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New PayPal restrictions sending payments to India
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Corporate News, Internet,
In a strange yet potentially devastating move for Indian companies and freelancers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced new directives which forces PayPal to restrict any payment for out-of-country services or goods to $500. This means companies and individuals from India wanting to sell services or products to customers outside of the country will have to keep it to a maximum price of $500 per transaction or do so using other means.
It's unclear why the restrictions were added. It's likely that this will impact the economy of the country, which is becoming very popular in several tech related sectors, especially over the Internet, where PayPal payments are common. The likely outcome is increased corruption, and alternative means of money exchange booming as a result of this.
Read More 
| PayPal Blog
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Netflix rates broadband providers in US and Canada by bandwidth performance
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Broadband, Home Entertainment, Internet,
Netflix published a very interesting set of charts showing the performance of various networks in Canada and the US. Taking only HD content, they rate each network based on how much throughput they can achieve, or how much bandwidth they can provide to their customers over the length of a streamed movie. While the Canadian Internet providers are very close to each other, there are major differences for the US. If you're streaming video or high demand data online regularily, Netflix or otherwise, this may give you a good indication on which carrier fares better. Hit the break for a look at the numbers.
Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun
Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet,
The age of Google censorship is finally here. Google announced several weeks ago that they planned on rolling out censorship of "piracy related" keywords. Pressure from the RIAA and MPAA has resulted in keyword censorship by Google. Phrases that are currently being censored include: BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. Interestingly, the censorship does not apply to Google's full search results, and the questionable keywords are only being filtered out of Google's "Autocomplete", and "Instant" services.
Reports are coming in that Google's censorship is arbitrary. "What is most surprising about the new filter is that the keywords appear to be picked arbitrarily. It includes BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and Xunlei, but not BitComet and Vuze. While cyberlockers such as RapidShare and Megaupload are banned, prominent sites such as 4shared, HotFile and MediaFire are not."
This has created an interesting situation for Google. Are they becoming the very thing they despised when they left China? China's censorship of Google was a major factor in the company leaving that country, and now the shoe is on the other foot.
What do you think about Google's censorship? is broad censorship of arbitrary keywords the answer to stopping piracy? What about the large number of honest BiTtorrent users that will be affected?
Read More | TorrentFreak
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Google Voice now supports number porting
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Google, Internet,
Google Voice, the wonderful service that can integrate all your calls to a single number, providing free services like voice mail, transcription and SMS messages, now supports number porting. This means that if you have a phone number which you want to keep, but you'd like to use it for Google Voice, now you can port it over. You may recall that the feature appeared in Google Voice last week, but was quickly pulled, with Google saying it was just a test. The video released by Google shows the process this takes, which seems pretty straight forward. This service has a one time cost of $20. Of course, Google Voice is still only available in the US, at least so far, and if you take advantage of the number porting, you may incur an ETF charge from your wireless provider.
Read More | Google Blog
Gmail favicon now shows unread message count
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Internet,
Ever since the advent of tabs, web sites with messaging or updating features have started providing unread message counts in the title, usually at the front, so that people can easily scan their opened tabs and see if any of them has unread stuff. Of course as tabs become more commonplace, heavy users have so many opened that often no part of the title is even visible anymore. Google introduced an innovative little feature today to fix that in Gmail. They call it the Unread Message Icon. It's a dynamic favicon that the server provides which updates the tab to show the number of unread messages in your inbox. Now, even in a crowded browser, you can easily see if you have new email. It's a simple improvement, but brilliant nonetheless, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other sites adopt the technique. To enable it, you have to go in your settings and click on the Labs options.
Read More | Gmail Blog
Google Offers to compete with Groupon
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Hot Deals, Internet,
A few months ago Google was in talks to buy Groupon for $6 billion in order to bolster its local advertising business, but nothing came out of it. Now, a leaked document points at the company starting their own Groupon clone, Google Offers. The new service will be similar to Groupon and offer coupons to subscribers, based on location, offering them a deal of the day. It will be powered by Google Checkout and allow sharing through Facebook, Twitter, Reader and Buzz.
The service is in the testing phase right now, but we know Google wants to push this one out to the masses as soon as possible.
Read More | Mashable
Hacker gains 10 million passwords from Trapster
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Internet, Software,
In a reminder to always use strong, unique passwords on every service we use, we learn this week that Trapster, a web site and app used by over 10 million users, was targeted by a hacker which may have compromised the login and password information of all of their users. The company has posted an advisory urging people to change their password on the web site, and anywhere else they may be using the same password.
Read More | Peer360
Google testing Google Voice number porting
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Internet,
Word on the street this morning was that Google had quietly made number porting available to all its Google Voice users, but the search giant confirmed Thursday that it is only conducting a test of the option with a few users.
"We're continually testing new features to enhance the user experience. For a limited amount of time, we're making the Google Voice number porting process available to users," Google said in a statement. "We don't have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future."
Click to continue reading Google testing Google Voice number porting
URL shortners are a dime a dozen. From TinyURL, to Bit.ly, Goo.gl--heck, we even have our own gear.lv shortener! For a new one to succeed, they need to add something compelling. You know, like add new features and stuff? The latest site to arrive in the crowded space took a decidedly different path. With bieber.ly, you can look at giant images of Justin Bieber while browsing the web! It's still unknown if this was endorsed by the teenage superstar, but we would highly doubt that. Ridiculous? Sure! We're just throwing some credit out there for being unique. Trust us, we don't have, like, a total crush on Biebs or anything. Please believe us.
Read More | Bieber.ly
Pioneer brings Twitter, Facebook, Pandora integration to your car
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: CES, CES 2011, Internet, Music, Transportation,
As part of their CES presentation, Pioneer, a company used to making audio and electronic equipment for cars, announced their plans to integrate Twitter, Facebook and Pandora deeper into their devices. This will lead to your dashboard being connected directly to your social feeds. Pioneer says that it believes smartphones don't do the job because of their small screens, plus the fact that they require a driver's full attention. The new devices from Pioneer will read tweets and status updates directly to the user. The company will bring 9 different models in 2011 starting at $150.
Read More | Mashable
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