Tag: newsletters

Ferrari hit with lawsuit for taking over Facebook fan page

Ferrari You don’t need a degree in marketing to know that using social media right is an important part of building up any kind of brand these days. And the growing value of fan websites and Facebook fan pages seems to be leading to an increase in legal disputes over who controls them. The latest example involves Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari. Last week, a Swiss father and son sued Facebook and Ferrari after control of their popular Ferrari fan page was taken away from them. In their lawsuit (PDF) , Olivier and Sammy Wasem claim they controlled “by far the most popular Facebook pages for Ferrari enthusiasts,” which they created in 2008. The complaint describes Sammy Wasem as an aspiring Formula One driver whose “passion for racing and Ferrari drew many fellow fans together.” By 2009, the Wasem’s Ferrari page had more than 500,000 fans. In February of that year, Olivier Wasem got an e-mail from a Ferrari employee stating that “legal issues force us [Ferrari] in taking over the formal administration of” the Ferrari fan page. The same employee promised “to preserve and even enhance your role in the Ferrari Web Presence and communities.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Ferrari hit with lawsuit for taking over Facebook fan page

Apple announces iOS 8.1 with Apple Pay, iCloud Photo Library

Apple Pay is the most important thing to launch with iOS 8.1. Apple Apple has just released iOS 8.1, the first major update to iOS 8. The majority of the update’s new features have already been announced, but for one reason or another weren’t ready to be included in iOS 8 when it shipped last month . In the update, Apple plans to add back the “Camera Roll” album in iOS 8 with 8.1, to help users find their recently taken shots. The new version will also include a beta of iCloud Photo Library. iCloud Photo Library offers users the options of either backing up their photos to iCloud, or using it as primary storage to clear up space on their devices, only downloading photos when necessary. 8.1 will also mark the formal release Apple Pay, the contactless payment system Apple teased when it unveiled the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September. The new iPhones can store credit card data locally in what Apple calls the “Secure Element,” which also contains a Device Account Number unique to each phone. Stored cards can then be used to make purchases by using TouchID to authenticate and NFC to transmit the data. The Device Account Number and randomly generated per-transaction codes are used to obfuscate your credit card data, which isn’t exposed directly to retailers or to Apple. App developers can also integrate Apple Pay buttons into their apps to be used in lieu of credit card numbers. Apple stated that it plans to roll out Apple Pay in November. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple announces iOS 8.1 with Apple Pay, iCloud Photo Library

Google gets an Amazon Prime competitor with Shopping Express sub

A smattering of the brands with products available via Google Express (née Google Shopping Express). Google Blog Google has added a subscription option to its Shopping Express service, putting it in competition with Amazon’s Prime membership program. Shopping Express customers can now pay $95 per year or $10 per month to access a number of perks, including free same-day or overnight delivery on orders of $15 or more and the ability to share the membership with another person in the household. Google has offered Shopping Express (which, going forward, the company will simplify to “Google Express”) in Northern California since the spring of 2013. It expanded the service to New York and LA a year later, just as a same-day delivery service. As of October, the company will expand Express to Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC. Google Express service is limited to certain brands including Staples, Walgreens, and Target. New stores and retailers were added with this most recent update, including 1-800-Flowers, Barnes and Noble, and Sports Authority, as well as regional stores like Paragon Sports in New York and Stop & Shop in Boston. When users order from the selection of stores, a livery vehicle picks the items up and delivers them to the user’s location. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google gets an Amazon Prime competitor with Shopping Express sub

Since Netflix paid Verizon, video speed on FiOS has doubled

Netflix’s payments to Verizon for a direct connection to its network  didn’t result in immediate improvements for the companies’ joint subscribers, but they’re finally paying off with better video performance. Verizon FiOS actually topped all other major ISPs in Netflix performance in September with an average stream rate of 3.17Mbps, Netflix said today . Netflix Although Verizon FiOS led all large ISPs in Netflix performance, Google Fiber is still No. 1 among all ISPs regardless of size with a 3.54Mbps average in September. In August, Netflix streamed at an average of 2.41Mbps on Verizon FiOS, ranking tenth out of 16 major ISPs. In July, Netflix speed on Verizon FiOS was 1.61Mbps and in June it was 1.58Mbps, ranking 12th in both months. The Netflix/Verizon deal was announced in late April . When performance continued to get worse  after the interconnection agreement, Verizon said it might take until the end of 2014 to get all the proper network connections in place to speed up video. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Since Netflix paid Verizon, video speed on FiOS has doubled

Slow credit card verification lands Florida man in jail

Last week a man was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, FL when his two credit cards were declined after he spent $600 on bottle service at a nightclub. The story wouldn’t be all that interesting were it not for the fact that the man, Don Marcani, had not reached his credit limit that night. In fact, he was able to pay his $1,000 bail the next morning using one of the credit cards that was declined earlier. As Marcani told NBC 6 South Florida , he and his friend used a Wells Fargo credit card to buy $80-worth of drinks at the bar of Cyn Nightclub. Then they decided to move into the VIP section, costing them $600. The waitress took Marcani’s credit card, but when she tried to run the credit card later that night, it was declined. Marcani then provided a Capital One credit card, which was also declined. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Slow credit card verification lands Florida man in jail

Windows 10’s very different way of updating

We’ve been expecting the next version of Windows to work differently when it comes to updates and upgrades , and with the release of the Windows 10 Technical Preview , Microsoft’s intentions are a little clearer. The current Windows update model is superficially simple, but it has a few complexities. Every so often, the company releases a major update to Windows. In theory, that version of the operating system remains essentially unaltered for its lifetime. It receives critical (security) updates on a monthly basis (Patch Tuesday), and periodic non-security bug fixes (both monthly and as larger Service Packs), but significant functional changes are reserved for the next operating system version. This policy, with rules such as “Service Packs don’t add features,” was publicly propagated. But it was never really true. Service Packs didn’t add new features, except when they did. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was, in modern parlance, “Windows XP R2,” or perhaps “Windows XP point 1.” It was recognizable as Windows XP, but it included a bunch of new, security-oriented features in the core operating system and Internet Explorer 6. It also made some breaking changes to enhance security at the possible expense of application compatibility. Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 10’s very different way of updating

There’s more than one reason why iOS 8’s growth has stalled

Apple If you follow Apple news closely, at some point in the last week you’ve probably seen the graph above. It’s from Apple’s Developer Support page, and the company calculates the figure by looking at the iOS versions of devices accessing the App Store. Like Google’s analogous developer dashboard for Android , it’s meant to give developers a broad look at OS usage so they can use that data to determine which OSes to support with their apps. The problem with the graph above isn’t that it shows iOS 8 and iOS 7 with the same amount of share, but that the number for iOS 8 has climbed just a single percentage point since the last measurement was taken on September 21 . Apple’s data mirrors what a number of other independent firms have been claiming virtually since launch day— Chitika’s data shows that iOS 8 had rolled out to 7.3 percent of the iOS userbase after 24 hours of availability, while iOS 7 had already hit 18.2 percent in the first 24 hours after its launch. More recent data from Fiksu shows an adoption curve closer to iOS 5 (the last version you needed iTunes to upgrade to) than to iOS 6 or iOS 7. Fiksu’s data shows iOS 8 with 40 percent of the iOS pie after 22 days, compared to nearly 60 percent for iOS 7 and iOS 6. Fiksu Though the Ars audience is generally more tech-savvy than the general populace, our own data shows that you guys are embracing iOS 8 less enthusiastically than you picked up iOS 7. Here’s data from iOS 7’s first two full weeks (running from September 22 of 2013 to October 5) compared to data from iOS 8’s first two full weeks (September 21 of 2014 to October 4). Around 70 percent of our site visits came from iOS 7 in that time period, compared to about 60 percent from iOS 8. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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There’s more than one reason why iOS 8’s growth has stalled

What we know (and suspect) is coming in iOS 8.1

Apple Pay is one of the biggest features expected to launch with iOS 8.1 later this month. Apple Last week, numerous publications ( including Ars ) reported seeing references to iOS 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 in their site analytics pages. iOS versions 5, 6, and 7 only saw one major point update apiece during their respective lifespans, so evidence of three different updates being tested simultaneously just weeks after the release of iOS 8.0  came as a surprise. It looks like we’ll be seeing the first of those updates sooner rather than later. Today Apple pushed out the second beta build of iOS 8.1 in as many weeks to its registered developers, and the final version of the software is rumored to be released at or near Apple’s event later this month . Obviously such a quick turnaround time will make iOS 8.1 a smaller update than iOS 7.1 , which gestated for around six months and fixed a host of problems when finally released. But the update is still rumored to include a handful of significant features—here’s a list of the most important additions. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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What we know (and suspect) is coming in iOS 8.1

Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Owners of Belkin routers around the world are finding themselves unable to get online today. Outages appear to be affecting many different models of Belkin router, and they’re hitting customers on any ISP, with Time Warner Cable and Comcast among those affected. ISPs, inundated with support calls by unhappy users, are directing complaints to Belkin’s support line, which appears to have gone into meltdown in response. The reason for the massive outages is currently unknown. Initial speculation was that Belkin pushed a buggy firmware update overnight, but on a reddit thread about the problem, even users who claim to have disabled automatic updates have found their Internet connectivity disrupted. Others suggest that there is some kind of DNS problem at work. Although the routers are correctly picking up their DNS settings from DHCP, they’re apparently unable to resolve domain names correctly. Connecting to the Internet using IP addresses alone does, in fact, appear to work, but with most of us dependent on DNS, this is of little value. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help

A single week of Soylent contains seven meal pouches and seven oil containers. Total weight is just about 10 lbs (4.5 kg). Lee Hutchinson Soylent, the slushy slightly sweet meal supplement/replacement from California engineer Rob Rhinehart and his company Rosa Labs, has by most accounts been a smashing success story. We tried it and liked it a year ago. While we wrote more about why folks might (or might not) want to drink it once it hit its official release , the Rosa Labs development team has continued work even as shipments of the powder leave the factory by the truckload. In an update e-mail yesterday morning, Rosa Labs announced two major milestones: first, that shipments have (finally) been completed to everyone who backed the Soylent crowdfunding project prior to its closure, and secondly, that Soylent is getting its first major update to version 1.1. It seems a little weird that food (or “food”) has a version number, but Rhinehart always intended Soylent to be a product that changed over time based on feedback and market forces. In a quick post on the official Soylent blog, Rhinehart explains that the bump to 1.1 brings with it a decrease in the product’s sucralose level, dialing down the release version’s vague sweetness to a more truly neutral taste. The logic here, explains the post, is that it’s easier to add sweetness than to take it away, and many Soylent 1.0 users have expressed a desire to flavor the product with add-ons (peanut butter is a popular one, as is blended fruit). The second change deals with my biggest issue with Soylent—what can be politely termed as “a bit of gas.” Regular Soylent use eliminates the gas, but using Soylent as an occasional substitute for a missed meal—which is my preferred usage of the stuff—can introduce some thunderous gut activity (which I referred to in my original Soylent review as ” horse-killing farts “). Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help