Schlagwort: 039

Soylent Recalls Its Bars After Reports They Made People Violently Ill

Soylent, a Silicon Valley startup that makes powdered and liquid meal replacement supplements like Soylent 1.6 and 2.0, has temporarily stopped selling and shipping its Soylent Bars after reports that the bars made people violently ill.

Soylent said customers can receive a full refund by contacting the company; if you have any remaining bars, you should discard them. The company is investigating the bars' safety but told BuzzFeed News it had not determined a cause yet.

In a prepared statement, Soylent wrote, “We are deeply sorry if any customer had any negative experiences after eating a Soylent Bar.” The company called the recall a “precautionary measure.” Soylent previously told BuzzFeed News that it was “very confident in the safety of the bars.”

The bar, introduced in August 2016 (coincidentally, the same month as Samsung&039;s recalled, exploding Galaxy Note7 phone), provides 12.5% of a person&039;s recommended daily nutrients, according to Soylent. It may also provide nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, according to complaints from people who have eaten it.

The bars are currently unavailable on Soylent&039;s website

Image from Soylent

Soylent has faced quality control issues before. As recently as October 2016, it delayed shipments of Soylent 2.0 because of mold. The facility that produces Soylent Bars, Betty Lou’s in McMinnville, Oregon, has not undergone a Foodborne Biological Hazards inspection since 2014, two years before the Bar was launched, according to the FDA’s online inspection database. This facility is separate from the ones that manufacture Soylent 1.6 and 2.0. Back in 2014, the FDA for the first time classified the Oregon facility as VAI, Voluntary Action Indicated — meaning an inspection found “objectionable conditions or practices,” but not ones serious enough to require mandated action. (The FDA&039;s database covers inspections from October 1, 2008 to March 31, 2016.) But Soylent says the facility&039;s last FDA inspection was as recent as March 2016. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the FDA and Betty Lou&039;s for comment on this discrepancy.

FDA

Sources close to Soylent&039;s manufacturing process previously told BuzzFeed News that the complaints about the bars might be due to a sensitivity to sucralose, an artificial non-caloric sweetener commonly found in products like Quest Nutrition Protein Bars and Powerbar Reduced Sugar Bars. There is three times as much Sucralose in Soylent’s bar (about 30 milligrams) compared to the Soylent 1.6 drink powder. At this time, Soylent has no plans to dial back the amount of sucralose in the bar, but it may re-formulate in the future.

Philip Neustrom, who experienced two bouts of nausea and vomiting after eating the bars, told BuzzFeed News that he regularly eats Quest Protein Bars, which also contain sucralose, with no negative effects.

In a previous statement, Soylent told BuzzFeed News, “After these reports, we have retrieved remaining bars from our consumers and have personally consumed many of the remaining bars without adverse effects. We have also sent them for further microbiological testing and all tests have come back negative.”

Reports of illness first emerged on Soylent&039;s own community discussion board on September 7, 2016, when user Raylingh started the thread “Nausea and vomiting several times after eating food bars.” Soylent consumers piled in on the thread, including two who had reportedly needed trips to the emergency room after eating the bars. All told, 57 people reported troubling experiences with the food bars. Soylent users on the Soylent subreddit also complained of the same symptoms.

Raylingh told BuzzFeed News he consumes Soylent 2.0 every day and has never had an adverse reaction to it. He also said that daily reports of Soylent-Bar-induced illness started appearing on Soylent&039;s forums in late September. He said he had to “chase down” Soylent customer support for three weeks after his initial complaint for Soylent to start investigating the bars. He&039;s kept a spreadsheet of the complaints.

Quelle: <a href="Soylent Recalls Its Bars After Reports They Made People Violently Ill“>BuzzFeed

Amazon’s New Alexa-Integrated Music Service Makes The Echo A Better DJ

Amazon has launched Amazon Music Unlimited, a premium version of Amazon Prime Music, and it&#039;s betting that its Alexa voice control technology will convince listeners to ditch their Spotify or Apple music subscriptions.

Here&039;s how it works

Unlimited gives users access to a library of tens of millions of songs. The current version of Amazon Prime Music, which comes free with a Prime subscription, has a library of a few million. Unlimited is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for $7.99 a month and to non-Prime members for $9.99 per month. Echo owners have access to a specific subscription plan: They can get a “just for Echo” subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited for $3.99 per month. It&039;s the same library, but it only works for Echo and any connected speakers. A more wide-reaching Unlimited plan works for smartphones and computers.

Here&039;s what&039;s cool about it

Via Giphy / Via giphy.com

The real difference between Amazon Music Unlimited and other streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music, is its integration with the Echo, Amazon&039;s signature speaker, and Alexa, the voice-controlled assistant that goes with it. You can say things like “Alexa, play the latest single from Adele” to listen to “Send My Love to Your New Lover,” or “Play U2 from the &039;80s” to listen to the band&039;s music from a specific era. You can look up songs by lyrics: “Play that song that goes &039;One, two three; one, two three, drink,&039;” to look up Sia&039;s “Chandelier.” And you can combine genre and mood when you request, “Play sad country music from the &039;90s” to listen to some Shania Twain when you&039;re down.

Alexa&039;s also listening to you and learning your habits, so if you say “play dinner party music,” it&039;ll play low-key R&B if that&039;s your thing, or Bach if you&039;re more the type to host your boss. You can even ask Alexa to get you a free trial of Amazon Music Unlimited.

The Echo&039;s default music player is Amazon, but the speaker and its Alexa voice control will also play tunes from other streaming services. But if you&039;re asking Alexa to turn on Spotify, it won&039;t respond to your detailed requests; playing from a non-Amazon streaming service will be more like searching and playing from your phone. Amazon is hoping the difference in experience will attract customers who haven&039;t tried streaming services before, or that it will attract people who already subscribe to other services.

“We&039;ve done our best to mimic the way people talk to one another about music, rather than the way they search for it on their computers or smartphones,” Steve Boom, Amazon&039;s VP of Digital Music, told BuzzFeed News. “We believe the streaming industry is poised for a new phase of growth outside smartphones.”

Amazon&039;s Echo and Echo Dot

Bloomberg / Getty Images

Amazon&039;s also created its own content to accompany the release. You can listen to “side-by-sides” with artists, where they talk about the creative processes behind their songs, or the Amazon Song of the Day, a track picked and described by an Amazon DJ.

Amazon faces stiff competition. Spotify, arguably the biggest player in streaming, is famously unprofitable. Apple is developing a smart speaker, which will likely integrate with Apple Music. Google Home, which offers Google&039;s search advantages, already integrates with Google Play. Boom said that Amazon is “definitely still in the investment phase” with Unlimited, but he said the company has a plan to make the service profitable within a few years.

Image courtesy of Amazon

Quelle: <a href="Amazon’s New Alexa-Integrated Music Service Makes The Echo A Better DJ“>BuzzFeed

Facebook Deleted A Parody Account To Avoid Being Blocked In Brazil

Picture of Facebook&#039;s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Nelson Almeida / AFP / Getty Images

Facebook has complied with a demand by a judge in Brazil to take down a satirical page or face being blocked throughout the country for 24 hours.

The case centered on an account that parodied Udo Döhler, a candidate for mayor in the city of Joinville. On Monday, the Electoral Court of Joinville issued a decision that demanded that Facebook take down the page or be blocked throughout the country for 24 hours.

Facebook later on Monday obtained a court certificate that recognized that the company took down the page that originally generated the complaint, a spokesperson for the company told BuzzFeed News. The company also agreed to turn over the IP address of the user who was running the Döhler parody page, the spokesperson said.

The Brazilian telecommunications authority was not notified of the possibility of a Facebook outage, the spokesperson said, eliminating the risk that Facebook&039;s 100 million users inside Brazil would be effected.

Left undecided is whether Facebook will pay the fine that the judge, Renato Roberge, imposed on the company. Facebook was ordered to pay 30,000 reais ($9,500 US) plus another 30,000 reais every day it failed to comply; the company argues that it should have to pay nothing due to how quickly it removed the page.

The company said in a statement provided to Brazilian newspaper O Globo that it “has deep respect for the decisions of the Brazilian courts and complied with the court order within the deadline.”

“There is no doubt that the profile [goes against] the current electoral law, as it was clearly created for the purpose of invalidating the representative candidate,” Roberge wrote in his original decision.

“Freedom of speech has limits,” Roberge later told the BBC. “The law and the Constitution do not tolerate someone veiled by anonymity” to violate people&039;s honor and use images of them, he said.

“ITS Rio is disappointed that the Brazilian courts are threatening to block web services at the infrastructure level as an enforcement tool,” Fabro Steibel, Executive Director of the Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade do Rio, said in a statement. “Interfering with internet infrastructure can isolate the Brazilian network from the global Internet.

The showdown was the latest between the tech giant and the Brazilian government. Judges have ordered WhatsApp, the popular Facebook-owned messaging service, to be blocked in Brazil three times over the course of the last year. That feud centers around Facebook&039;s refusal to turn over information the Brazilians say is related to a criminal case.

Quelle: <a href="Facebook Deleted A Parody Account To Avoid Being Blocked In Brazil“>BuzzFeed

The Rise Of Viral Trump Merchandise

Redbubble

We’ve all been there: About to buy a cool new shirt, but afraid of showing up to the party and everyone’s wearing the same thing.

Donald Trump enthusiasts, however, are in luck: They’ve got options.

It’s only been four days since the Washington Post reported Trump’s vulgar 2005 suggestion to an NBC reporter to “grab them by the pussy,” but there are already 43 different styles with the quote available for sale on Redbubble.com.

On the social marketplace, which makes it easy to design and sell shirts, mugs, and posters, creators have already emblazoned Trump&#039;s latest not-quite-disqualifying remark onto a wide range of designs. They include a tasteful red-and-white, a cartoon speech bubble coming out of Trump&039;s mouth, and, for the subtler customer, a screen print of a black cat beneath the words “Locker Room Talk.” And these few dozen represent just a tiny fraction of the more than 10,000 Trump-related products ready for purchase on Redbubble, ranging from “The H Is Silent in Benghazi” t-shirts to “Pussy Game Strong” mugs to “1-800-Hotline-Trump” stationary.

They&039;re all part of a frantic, obscene, and crazily prolific market in unofficial and knockoff Trump merchandise that has flourished on big sites like Etsy and Redbubble (an Australian company that is sort of like Etsy crossed with Deviantart) and small web shops alike. Though the Trump campaign has its own official slogan and a corresponding acronym, this merch market is hardly limited to “Make American Great Again” and “MAGA.” Like the roiling internet communities that support Trump, the goods take the images and words of history&039;s most meme-able presidential candidate as a starting point from which to iterate endless $25 variations. It&039;s like 4chan or r/the_donald that you can wear.

“A picture of a red hat with &039;Grab Them By The Pussy&039; written on it had 2,000 retweets. That&039;s when it hit me.”

And like the global coalition of nihilists, ironists, racists, and actual conservatives who form these communities, the people who make merchandise are drawn to Trump&039;s image and speech for a variety of reasons.

Take Tyler Djokovic, a 19-year-old marketing student from Michigan. He got his start in viral t-shirts when he designed one featuring the inspirational musings of DJ Khaled, when those were a meme, all the way back in January. His Redbubble page also offers shirts featuring Harambe, Dat Boi, and Arthur&039;s fist.

Last week, shortly after the release of the now-infamous Access Hollywood video in which Trump lewdly discusses his pickup methods, Djokovic was searching the Twitter Moments tab, where he often goes to get an idea about trending memes. “Someone had tweeted out a picture of a red hat with Grab Them By The Pussy written on it, and it had 2,000 retweets,” he said. “That&039;s when it hit me.”

And so the “Grab Them By the Pussy” t-shirt was born. Or, maybe: The market for meme merch moves so fast that Tyler can&039;t be totally sure he was the first.

Djokovic said he didn&039;t make the t-shirt because he supports Trump — he declined to say whom he would vote for in November — but because it&039;s fun for him to try to predict what will go viral, and it&039;s a way to build his already robust social media presence. In fact, he considered the actual contest between Trump and Clinton an afterthought, merely a catalyst for creating internet culture.

“We&039;re not paying attention to the election,” Djokovic said. “We&039;re paying attention to the memes.”

Cameron Lee

Other meme-chandisers are paying attention to Trump&039;s speech — specifically his disdain for political correctness.

Cameron Lee, a 37-year-old designer from Southern California who lives in Tokyo, started making Trump t-shirts in March after being inspired by an image of Trump in World War One-era military regalia on 4chan. Shortly after, he came across a Facebook post in which several of his friends called all Trump supporters racist.

“I was standing there in my room thinking, this is horrible, this is terrible that I can’t say something like that without people thinking that I&039;m something I&039;m not,” Lee said. “Thats when I decided to go for it.”

Lee, who has a background in streetwear design (he once made t-shirts for Monarchy — think Ed Hardy and Affliction) moved on to other 4chan-inspired images like “Cuck Hunt,” a t-shirt depicting a rifle-toting Trump-Pepe in the style of the NES classic Duck Hunt; a Supreme-style MAGA snapback hat; and a coffee mug entitled “Sakura Bloodbath” that features a drawing of Trump clad in futuristic battle armor while bearing a blood-stained sword and plucking cherry blossoms.

And then there is the rare viral Trump merchandiser who finds inspiration offline. Kristie, a 44-year-old graphic designer from Kentucky, was eating her annual birthday dinner at Red Lobster when she overheard a couple complaining about a comment Hillary Clinton had made about “deplorable” Trump supporters.

“I looked at my husband and said, &039;Hmm, that&039;s going to be a moneymaker,&039;” she said.

“I don’t like Hillary as far as I can throw her. But I have some Hillary stuff on Etsy.”

After dinner, Kristie came home and “threw something together that looks good on a shirt.” She uploaded it to Etsy and Redbubble. Within days, she was selling over $1,000 a day in shirts.

Kristie considers herself a Trump supporter. “I can’t wear my own Trump shirt because I’m afraid I’m going to get shot,” Kristie said. “I’m one of those silent people.” But like many of the Trump merchandisers, her ultimate allegiance is to what sells. “I don’t like Hillary as far as I can throw her,” Kristie said, “But I have some Hillary stuff on Etsy.”

Indeed, success in the viral merchandise market depends on a hyper-awareness of what is popular and current. Kristie said she hasn&039;t sold any “Deplorable” t-shirts in two weeks; Tyler said his Dat Boi and DJ Khaled merch are “dead.” (Meanwhile, there are already 40 Ken Bone t-shirts available for sale on Redbubble.)

While the Trump merchandise market appears vast, like the campaign and the online communities that inspire it, its depth and its staying power are unclear. The Redbubble sellers are hardly making a killing. Djokovic said he&039;ll make a couple thousand dollars off of the shirts; Lee said he&039;s sold at the most a thousand t-shirts; and Kristie said no one has bought a “Deplorable” shirt in weeks. (Though, she added, her Deplorable garden flags are still a hot item.)

And though the shirts do sell, and though Lee said happy customers send him pictures of themselves in his clothing, it&039;s difficult to find people showing the merchandise off on social media. Perhaps that&039;s because, like Kristie, there is a legion of Trump supporters who have stayed quiet and are waiting to flaunt their shirts on Inauguration Day, if their candidate wins. Or perhaps it&039;s because the shirts are, as Djokovic put it, “impulse buys,” forgotten as soon as they arrive.

The Republican nominee will probably keep saying crazy stuff through November 8, so Trump viral merchandise will persist at least that long. Beyond that, well, it depends on what people like Djokovic see trending on Twitter.

And for Lee, no matter what happens next month, there are always ways to cater to 4chan: “I thought I’d make a nice comfy green Pepe shirt for the winter.”

Quelle: <a href="The Rise Of Viral Trump Merchandise“>BuzzFeed