Less than a day after we first heard that Massachusetts was blocking Uber from operating in Boston, the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation has reversed its decision. The service, if you're not familiar, is a private taxi service that works by smartphone: the user calls the taxi via a smartphone app, but critically an Uber app is also used by the driver to determine the distance driven for billing purposes. It's that last detail that caused a problem for the Commonwealth, which requires that all taxi services use a measurement approved by the Division of Standards — and GPS wasn't on the list.

However, Pando Daily points us to an email posted on Scott Kirsner's blog from the office in charge of the decision which reverses the decision by way of a loophole. "The Division has since learned that this device is already being evaluated for certification by the National Institute of Standards and Technology," and that national body's word is apparently good enough for Massachusetts. The cease and desist order has been lifted and Boston Uber users can feel free to start agitating for the less-expensive UberX to launch locally.