As stated in other answers, https is now required to make requests to Maven Central, while older versions of Maven use http.
If you don't want to/cannot upgrade to Maven 3.2.3+, you can do a workaround by adding the following code into your MAVEN_HOME\conf\settings.xml into the <profiles>
section:
<profile>
<id>maven-https</id>
<activation>
<activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
</activation>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>central</id>
<url>https://repo1.maven.org/maven2</url>
<snapshots>
<enabled>false</enabled>
</snapshots>
</repository>
</repositories>
<pluginRepositories>
<pluginRepository>
<id>central</id>
<url>https://repo1.maven.org/maven2</url>
<snapshots>
<enabled>false</enabled>
</snapshots>
</pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>
</profile>
This will be always an active setting unless you disable/override it in your POM when needed.