Dr. Oz is getting called out again over a “magic weight-loss cure” he touted on his TV show … this time in a class action lawsuit.
The suit is all over weight loss supplements containing Garcinia Cambogia … which is green coffee bean extract. They’re sold by a company called Labrada, and Dr. Oz covered the products on an episode called “Five Biggest Fat Busters for Five Body Types in Just Five Days.”
The suit, filed by a consumer on behalf of all purchasers, says Oz described Garcinia Cambogia as a revolutionary fat buster which “could be the magic ingredient that lets you lose weight without diet or exercise.” The suit says the “Oz Effect” caused sales to skyrocket.
Oz already had to testify about this product for a Senate panel in 2014, and during the grilling he leaned on evidence from a scientific study. But the lawsuit points out that study has since been discredited.
According to the suit, “all credible scientific evidence” shows Garcinia Cambogia simply doesn’t work. The plaintiffs are going after Oz, Labrada, Harpo Productions and others to get their money back plus damages.
A rep for Oz’s show says the lawsuit attacks his right to free speech and, “As we have always explained to our viewers, the Dr. Oz Show does not sell these products nor does he have any financial ties to these companies.”
The internet era has enabled millions of consumers to get the inside scoop on merchandise they intend to buy through reading online reviews left by prior purchasers. Many of those reviews were written by legitimate individuals sharing their experience with a particular product or service. However other responses may have been left by trolls or people who have been paid to leave certain types of feedback. Although various review controversies have been covered by the media over the past several years, the FTC has just now settled its first lawsuit regarding fake online reviews.
The focus of the FTC’s first successful outcome in cases involving false reviews was a company named Cure Encapsulations, Inc. This organization sells a product called Quality Encapsulations Garcinia Cambogia Extract with HCA. The formulation of that supplement was designed to enable users to lose weight through appetite suppression. The product’s manufacturer also claimed that it could effectively prevent the formation of fat cells. Like many supplements, it was not vetted by the FDA and it is not backed by any scientific testing or results.
Despite lacking scientific evidence, the product garnered many positive reviews on internet superstore Amazon. During the FTC’s investigation, it was discovered that many of those positive reviews were purchased from AmazonVerifiedReviews.com. Even before this case, many Amazon consumers have sought to avoid fake reviews by instead visiting websites that provide unbiased reviews including an examination of a product’s pros and cons.
Although not the same as prosecution or a lawsuit levied by a federal government agency, Amazon has previously sued firms, including the one used by Cure Encapsulations, for publishing false reviews on their site. Amazon has also investigated significant time and resources in ferreting out false reviews and removing them from their site. At this time, Amazon has blocked Cure Encapsulation from continuing to sell products on their site. The supplement company, which sells a majority of its products as an Amazon third-party retail, may soon find itself in an economically negative situation.
The company’s attorney, August Horvath, has pledged to work with Amazon to find an amicable solution. Horvath also says that the company has not solicited or benefitted from fake reviews since the middle of 2015. Nevertheless, the FTC pursued charges of deceptive marketing against the organization, both for fake reviews and making unscientifically based claims as to their product’s efficacy. Terms of the settlement reached have not been released and will likely be subject to non-disclosure agreements.
There's not much wrong with Slim 3; lots of people are using it very successfully producing APIs and websites of all kinds. For Slim 4 the main goals have been to support PSR-15, make it easier to use your own PSR-7 implementation, improve error handling and remove assumptions that look magical if you don't know they are there. The latter one is the most important to me, personally!
Secondarily, Pierre has concentrated on making Slim's code more flexible and hopefully making it easier to swap out our internal components with your own if you need to. On a whim, I ran phploc on the current Slim 3 and Slim 4-dev codebases to see what differences were. The full results are in this gist.
Note that Slim 4 doesn't have the PSR-7 implementation or the container wrapper, so it's maybe not possible to directly compare some of the numbers, but the cyclomatic complexity numbers are interesting and a direct outcome of Pierre's work:
Slim 3 Slim 4-dev
Cyclomatic Complexity
Average Complexity per LLOC 0.30 0.18
Average Complexity per Class 10.40 4.76
Minimum Class Complexity 1.00 1.00
Maximum Class Complexity 67.00 25.00
Average Complexity per Method 2.44 2.05
Minimum Method Complexity 1.00 1.00
Maximum Method Complexity 15.00 15.00
Cyclomatic complexity is a measure of the complexity of a codebase. It's really hard to ensure that a method with a high cyclomatic complexity works as intended and I'm delighted to see these numbers go down! Hopefully this means that Slim 4's internals are easier to understand and it will be easier to contribute to.
We need to find, assess and simplify the method has that 15.00 though!
Running a listing-based website can be both fun and lucrative. But traditionally, leveraging this type of platform to list real estate, jobs, automobiles or classified ads has been cumbersome and expensive. Building this type of site with WordPress meant investing a good bit of money in multiple plugins, while attempting to make all of these different pieces work together.
uListing is here to change that narrative. This free WordPress plugin from Stylemix Themes offers powerful functionality, fine-grain control, along with a simple drag-and-drop UI. Crafting a professional listings site has never been easier or more cost-effective.
Indeed, uListing includes features that go well beyond what you’d expect from a free plugin. Take a look and see for yourself!
A Complete Solution
uListing has been built from the ground up to provide all of the functionality and flexibility you need in one, easy-to-use package. From custom listings all the way to accepting online payments, it’s all here.
Create Custom Listing Types in Minutes
No matter which types of listings your site requires, uListing makes setup a breeze. Add custom listing attributes to correspond with your specific needs. Plus, create search forms, result listings, single listing pages and more. Best of all, you can add as many custom listing types as you like.
Monetize Listings
Create a revenue stream for your website with uListing’s built-in eCommerce functionality. Add various pricing plans that offer value to customers and accept online payments through PayPal or Stripe. There’s no need to deal with third-party shopping carts – everything you need to get started is included!
User-Friendly UI
uListing makes it easy for content creators get things done. On the back end, the Vue.js-powered plugin allows for drag-and-drop simplicity and lightning-quick speed. You’ll get more done in less time.
Control the Process
Don’t want to provide access to the back end? You don’t have to! uListing enables users to manage their account and listings through the front end. Plus, you’ll find a number of settings that enable you to tweak things to meet your exact specifications.
Powerful Custom Search
Visitors to your site can find exactly what they’re looking for, thanks to uListing’s advanced custom search features. Users will be able to filter results via criteria that you set.
Go to the Next Level with uListing Addons
uListing provides the foundation for a highly-customized listings site. But it doesn’t stop there. Through the use of some powerful (and incredibly affordable) addon plugins, you can take your site even further.
Subscription
Create payment plans that are both convenient and flexible. With the Subscription addon, you can offer recurring payments, featured listings and even limit the number of listings for subscribers. It’s everything you need to integrate professional payment options into your site.
User Roles
With the User Roles addon, you’ll have fine-grain control over what users can and can’t do on your website. Create an unlimited number of WordPress user roles and assign a listing limit to them. Add custom fields to roles to collect more relevant user data. You can even moderate listings before they are published.
Compare
One of the core features of a great listing site is the ability to compare multiple items. With the Compare addon, visitors will be able to view multiple listings side-by-side, helping them to make the right choice. Plus, you can set exactly which fields appear within the comparison.
Combined, all three addons bring robust features and cost as much as a few cups of coffee!
Get Started with uListing
uListing relieves designers of both the pain and cost associated with building a top-notch listings site. Just by installing this free WordPress plugin, you’ll have a huge head start on the competition.
And you’ll also have access to an incredible array of features that let you offer virtually any type of listing you can imagine. Plus, the built-in eCommerce capabilities will enable you to start monetizing your site right away.
Install uListing today and see how easy it is to build the listings site of your dreams.
JetBrains announced the release of PhpStorm 2019.1 this week with debugging support for Blade (and Twig) templates and a new predefined Laravel code style configuration.
Visit Laravel News for the full post.
The post PhpStorm 2019...
Do you prefer composition over inheritance? Yes, that's great. Why aren't your classes final then? Oh, you have tests and you mock your classes. But why is that a problem?
By Barry O’Donovan
Thanks to Taylor Otwell’s Laravel framework, PHP is reclaiming its rightful place as the go-to language for web application development. For those of us maintaining and developing applications using legacy frameworks, the grass certainly looks greener on Laravel’s ...
