, and on March 1, the service will shut down. People will be able to transfer their stores to Ecwid from one click from the dashboard. More FAQs here.

At TEDMED 2010, opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick told the story of a revolutionary, life-changing surgery — a double lung transplant. While a doctor had warned her that she would never sing again, Charity Tillemann-Dick: Singing after a double lung transplantshe revealed what it felt like to get her voice back. “We need to stop letting disease divorce us from our dreams,” she said.

Now, three years after her first transplant (she has since had another), Tillemann-Dick has given a second talk, “Discourses from the undead,” filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic in December. In the talk above, she takes a stark look at death. sharing the vivid dreams that she had while she was in an unconscious state after her surgery — a time when her doctor said that survival was unlikely. Having “spent many a night in death’s guesthouse,” Tillemann-Dick  shares meaningful lessons that she believes to be from the next world, and gives thanks.

“While [death’s] sting is real, good can come from it,” she says. “Death is as much a part of life as love, birth and happiness.”

Far too few people are organ donors, and Tillemann-Dick attributes this not to disregard but to our lack of conversation about death. She says it’s time to talk about death. Will you join her?

It looks like Apple may have decided to back away from Twitter’s new Vine video-sharing app, just a little bit.

It appears that Apple has stopped promoting the app as an “Editor’s Choice” selection. Vine isn’t even highlighted in the App Store’s social networking section. It’s not a “new and noteworthy” app either. That’s odd, considering that Vine is the number one free social networking app and the number four overall free app in the entire App Store.

As you may have heard, Vine finds itself in the middle of a porn controversy. Just days after launch, we told you that Vine has become a pretty hot destination for six-second porn clips.

Although we don’t think that the porn is that huge of a problem for the Vine app in and of itself (it’s not really that visible and is often hidden behind a click-through warning screen), we noted that it could be a problem for Vine’s chances of survival within the App Store.

Apple has always held a pretty strict no nudity policy for its approved apps, even banning photo-sharing apps like 500px because Apple thought the app made it too easy to find pornographic images.

It’s important to note that Apple has yet to ban Vine, even though it clearly contains its fair share of porn. Apple has also let the Twitter app hang around for years, even though Twitter also allows nudity in its posts. Apple and Twitter are partners, as Twitter is fully integrated into iOS. Maybe Apple won’t be as drastic as to ban Vine altogether, but it sure looks like the’ve reduced its visibility in the App Store.

[Business Insider via The Verge]

Innovation could utterly transform the way meat is created and consumed in the world, making it more efficient and removing some of the problems like greenhouse emissions. While I didn’t get a chance to attend The Intersection conference at the Googleplex recently, a sentence from notes on a discussion between VC Steve Jurvetson and Microsoft co-founder Nathan Myhrvold at the event stood out for me on the subject of meat and innovation: “Killing a cow is the least effective way to make a steak.”

Over the years the meat industry has delivered efficiency in animal raising, slaughtering and meat production through factory farming, which reduces the time it takes for animals to mature with corn-based diets, antibiotics, hormones and other industrial feeding and slaughtering techniques. But maximizing the efficiency of industrial meat production has led to a lot of unintended negative consequences and a growing movement of people who will pay more for organic, local meat or will forgo meat altogether.

But what if you could reduce, or eliminate, the whole traditional meat production industry completely? That’s the idea behind new types of plant-based proteins, so-called in-vitro meat production and more integral approaches to reducing meat consumption. Because the world’s population is rapidly growing to 9 billion by 2050, and developing countries have emerging middle classes that want a higher standard of living, alternative protein and meat production could find a market in the developing world first.

Here’s three new technologies being developed that can reduce eating animals:

• Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs invested in a food startup called Modern Meadow, which aims to combine in-vitro meat with 3D printing. The idea is to print out a meat product from biological materials.
• Beyond Meat is a startup backed by Obvious Corp — the group that created Twitter — which is creating next-gen plant-based meat substitutes. The product is on sale in a few select locations at Whole Foods in Northern California.
• Foodpairing is a food industry research company and app developer that has broken down flavor to its molecular components and compiled databases that can identify vegetable or seafood ingredients that reinforce the flavor of different meats, or can act as a substitute for a meat entirely.

Self-replication has always been a pipe dream of futurists and technologists. Why should we have to waste time and resources making new parts for a broken down machine when the machine can just make the replacement parts itself? It’s not exactly feasible in most industries as of yet, but it is entirely possible in the 3D printing industry.

Objet recently showed off how its researchers experiment with minor design changes to its 3D printers. The team will create multiple “ABS-like parts that are drilled, assembled and then used as short run end-parts in an Objet Desktop 3D printer to test a new design tweak.”

For printers from a professional design 3D printer company like Objet, 3D printed parts can only do so much. The smaller companies like MakerBot, however, have already created 3D printers that can make be made almost entirely by another 3D printer. There are other “indie” 3D printers that have found success on Kickstarter based on the promise of an open source design that can be created by other 3D printers.

All that being said, it probably won’t be long before industrial 3D printers can replace their own parts. We might even be able to upgrade older printers with newer 3D printed parts in the near future. The constantly evolving nature of 3D printing technology makes everyday an adventure in innovation.

Perhaps personalized dialing codes are the new ringtones. As with ringtones in the past decade, carriers are getting excited over a vanity phone number service called StarStar Me, created by mobile marketing startup Zoove, and its potential to provide an alternative revenue stream beyond voice and data plans.

For $3 a month, T-Mobile customers can sign up for their own personal alphanumeric code. When that code is dialed, preceded by two taps of the “*” button, from any U.S. mobile number it will ring that customer’s phone. Customers who download the StarStar Me app from the iTunes or Google Play stores will also be able to use StarStar Me’s call management features, which can be used to send callers an automated voice message or SMS and even a link.

It’s a neat idea, and one that could put some service revenue in carriers’ pockets. But there are some inherent limits to how big such a service could scale, especially when compared to other blockbuster carrier services of the past like ringtones. While anyone can set a Prince song as their ringtone, only one U.S. mobiles subscriber can have the StarStar Me code “**PRINCEFAN.”

Still if that one Prince fan pays $3 a month into perpetuity for that short code, I’m sure his carrier won’t complain. And StarStar Me isn’t lacking for customer interest. Zoove said it has received hundreds of millions search queries for personalized dialing codes in the last 90 days, and while it isn’t revealing how many people have signed up for their own StarStar monikers, Zoove said that 100,000 calls have been placed to existing codes to date.

So far Sprint, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile all now offer the StarStar Me service. So if AT&T does sign on with Zoove in the future, its customers might find the pickings for available codes slim.

Ellen Degeneres celebrated her 55th birthday last week, and Katy Perry was on-hand to liven up the Ellen show. Instead of singing for the president however, Perry covered her famous bosom with a vest as she dressed in drag.

Perry donned a Richard Dawson-esque suit and bowtie as she impersonated a game show host, complete with creepy 70s moustache. She and Degeneres invited audience members to play “Grab Ellen’s Bust,” a simple quiz show that tested contestants’ knowledge of Ellen trivia.

Though a cross-dressing Katy Perry might sound entertaining, the highlight of the event is actually one of the audience members invited to be a contestant. Watch as she loses her mind when Degeneres touches her in an attempt to prevent her from falling over:

Thumbs Up: Comfortable ride, quiet cabin

Thumbs Down: Turbo engine and manual transmission, but little entertainment value

Buy This Car If: You prefer to row your own gears, yet want comfort over performance

Buick’s Verano sedan was built to deliver the fuel-sipping advantages of a compact, while serving up more content than buyers in the class are used to. While the Verano was new for the 2012 model year, a turbocharged variant, dubbed the Verano Premium, has been introduced for 2013. Now that GM brand Pontiac is history, the company is hoping that Buick can pick up some of the enthusiast buyers left in the cold by Pontiac’s shuttering.

The Verano Premium, then, becomes the most affordable performance option in the Buick catalog. Its forced-induction 2.0-liter four-cylinder cranks out 250 horsepower and 260 pound feet of torque, and even gives buyers the choice of a six-speed manual gearbox. What’s noticeably absent, however, is a sport suspension or supportive sport seats, which makes us wonder exactly what demographic Buick was going for. We’re certain the Verano Premium with the six-speed automatic transmission will be a best-seller, but we can’t imagine Buick delivering many manual transmission examples.

The Verano is a good-looking car, and it reminds us of a three-quarter scale Buick Regal. The Verano’s grille is even more prominent, however, extending all the way to the edge of the hood. Headlights are large (or perhaps this is just a proportional thing), which represents an odd styling departure from today’s mainstream smaller-is-better automotive lighting trend.

In profile, the Verano’s daylight opening is similar in shape to the Regal’s without being a direct copy. Both are trimmed in chrome and both sport a blacked-out B-pillar for a cleaner look, but the Verano sports a sharper angle on its C-pillar trim. The compact Buick sports a styling line that sweeps up from the rocker to match the lower angle of the rear door, while the Regal uses a similar styling trait on its front door; the difference is subtle enough, however, that neighbors will likely ask you how you like your new Buick Regal.

The biggest difference between the Verano and its bigger brother comes at the rear, where the smaller sedan gets chrome tail light trim (as opposed to a chrome trim strip on the Regal), a flat trunk lid and larger tail lights. The rear fascia shape is decidedly different, too, with the Verano going angular to the Regal’s round.

Inside, the Verano’s dash does a good job of reminding occupants that this is no ordinary compact. It’s not full-on luxury, to be sure, but it is an eye-pleasing blend of colors, textures and shapes. The crash pad, for example, is finished in a color to match the Verano Premium’s interior, while the dash upper and lower are finished in black plastic and vinyl. There’s the obligatory faux wood, too, but thankfully this is kept to a minimum and offset by the metallic trim used to highlight the center stack. Our only criticism here is the same criticism we have for most high-end GM vehicles: the center stack is an overly complex blend of multi-function buttons that’s far from user-friendly. Sure, any buyer will get used to this in time, but it’s not nearly as intuitive as the controller-type input systems used by Infiniti, Audi, BMW and others.

Though we’re less than fond of the peppermint-candy-blue used by Buick to light its instruments and controls, we otherwise liked the Verano’s dials. Both tachometer and speedometer use markings that you’d expect to see on a precision gauge or fine watch, and like the dash itself they do a good job of conveying an upscale message. We like the chrome trim on the instrumentation, too, along with the large and comprehensive driver information display.

Front seats, however, fall short of expectations. Buick calls them “sport seats,” but they don’t come close to meeting our standards for lateral support. You sit “in” sport seats, but you sit “on” the front chairs in the Verano, which aren’t even that comfortable for long-distance driving. Seat cushion and seat back are far too soft to be comfortable, and even the driver’s seat lacks lumbar support. Buick claims the seats use “leather appointed trim,” but the upholstery feels suspiciously like vinyl to us. While we can come up with plenty of reasons to buy the Verano Premium, its front seats are not among them.

Rear seats are equally soft and plagued by a short seat cushion, but they’re comfortable enough for the daily carpool commute. There’s about as much legroom as you can expect from a compact sedan, and headroom is ample for those six-feet tall and under. Like the front seats, the rears are “leather appointed,” but feel the same as the front seats to us. Especially at this price point, we’d much rather have a premium cloth seat option.

Power comes from a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, rated at 250 horsepower and 260 pound feet of torque. Buick offers the Verano Premium with the buyer’s choice of a six-speed automatic or six-speed manual transmission, though we can’t imagine the row-it-yourself option will see many takers. It’s surprisingly quick, reeling off a 0-60 mph time of just 6.6 seconds, but its suspension isn’t up to carrying much speed into corners. Fuel economy isn’t bad as long as you accelerate with care and upshift often; the EPA says to expect 24 mpg combined (20 mpg city, 31 mpg highway) from the manual Verano Premium and 24 mpg combined (21 mpg city, 30 mpg highway). We saw an indicated 23.5 mpg in mostly-city driving.

Ride quality is best summed up as “plush,” and in this regard the Verano has more in common with Buick’s LaCrosse than it does with the sportier Regal. Accelerate hard, and there’s noticeable lift from the front end; brake hard, and there’s plenty of dive. The Verano’s steering is nicely weighted, but there’s little feel and too much play off-center. Turn-in is leisurely, and there’s plenty of body roll in corners when the Verano is pushed harder than it wants to go, but that’s the trade-off for a cushy ride. Brakes have decent pedal feel, and we’re sure they’re capable of delivering acceptable stopping distances.
If you test drive it thinking “compact luxury sedan,” you won’t be disappointed; if you’re expecting anything resembling a sport sedan, chances are the Verano Turbo won’t live up to your expectations.

The Buick Verano Premium doesn’t have many in-class competitors, and that alone will help Buick generate sales. If you really want a Regal Turbo or Regal GS and simply can’t swing the payments, the Verano Premium gives you a reasonable alternative. A few suspension upgrades will likely dial in the handling, though we’re not sure much can be done to improve the steering. Still, the car is quick enough, and with a drop in ride height, stiffer springs and firmer dampers, we suspect it would be more than moderately entertaining to drive.

Buick supplied the Verano Premium for our review. Base price on the Premium trim level was $29,990, including a destination charge of $885, and options on our car included the $900 Power Sunroof and the $795 Audio System With Navigation for a total sticker price of $31,685.

For comparison, an Acura ILX 2.4 Premium (which has the larger engine and manual gearbox, but isn’t available with navigation) would sticker for $30,095, while an Acura ILX 2.0 Tech Package (which has the less powerful engine mated to a five-speed automatic transmission, but includes navigation) would list for $32,295. Audi’s upcoming A3 Sedan, as well as the soon-to-be-released Mercedes-Benz CLA, will also compete against the Buick Verano, but neither model has been priced yet.

Back in December, we told you that Google had made a change to its SafeSearch feature in the U.S. that made it impossible for users to entirely disable SafeSearch when searching for Images on the site.

Now, that modified SafeSearch is making its way to other countries.

Long story short, Google has prevented users from disabling SafeSearch altogether in Image search. It’s important to note that this is different from Google censoring NSFW content. That’s all still there, in fact, it’s just that users must now be very specific in their queries in order to access it.

For example, a Google Image search for “boobs” will now yield SFW results, by default. In order to find NSFW results for that query, you must now add a modifier – let’s say “boobs porn” or “boobs nude” for instance.

Users used to be able to turn SafeSearch off, completely. There a little box at the top right of SafeSearch that used to allow users to pick their level of SafeSearch: “STRICT,” “MODERATE,” and “OFF” completely. But now, Google only allows users to filter all explicit results.

What’s more, Google users are no longer given the option to turn off all types of SafeSearch filtering within the Search Settings.

If all of this sounds a little confusing – that’s because it is. Google has fragmented their Image search in an attempt to keep NSFW materials from popping up without and explicit search.

But here’s the gist of it, in plain English: A search for ‘boobs” in the U.S. now yields SFW results, as Google Image Search is now defaulted to “MODERATE” level. Users are not allowed to fully turn off SafeSearch. In order to see those NSFW results, users have to be more specific with their searches.

And now, that SafeSearch functionality has spread to other English-speaking countries.

Here are your SafeSearch options for Google.co.uk, Google Australia, Google South Africa, and Google New Zealand:

And here are the options in Germany:

Note the difference? We’ve tested this for other non-English-speaking countries like France and the Netherlands and have seen the same results. I’ve reached out to Google for confirmation and will update this article accordingly.

“We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings work the same way as in web search,” Google told me back in December when we first reported on the changes to SafeSearch.

Still, Google has fragmented Image search and ultimately made it worse. Here’s what I said in regards to that last month:

Ok, so the point here is that users need to be specific with their searches. Got it. Apologies for the frankness, but if I want to find blowjob images, I now have to search “blowjob porn.” There is now no way that I can edit my own personal settings to make a search for just “blowjob” yield all results, both NSFW and otherwise.

In essence, Google is fragmenting their image search. A “no filter” search is a true search of the most popular images across the web. U.S. users no longer have this option. We’re now only given the choice between filtered results for “blowjob” or the most popular results for “blowjob porn.” That smattering of all results, both NSFW and SFW for the query “blowjob,” cannot be achieved anymore.

Plus, is there really a question about what I’m looking for when I search “blowjob?” Do I really need to provide any more detail?

It seems like a big gripe about a small change, and it is in a way. But one could make the argument that this actually is a form of censorship. If I go to Google images and search “blowjob,” I want to see the best of what the web has to offer – all of it. Not what Google thinks I should see based on their desire to prevent adult results unless users are super specific.

Go ahead and try a search for “blowjob” on Google Images right now. Those aren’t really very relevant results, are they? Users should see the most relevant results for their searches, no matter what. And they should have the option to simply turn off the SafeSearch filter, which they all had just a couple of days ago.

Google’s SafeSearch support page gives us steps for disabling SafeSearch, but it really only tells us how to turn off SafeSearch Filtering. That still leaves us with a “MODERATE” level SafeSearch and no true way to see all web results, both NSFW and SFW at once.

Is your country’s SafeSearch been changed recently? Let us know.

Some are speculating that Apple might release a 128GB iPad model this year.

As previously reported, a complete redesign is expected to grace the iPad 5, which is expected to be launched in October. A report from iLounge claims to have seen a “supposedly accurate” model of the iPad 5, saying it will be smaller than past (non-mini) models.

Separately, developers have discovered a reference in to 128GB iOS devices in the code in a beta of iOS 6.1. 9to5Mac reports:

Following the latest beta release of the upcoming iOS 6.1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system, developers have begun tearing away at the software to see what secrets it may hold about the future of Apple’s devices. @iNeal made the discovery that iOS 6.1 beta 5 holds a reference to compatibility with 128GB iOS devices. Jeff Benjamin dug up the code that @iNeal is referring to, and he has provided screenshots of the evidence. He notes that iOS 6.0 does not include the “128″ system partition code.

Update: We understand that this 128GB code is also found in iOS 6.1 beta 3, which was released in early December.

Still, this may not mean that we’ll be seeing the 128GB model this year. ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is particularly skeptical.

Apple released iOS 6.1 today for iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches, bringing LTE capabilities to more carriers.

Who outside Hollywood doesn’t like BitTorrent? There’s another reason for you to, with the new PC-to-PC file synchronization app. It is free, but for now “pre-alpha”, meaning users should beware of the potential dangers — bugs, crashes. You know the routine. It is also only available in private beta, so if you are interested then you will need to request an invitation.

Once you gain access then you will find the app is available for Windows, OS X and even Linux. The download file is small — just under 500 KB for the Windows version.

When you get it installed you will discover a fairly straight-forward app with several tabs across the top that can be used to set up and control the app. While there is Devices, Shared Folders, Transfers, History and Preferences, users will really only need to concern themselves with two of these options.

First you need to setup your sync, which is done from within Shared Folders. Simply click the Add button to begin. The first thing you will notice: a “key” is generated, or, as BitTorrent refers to it — “Shared Secret”. Write this down because you will need it for your other computer(s). Once you accomplish this then you can browse to the folder(s) you wish to keep synchronized. Depending on your file size the indexing could take some time. Coffee break!

The other tab that will concern most users: Preferences. Here you can make some personalization options, like starting the app when Windows boots and checking for updates.

When you move to other computers you will only need to enter the key that was generated on the first device. BitTorrent also takes security into consideration. The invitation includes some details — “Sync synchronizes your files through peer-to-peer (p2p) protocol. The devices in sync are connected directly using UDP, NAT traversal, UPnP port mapping, and relay server. If your devices are in a local network, Sync will use LAN for faster synchronisation. For better security all the traffic between devices is encrypted with AES 256 using private key created on the base of your Secret — a random key that is different for every folder”.

Bear in mind that this software is not yet ready for general release. However, I didn’t find any real problems with it, aside from rather slow indexing of my shared folder, but that is likely due to the file size. There is no word yet on when BitTorrent Sync will launch for general use.

Photo Credit: Modella/Shutterstock

Pwnium is the annual hacker competition where Google invites coders from around the world to find security holes in Google Chrome. That changes this year as Google wants hackers to break both of its Chromium projects.

Google announced today that Chrome will be one of the browsers hackers can take on at the annual Pwn2Own Competition. This year’s competition is hosted by HP’s Zero Day Initiative alongside Google, the latter of which will be underwriting a portion of the winnings for all targets – including non-Chromium browsers. The event will last between March 6-8 in Vancouver, BC. You can register here.

At the CanSecWest conference on March 7, Google will be hosting its own competition – the third annual Pwnium. Instead of hacking Chrome, however, Google will task hackers with breaking Chrome OS. The company will be offering rewards in the following categories with up to $3.14 million in prize money up for grabs: