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Google expands its free Shopping listings to merchants worldwide
It's rolling out Local Services Ads in several European countries too.
Google lets merchants sell for free in its Shopping tab
Google will make it free for retailers to list products in the Google Shopping tab.
Square offers sellers $10 photoshoots for their products
If a picture really is worth a thousand words, then great product photography needs to be at the top of the agenda for anyone selling stuff on Etsy, eBay, Kickstarter or basically anywhere online. Sometimes, though, shooting on your iPhone just doesn't cut the mustard, and hiring a professional photographer -- or even just the right kit -- is pretty expensive. Enter the Square Photo Studio, which will take high quality product shots for you, at the fraction of the cost.
Sorry, MasterCard's free trial protection only applies to physical goods
Yesterday, MasterCard announced a new feature that would protect its customers from the automatic billing that kicks in after a free trial. The policy will require merchants to notify users about the end of the free trial, the cost of continuing with a subscription and how to cancel the subscription. And it seems like a pretty good feature, especially if you tend to forget to end subscriptions after free trials. But MasterCard has now updated its blog post about the new policy and it looks like it will only apply to physical products, not digital services.
Twitter replaces its head of product yet again
As vital as Twitter is in many respects, the product itself has suffered from a lack of direction at various points. It took Twitter a long time to figure out what the service is truly for and why people should use it, though after doubling down on news and live video, user numbers are growing again. Still, that doesn't mean its product is in perfect shape, and the company is replacing its VP of product yet again.
How to photograph a leaked Apple product
So you got your hands on an unreleased Apple product -- maybe even a prototype (oooooooh, yummy) -- and you want to let the whole damn world know about it? Good news! There's a tool that people like you often use to share their good fortune with the rest of the world, and it's called "The Internet!" Here in this wonderful digital land, there are writers and publications that will spread just about anything you can throw at them, as long as it can't actually be verified in any possible way. There are more of these types of websites than you can count on all your fingers and toes, but the good news is that if you get one of them to pay attention to you, the rest will follow suit! This is all dependent on one thing: having a fantastic, perfect, amazing photo to sacrifice to the rumor gods. Here are the rules you need to follow to become an anonymous Apple deity. Rule #1: Don't take a photo of a complete gadget It doesn't matter if you have an entire, functional version of Apple's unreleased phone, tablet or watch, because rumors aren't good if they don't have a little mystery to them. What you really want is a nondescript component that could really be used for absolutely anything. This way you give the rumor sites a bit of room to work in their own theories. The first thing you need to do is disassemble the device in question and find the most unremarkable part of it to focus on. The first two photos in this lineup won't get the rumor juices flowing, but that tiny, mysterious metal chunk really makes you wonder. What is it? What could it be for? Does it fit inside the new iPad or does it house the long-rumored NFC chip for the iPhone 7s? That's the kind of photo that gets clicks, ladies and gents. Tip: You get big bonus points if you can make it look like the photo was taken in a manufacturing setting. Rule #2: Obscure, obscure, obscure It might be tempting to take a great photo of a meaningless piece of glass or metal and just call it a day, but while it's a fantastic start, it's just doesn't pop unless we make sure there's some sort of unnecessary barrier to viewing the image clearly. There are a lot of tricks you can use, including placing the object behind a piece of glass, adding a ton of unnecessary glare to the photo by taking it at a weird angle or making sure the object is covered in plastic or other packaging materials. Because if you're going to take the time and substantial risk of leaking a product made by one of the most successful companies on the planet, there's zero reason to remove the sticky plastic. Tip: Do your best to make sure nobody can read any text on the object. Things like item numbers, manufacturing codes or other information that could lend credence to your claim aren't important to anyone. They just want a vague blob. Rule #3: Maximum excitement! If you have access to an unreleased Apple product, you're going to be pretty damn excited about it. The best way to express your excitement is to shake your hands violently as you snap the photo. This technique adds credibility to your claims by showing everyone that you're really nervous about getting caught. If you accidentally snap a perfectly still photo, you can add this "excitement" later in a program like Photoshop. The final rule If you've followed these steps, you should have a photo you can be proud of, and one that the internet will eat up with a jealous fervor. Many sites will argue over whether it's true, resorting to social media to vent about why someone does or doesn't believe it, but in the end, none of this matters, because you're the real winner even if nobody knows your name. That is one gorgeous leaked product photo. What is it? What does it do? Is it for the iPhone? Can we at least pretend it's for the iPhone? Of course we can! I took the photo, so I know what it really is. You don't. That means that I have the power, and I'm not giving it up. And I'm most certainly not going to tell you the truth, because that's the fourth and final rule of Apple rumormongering: Always leave them wanting more. [Photo credits: Ivyfield, Smemon, Uka0310, Parislemon, Mvchi, Dafe]
22cans' lead game designer talks about Curiosity and moving forward to Godus
Gary Leach is the lead game engineer at 22cans, which you probably know by now is game designer Peter Molyneux's experimental startup aiming to put together 22 different game experiences before actually releasing a full title. So far, 22cans has favored the iOS and Mac platforms with their releases: Curiosity is their first experiment, and it launched on the App Store to both great, well, curiosity, and even some complaints about server outages and bugs. But the game is better now, says Leach. "It's going really well," he told TUAW today. "In some ways we're kicking ourselves for planning it so badly, and we had some big decisions to make on whether we're going to take the thing down or try and poke through this." In the end, however, 22cans decided to update the game -- they released version 2.0 this week, and Leach says "the community feel is still just amazing." At this point, Leach says the game's popularity has essentially leveled out. People come and go, and he says a lot of users will come back occasionally just to see how the game is doing. But there are about as many people leaving the game as arriving, so while the numbers are obviously down from launch, they're steady at the moment. Aside from the technical bugs, Leach says one of the hardest things about the game has been balancing its casual and hardcore audiences. In-app purchased items in the game are sold for hundreds of thousands or even millions of in-app coins, and Leach says that "the range of motivations" to earn that currency "is enormous. These beginner types will come on and earn a few thousand coins and think they've done well. But the hardcore audience, 100,000 coins for them is no work at all. So how do you balance that?" Leach says that's the main crux of the conversations during Curiosity's development, and that "a lot of it came down to who's going to be on middle marker and how much they can earn." Users continue to tap away at the big cube in Curiosity, but 22cans and Leach have moved on to the next experiment, a "re-imagining" of Peter Molyneux's original god game, Populous, called Godus. The team has headed to Kickstarter for funding on this project, and Leach says that's because while Curiosity was the kind of experiment that was meant to say "hey world, we're here," Godus is more involved, and it's "the kind of title that potentially publishers may not have gone for." Not much is known about the game, but it will allow players to warp the geography of a virtual world, as well as oversee virtual citizens living and fighting in various battles together. Currently, 22cans is hard at work on a prototype of the game, and Leach says the prototype is mostly being developed on Mac and iOS (the studio has also announced that the final title will be available on Apple's platforms as well). But the current prototype, according to Leach, is only code "that we are using for our own internal evaluation process. None of this code is going to go into the final product. This is code that's going to get binned." So Godus as a finished project hasn't even started yet. As a developer, Leach says he's very excited to work on it, however. He started "kind of midway through the Curiosity project," and says he "was spending the first few weeks trying to catch up to what we were doing." But Godus, on the other hand, is more his speed. "When we first started talking about Godus, that's when I thought this was the product I was meant to make," Leach says. "I'm doing something here that is going to run beautifully on mobile devices and is going to look as good as a desktop game." Godus' Kickstarter is up and running now, and with about seven days left, 22cans has picked up just under three-fourths of the money it's asking for. But Leach's enthusiasm is still very strong. "There's so many reasons to be excited."
Apple still working on 'next version of Logic Pro'
There have been rumors bouncing around recently that Apple's digital audio division has been losing employees over the past few years, to the point where it's just a couple of guys still around to maintain the audio apps that are still out there (mostly just Logic Pro, which last saw a new full version back in 2009). A MacRumors reader named Nicholas decided to check in with Apple on the matter, and his request for information reached all the way up to the music product marketing chief in Cupertino, named Xander Soren. Soren replied to Nicholas via email, and assured him that "the team is still in place and hard at work on the next version of Logic Pro." You'll note that he didn't say just how big the team was, or even deny the rumors that the department's numbers had been lowered recently (Logic Pro itself was cut back last year, from a full retail version to a Mac App Store-only version, at half the price). But Soren did say that there is another version of Logic Pro planned, at least, so anyone still using Logic can be assured that there's at least one more update on the way. It'd be a shame to lose Apple's formerly popular audio editing suite, but given the company's focus on mobile devices and other areas, it's not too surprising to see something like this may be falling by the wayside.
New product information now available on Apple.com
Apple has posted new information and new specs about all of the products announced today over on its website. The new iPad mini is probably the biggest news of the day; Apple has squeezed down the iPad into a smaller package, while still holding up the same resolution as the iPad 2 and the same great experience. The price seems a little high to us, but we'll have to see how the new device does when it ships in November. The brand new iMac is gorgeous, probably the most surprising release today. Apple's brought all of its mobile engineering knowledge to bear on a new desktop computer that seems like a bargain starting at $1299. The 13-inch MacBook Pro got a revamp, as well as a Retina display to match its 15-inch brother. The new laptop looks great, and be sure to check out Apple's material on the Fusion Drive option in these new computers. It's a wild combination of hard drive and flash memory that should make loading apps and data faster than ever. The Mac mini also got a very nice update, and don't forget to check out the new server version preloaded with Apple's server apps. And, finally, the iPad got revamped for a fourth generation, less than six months after the third generation was announced. This update was a little surprising (especially for third-generation iPad users), but it makes sense that Apple would want to make sure the full-sized iPad was updated to match its new little sibling. If you already have a third-generation iPad, this probably won't do much for you. But for anyone looking for a new iPad, the latest version looks to be more powerful than ever. All great stuff from Apple today, and be sure to check out the product pages for some neat Easter eggs with the images. These products will ship very soon, so in the meantime, the best we can do is pore over all of Apple's materials on the website, and poke around the couch to find enough money to afford them all.
Apple facing European investigation into how it sells AppleCare
Ever hemmed and hawed over buying AppleCare with your shiny new gadget? European chiefs are worried that you don't know all of your rights. They're concerned that Cupertino's warranty-selling practices hide the fact that all customers are entitled to a statutory two-year warranty to fix defects present at sale. The company has already had to open its checkbook to Italian regulators, but pointed out that the protection plan is there to remedy issues that may crop up after you've taken your new toy from its perfectly-engineered box. Nevertheless, commissioner Viviane Reding is pushing for a Europe-wide inquiry into the company, contacting all 27 member states to look into the matter. In the meantime, we're left working out how many times we're likely to drop our new device in the next three years.
Google's Eric Schmidt slams patent wars, still has nice things to say about Apple and Samsung
Eric Schmidt's recent trip to Seoul wasn't all spontaneous Gangnam dancing. Google's former-CEO / current executive chair had a lot to say during the Korean launch of the company's Nexus 7 tablet, bemoaning the patent wars that have ensnarled the industry, telling the crowd, "literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad. We are obviously working through that and trying to make sure we stay on the right side of these issues." The war for marketshare ought to be fought with the release of better products, rather legal maneuvering, according to the executive. But in spite of Apple's role in the battle -- and the company's decision to go it alone on products like its troubled Maps app -- Schmidt still had kind words for Cupertino, calling the company "a very good partner," and adding that the, "two companies are literally talking all the time about everything." The exec also told the crowd that he'd be meeting with Samsung, one of the company's "most important partners," during the trip, "as I do every time I come here."
Kickstarter talks to us about product 'pre-orders,' won't force refunds when creators flake
Kickstarter has proven an incredibly effective venue for connecting project creators with monetary support -- inventors pitch directly to consumers, indie filmmakers meet indie producers and food trucks get the financial push necessary to take their restaurants to the road. With the latter two, backers don't necessarily expect goods in return, save for an overvalued t-shirt, bumper sticker or film credit. When it comes to electronics, however, funders are often promised a first-off-the-line gadget -- one that may never arrive at their door. One oft-overlooked, yet critical detail should help curb expectations, while also serving to filter out pledges that are motivated by the pre-order promise, from those that offer financial support without a guaranteed return. Like it or not, all transactions fall into that second category. Pre-order offers may go unfulfilled, and some pledges may be reduced to donations, if a project creator ends up unable to deliver an item as intended. And such situations may not prompt a refund, souring the experience for an increasing number of hopeful device owners. Join us past the break for an explanation from the Kickstarter team, and a closer look at some recent examples.
HP India to expand web access with Vayu Internet Device
The Internet is gradually seeping its way into homes across India, but there are many within the country who remain too poor to actually purchase a PC. Fortunately, HP India has just developed new technology known as the Vayu Internet Device, or VInD, that could dramatically lessen this gap. According to the Times of India, the company's new set top box will essentially allow users to access web content via traditional TVs, using standard remotes, rather than keyboards or mice. All they'd have to do is plug it in, subscribe to an internet service, and turn on their in-home televisions. The idea, of course, is to deepen web penetration across lower-income populations, as well as among the elderly, who may have difficulties manipulating more complex computer equipment. No word yet on when the VInD could hit the market, but the Times of India has a more comprehensive rundown, at the source link below.
Agile Route's Shopper Tracker brings Kinect hacks, Google Analytics to the grocery aisle (video)
The Shopper Tracker is one of those devices that does exactly what its name suggests -- and so much more. Developed by Argentina's Agile Route, this Kinect hack uses an array of heat sensors and 3D spatial recognition software to track a consumer's movements and behavior within any brick and mortar retail outlet. These data can then be used by a store owner to find out which shelves and items are appealing to customers, effectively adding a Google Analytics-like dimension to their product displays. The system is also capable of tracking multiple people at once, and can even provide feedback on which products consumers actually pull from the shelves. According to the company, this type of analysis can result in obvious strategic benefits for merchants, while reminding the rest of us that we're totally predictable. Check it out in action, after the break.
Amazon lockers come to NYC, no more getting caught by UPS in your PJs
First Seattle, then London, now the Big Apple -- Amazon's delivery lockers are starting to pop up all over. As we've explained before, the lockers are basically giant, automated PO boxes, designated exclusively for Amazon purchases. If you choose to add a locker location to your address book (go check your account settings to see if the option is available to you yet), your package will be crammed into one of these kiosks and you'll be given a code to unlock a particular slot at the location of your choice. So far there are eight scattered around Manhattan in Rite Aides, D'Agostinos and Gristedes. We haven't wandered out of our secret lair to get photographic evidence of the drop off locations yet (we prefer to have our Amazon purchases left at the gate under the watchful eye of a turret), but we think the screen shot we took is proof enough that we're not pulling your leg. Still, if you're afraid the UPS guy might swing by while you're still in your jammies this seems like a pretty nice solution.
Amazon's 7-Eleven lockers are very real, very gray, slated for Friday activation
After an arduous expedition that must've lasted hours, an intrepid frontiersman in the Seattle area has finally unearthed the Holy Grail of convenience store cubbies -- Amazon's elusive delivery locker, at 7-Eleven. GeekWire's John Cook discovered the prototype lockers at a 7-Eleven in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, where store clerks told him that the system wouldn't be activated until Friday. According to Cook's description, the setup consists of about 40 different sized containers, centered around a keypad and monitor (neither of which was illuminated during his visit). All told, the array of P.O. Box-style cabinets stands about seven feet tall and is completely devoid of Amazon branding. The in-store pick-up program may roll out of a nationwide basis next summer, but you can check out a photographic sneak preview at the source link, below.
Apple support profile lists purchase history, sign up for VoicePass and SMS
Apple quietly released My Support Profile, which offers a hardware purchase history and access to Apple's VoicePass, its trademark filed shortly before Christmas. Once I signed in, I set up my iPhone to use VoicePass and receive SMS messages (available only in the US) from Apple Support. VoicePass will link Apple Support to your product history and allow them to provide personalized service. The right side of the page features a list of repairs and products that you've purchased and registered with Apple. You can also add nicknames to your purchases. The purchase history area is a bit spotty -- it registered my very first Apple product (15 GB 3G iPod from 2004), but missed the 5.5G iPod purchased two years later, iPhone 4 and iPad. But, it's easy to add your other products. Clicking on the product will show you if it's still under AppleCare and extend your AppleCare if it's available. The support profile is a handy place to update your contact information with Apple as well. It's worth taking a few minutes to go make sure your Apple profile is up to date and remind yourself of some of your past Apple purchases and repairs.
OnStar announces a blue button for any car, Best Buy handling the installs
Want OnStar? Sure, why not, the company fields over three million calls a month from six million mostly from satisfied customers. But, until now, that blue button has only been able to be pressed by those who own General Motors cars. Now it's spreading out to just about anyone, 99 percent of cars will be able to be supported by the new OnStar mirror, which the company is simply calling its "retail product." For $299 (plus installation) you get a replacement mirror that will wirelessly connect you to the OnStar service. It also has Bluetooth, so it can connect to your smartphone, but we're guessing many cars won't be able to have their doors unlocked remotely, what is surely OnStar's killer app. Quite naturally you'll need to pay up to use it, service fees currently going at $18.95 a month, or $199 annually. Best Buy will be the exclusive partner here, which is perhaps bad news if you've read the horror stories about what sometimes happens in those blue and yellow stereo install bays. OnStar showed off its ability by having mirrors installed in a variety of vehicles, ranging from a Camry to a Grand Marquis -- hot cars they're not but a pretty effective demonstration of the range of applicability here. GM also took this opportunity to show off the latest revision of its two-wheeled EN-V, which we'll be taking for a spin a little later this week. All that fun is captured in the galleries below. %Gallery-112602% %Gallery-112604%
Snapstick could use your iPhone to program your television
The video after the break shows off a product called Snapstick, though there's not actually a product yet, just more of an idea. The idea is that you select a bit of web content (like a YouTube video or Hulu show) on your phone, and then use a flicking motion to send that content up to a bigger screen like your TV. The company is really excited about the 'snapping" motion, but the idea is that you can use your phone to control what's shown on screen, and pull that from anywhere on the web. At this point it's all vaporware, unfortunately -- you'll obviously need something plugged into your television, whether that's an official Snapstick piece of hardware, or something like an Xbox 360 or an Apple TV that's designed to actually show that content off. But however they figure it out, the idea will be that you can use an iPhone app to program and then share web content on your television. Interested? Doesn't seem to me like much more than a glorified web browser, but Snapstick's taking sign-ups for a private beta right now. We'll have to see how this pans out.
Report: Foxconn making 1.5 iPhones per second
137,000 iPhones per day. That's how many manufacturer Foxconn is reportedly making these days, its chairman tells the press. That's an amazing figure adding up to 50 million iPhones every single year, even as Apple struggles to keep enough hardware in stock. And the process isn't easy, either -- chairman Terry Gou says that the company found out it needed a certain machining rig usually designed only for prototyping in order to stay in line with Apple's strict manufacturing standards. Foxconn ended up buying over 1,000 of the machines at $20k each, even while other manufacturing companies are buying just one. It's crazy to think about the scale of the operation over there -- not just the equipment, but the workers and organization required to churn out that kind of product. And sadly, it appears the pressure is still on for the company, as we've seen multiple times before. Apple is setting records over here on this side of the world with the iPhone's sales numbers, and it's sometimes easy to forget that behind all of that, there's an industrial machine churning out product by the millions. [via HardMac]
