Hasta La Gadget!

At Google I/O 2013, the company showed off a completely new Maps experience which it said was built from the ground up to bring together Street View and satellite imagery into a much more interactive setting. Since then only those who requested an invitation to the preview were able to get the new Google Maps, and during all this time the company has worked on adding more features and improving upon almost everything it showed us back at I/O 2013. Today is the day that the new Google Maps finally comes out of preview. Starting today, this will be rolled out as the default Google Maps desktop experience for all users around the globe.

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New Google Maps Finally Exits Preview original content from Ubergizmo.

Hackers seem to be on a roll these days, almost every other week we hear about a major online property being hit by a security breach which ends up compromising personal information of millions of users. The latest victim is crowdfunding juggernaut Kickstarter. It announced via its official blog that hackers were able to gain access to certain parts of the database, though the good news is that they weren’t able to access credit or debit card information. It would have been disastrous seeing as how most of its users have provided such information because its needed to pledge donations for campaigns. However, even if hackers would have been able to access said information, they wouldn’t have been able to do much with it as Kickstarter doesn’t store full credit card numbers in its databases.

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Kickstarter Gets Hacked original content from Ubergizmo.

It is not news that over in China, the government is pretty heavy-handed when it comes to censoring information. To that extent social media networks like Facebook and Twitter are banned. However it seems that due to a technical error, Microsoft’s Bing search has accidentally censored search results for Chinese-language users in the US, the same way it would have been censored in mainland China. At least that’s what Microsoft claims. This is based on a report from The Guardian who were the ones of reported on the alleged censorship.

According to censorship blog, Greatfire who initially discovered the censorship, it was found that certain websites and topics that could be found on Google could not be found on Bing when attempting to search using the Chinese language. Website author Charlie Smith claimed that the results were “radically different results in the US for English and Chinese language searches.” Microsoft has since denied claims that they were actively censoring search results and have attributed it to a technical error. According to Stefan Weitz, the senior director of Bing, he claimed that this was due to errors in Bing’s system and that Bing does not apply China’s legal requirements. However according to sources of The Verge, they state that Microsoft would have to adhere to China’s censorship laws if the IP address were to originate from China itself.

Microsoft Denies Censoring Bing Search Results In Chinese original content from Ubergizmo.

While Bitcoin might not necessarily be looked upon favorably by governments, such as Russia and China, there are many out there who have started to accept the currency as a legitimate form of payment. That being said, we guess we can’t say we’re too surprised to learn that tech companies such as Microsoft have also decided to embrace Bitcoin, although not in the way that you might expect. While Microsoft isn’t exactly accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment, the company has recently announced that as far as Bitcoin conversion is concerned, Bing has been recently updated to include that feature.

According to the Bing blog, “Starting today, you will find instant Bitcoin conversions at the top of your Bing results.” However as it stands, this feature is only available in the US, Australia, Canada, India, and the UK, but Microsoft expects that it will be rolled out to other markets in the future. Like we said while this does not necessarily mean that Microsoft will take Bitcoin as payment, it is a sign that shows that Microsoft acknowledges the currency, compared to Apple who has been busy trying to remove Bitcoin-related apps from its App Store. So if you’re an avid Bitcoin trader or watcher and would love to keep up with the fluctuating value, hit up Bing’s search and give the conversion a go!

Bing Integrates Bitcoin Converter Into Its Search original content from Ubergizmo.

Even though Yahoo went through several major changes last year, the company’s recent quarterly earnings report failed to impress investors. Yahoo needs to work on improving its products and ensure that they don’t face downtime after a few weeks. Moreover, the company needs to improve its existing services that are already competing in highly contested niches. Take Yahoo search for example, its up against the likes of Google and Bing. The company knows that, which is why it has reportedly partnered up with Yelp to improve local search. This according to The Wall Street Journal, which claims to have heard from a person who attended the meeting in which CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled the new partnership.

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Yahoo Taps Into Yelp To Improve Local Search [Report] original content from Ubergizmo.