Terms of use
The agreement, in plain English.
This is the alpha version of these terms. A version reviewed by an attorney lands before public beta, and it will not quietly say less than this one does. Where a clause protects us, it says so in words you can read rather than in words designed not to be.
Who you are agreeing with
Vergence is operated by A & R Technologies & Services, LLC, a Florida limited liability company. These terms are the agreement between you and that company covering your use of Vergence, including the web application, the API behind it and this website. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.
Where these terms say we, us or our, they mean A & R Technologies & Services, LLC.
No warranty
Vergence is provided AS IS and AS AVAILABLE, without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim every implied warranty, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
Plainly, because this is the part that matters in this field: Vergence computes numbers from which physical parts may be made. Radii, thicknesses, glass choices, tolerances and yields. Every one of those numbers is yours to verify before anything is manufactured. The product is built so that you can — it shows its working, and refuses rather than guessing — but using it does not move that responsibility onto us.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to Vergence is limited to one hundred US dollars.
We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages of any kind. That includes lost profits, lost or corrupted data, business interruption, the cost of procuring substitute software, and the cost of a manufactured part that does not perform as intended.
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and any dispute arising under them will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Florida. Some jurisdictions do not permit some of these exclusions; where that is so, they apply only as far as that jurisdiction allows.
You are the engineer
Vergence is a design tool. It is not an engineering certification, not a sign-off, and not a substitute for your own professional judgement or for a design review by a qualified person.
Nothing Vergence produces is a representation that a design will perform, that it can be manufactured, that it meets a specification, or that it is free of anyone else's intellectual property rights. Those remain your determinations to make.
Your designs are yours
You keep every right you already have in the designs, prescriptions, merit functions, tolerance budgets and files you bring to or create in Vergence. We claim no ownership of any of it.
The licence you grant us is only what running the service requires: to store your design so it is there when you come back, to trace and analyse it on our servers when you ask us to, and to send the parts of it relevant to your question to our model provider when you invoke VergenceAI. It exists to operate the service for you, and it ends when you delete your data.
We do not train any model on your designs. We do not add your designs to the reference corpus that ships with Vergence without your consent, and if you change your mind afterwards, write to us and we will take it out.
Acceptable use
Do not use Vergence for anything unlawful. Do not reverse engineer, decompile, resell, sublicense or scrape it. Do not attempt to reach another user's account or data, to defeat the invitation gate, or to place load on the service beyond what your own design work needs.
Export control
Vergence is not configured to receive export-controlled technical data, and your design data leaves our servers when you use VergenceAI. You must not upload data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations, and by using Vergence you represent that you have not.
We would rather state this than imply a capability we have not built. If your work is controlled, Vergence in its current form is not an appropriate place for it.
VergenceAI
VergenceAI proposes and never applies. Every change it suggests arrives as a diff that waits for you to approve it, and nothing reaches your design until you do.
Its outputs can be wrong. The numbers it quotes are measured by the deterministic engine, but the reasoning that connects them is the model's, and a model can be mistaken with complete confidence. What it sees, where that goes and what it is not for are set out on our AI page.
The alpha
Vergence is in a private, invite-only alpha. It is free today. It carries no uptime commitment, no support commitment and no guarantee that any feature will survive, and it may change, break or end.
We will give at least 30 days notice before we begin charging for anything you are already using.
Age
You must be at least 18 years old to use Vergence. It is professional engineering software, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger.
Termination
You may stop using Vergence at any time, and you may ask us to close your account and delete your data. We may suspend or end an account that breaks these terms, and we may end the alpha itself.
The clauses that are meant to outlive the agreement do: no warranty, limitation of liability, your ownership of your designs, and anything else that by its nature should survive.
Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. When a change is material we will say so on this page and give notice by email to alpha users before it takes effect, rather than changing the date and hoping nobody reads it. Continuing to use Vergence after a change takes effect means you accept it.
Reaching a person
A person reads these. Questions about these terms, a complaint, or a request to close your account all go to the same address.