Netflix outage mars Christmas Eve

The company’s video streaming service went down for an undetermined number of people across the Americas yesterday. The outage continued into Christmas morning for some customers.

 December 25, 2012 9:00 AM PST

Netflix’s video streaming service suffered a Christmas Eve outage on “many but not all devices” across the Americas, according to the company.

The outage continued into Christmas morning for some customers. The company tweeted on its Netflix US account at 8:45 a.m. PT today that the service was “back to normal streaming levels.”

Netflix first started responding to tweets about disrupted service before 1 p.m. PT yesterday. About three hours later, Netflix offered an apology on its main Twitter account.

“We’re sorry for the Christmas Eve outage. Terrible timing! Engineers are working on it now,”Netflix said in a tweet in the late afternoon yesterday.

Netflix pinned the issue on Amazon Web Services servers and said it was working with Amazon engineers on a fix.

By evening, Netflix noted that the problem was not yet resolved and promised to tweet as soon as it was back up.

Netflix spokesman Joris Evers e-mailed a statement to CNET today about the outage, noting that “streaming was available again for the majority of our members late on Christmas Eve Pacific Time.”

Netflix tagged the outage as starting around 12:30 p.m. PT. The number of devices affected by the outage was “initially limited but grew in scope” over the afternoon, Evers said.

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“We…apologize for any inconvenience caused last night,” today’s statement said. “We are investigating the cause and will do what we can to prevent reccurrence.”

Not surprisingly, many angry customers poured out their wrath via social networking. However, Joel Braverman, developer program coordinator at Roku, looked at the bright side.

“Thanks to @netflix outage we can likely expect a moderate population explosion in nine months,” he tweeted today.

This story was updated at 10:50 a.m. PT.

Netflix outage mars Christmas Eve

Stuxnet attacks Iran again, reports say

The worm apparently was aimed at a power plant and other sites in southern Iran but was thwarted.

 

An Iranian news agency says the country successfully fended off yet another attack by the Stuxnet worm, according to reports.

The cyberattack targeted a power plant and other sites in southern Iran over the fall, the BBC and theAssociated Press reported today.

Discovered in June 2010, Stuxnet is believed to be the first malware targeted specifically at critical infrastructure systems. It’s thought to have been designed to shut down centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant, where stoppages and other problems reportedly occurred around that time. The sophisticated worm spreads via USB drives and through four previously unknown holes, known as zero-day vulnerabilities, in Windows.

Stuxnet is just one of several versions of malware aimed at Middle Eastern countries in the past two and a half years. Along Stuxnet, there have arisen Duqu, Gauss, Mahdi, Flame, Wiper, and Shamoon.

Stuxnet attacks Iran again, reports say

alaxy S4 model number or high-end TIZEN smarpthone confirmed: GT-I9500

Galaxy S4 model number or high-end TIZEN smarpthone confirmed: GT-I9500

Samsung is said to sell over half a billion cell phones next year, with almost 400 million of those being smartphones. Obviously, we expect Android to be the main mobile OS for Samsung’s 2013 smartphones, although other operating systems such as Windows Phone and TIZEN will also equip some of them.

Sam Mobile seems to have confirmed a model number for the next flagship Samsung smartphone, the GT-I9500, which will run either Android or TIZEN.

According to the online publication, the GT-I9500 could very well be the Galaxy S4 because the number 4 is apparently unlucky in South Korea – the Galaxy S3’s model number is I9300 – and therefore Samsung would skip I9400 in favor of I9500 (I9505 for the LTE version). It also seems that Samsung hasn’t used the number 4 in high-end devices.

At the same time, we could be looking at Samsung’s first TIZEN handset here, even though that may not sound as interesting to Android fans.

No matter what handset model we’d be looking at, it’s worth mentioning that Samsung is reportedly testing software for the two handset versions, GT-I9500 and GT-I9505, as follows:

Model: GT-I9500
I9500XXALL1/I9500OXAALL1/I9500XXALK3
Model: GT-I9505 (Probably LTE version)
I9505XXALL1/I9505OXAALL1/I9505XXALK7

Will you buy a Samsung smartphone next year, or are you interested in trying out something else?

alaxy S4 model number or high-end TIZEN smarpthone confirmed: GT-I9500

Everyone should check this out

<iframe width=”150″ height=”450″ style=”position: relative; display: block; width: 150px; height: 450px;” src=”http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=24825125/size=tall2/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/” allowtransparency=”true” frameborder=”0″><a href=”http://justwo.bandcamp.com/album/2ice-as-nice”>2ICE as NICE by Jus Two</a></iframe>

 

 

Everyone should check this out

Old vs. new tech -- and old tech wins by a landslide

A $250,000 3D printer’s LP can’t match the resolution of a sixty-year-old LP — and it’s not even close!

3D printing of a standard LP’s grooves isn’t possible with today’s technology.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

The LP was invented in 1948, and judging by the sales surge over the past few years LPs won’t be going away anytime soon. Amanda Ghassaei’s “3D Printed Record” project demonstrated vinyl’s continuing relevance in the 21st century. Years ago when I saw an early demonstration of 3D printing, I knew the technology would eventually lead to printing LPs, but now it’s a little closer to becoming a reality. First, however, there are major sound-quality issues to overcome with 3D printed LPs (though they can play tunes with fidelity that’s far below MP3 quality). The article claims the LP was derived from a 11-kHz sampling rate file, with 6-bit resolution. That’s a limitation imposed by the technology of today’s best 3D printers, including the 600dpi UV-cured resin printer, a $250,000 Objet Connex500, but even so it couldn’t duplicate the microscopic wiggles of an LP record with accuracy. The Objet Connex500′s LP grooves had to be 10 timesbigger than those of a standard LP.

Some might argue that printing a 3D LP from a digital file doesn’t make any sense, but most new LPs made over the last 10 or 15 years were digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered. “Pure,” all-analog LPs are rarely made anymore. If you want to hear all-analog records, buy pre-1980s pressed LPs. I have thousands of them, and yes, they sound better than most digitally sourced LPs. Old tech can occasionally trump new tech.

It’s interesting that even state of the art 3D printers fall far short of what’s achievable with old-fashioned record pressing machines. Well-mastered LPs are capable of delivering remarkable resolution, when played on a top turntable fitted with a high-end phono cartridge. Heck, even hundred-year-old Thomas Edison cylinder recordings sound better than the Objet Connex500 3D printed LPs. Listening to the 3D printed LP in Ghassaei’s video of her project, it’s easy to hear how comparatively crude 3D technology is. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before 3D printers catch up and even surpass conventionally pressed LPs, but until that day arrives, I’ll be happily playing my old-fashioned records.

Old vs. new tech -- and old tech wins by a landslide

Christmas surprise for Droid Razr, Razr Maxx

Jelly Bean starts finding its way into the Christmas stockings of Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx owners.

 December 24, 2012 2:47 PM PST

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx (L) and Motorola Droid Razr (R)

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The original Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx have begun receiving their over-the-air update toAndroid 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, according to a report at Android Central.

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The update is clocking in at more than 300 MB, so it’s recommended that you upgrade over Wi-Fi only, unless you’ve got a high or non-existent mobile data cap. Many people are reporting in the Android Central forums that their updates are failing to complete install on first try, too.

To check if you’ve got the update, go to Settings, About Phone, and then System Update.

The update comes follows on the heels of the Droid Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD getting their update to Jelly Bean at the beginning of December, and keeps Motorola’s promise toupdate their phones more frequently.

There’s no word yet on whether the original Razr or Razr Maxx will see Android 4.2.

Topics:

OS updates,

Android software

Tags:

Droid Razr,

Jelly Bean,

Droid Razr Maxx

Christmas surprise for Droid Razr, Razr Maxx

Customer claims Sprint worker said his fingers 'too fat' for iPhone

Does finger size really matter?

(Credit: CNET)

It’s possible you might put on a few pounds during this holiday season.

Might I suggest you perform additional exercises with your fingers? You know, so that they don’t get too large.

This would seem to be extremely sane advice if you want to buy an iPhone from Sprint.

At least that’s what one Sprint customer would have you believe. This customer says he billowed his way into his local Sprint store in order to get a replacement for his damaged phone.

As told to Tom’s Hardware, when he discovered he could get a free replacement iPhone 4, the customer thought this seemed like a sound value proposition.

The Sprint salesperson allegedly countered by telling the customer that the iPhone is “really a piece of s***.”

I am all for creative salesmanship. This, however, seemed to go down as well as a restoration of the Mona Lisa involving acrylics and a hairbrush.

As many salespeople are, this one was apparently undeterred.

He allegedly went on to list all the many, colorful reasons why the iPhone is really, really “a piece of s***.”

These included battery life, fragility, and size — the last of which supposedly led to “your fingers are too fat for such a phone. You should get the Galaxy S3.”

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I would be stunned into emitting lava from my mouth had I not myself, with a slim-fingered witness at my side, enjoyed a somewhat similar experience at a Verizon store, where the salesperson did everything possible to unsell me an iPhone.

No, he didn’t use the phrase “really a piece of s***.” But he did offer that other phones were 10 times faster than the iPhone and that only Apple wants to push iPhones, Verizon doesn’t.

I am sure that in neither case could the salesperson’s iPooh-poohing be at all related to the amount of money the store makes (or doesn’t) from the iPhone.

I have contacted Sprint to see whether the company has any comment about the digital size of customers who are eligible to buy an iPhone.

In this particular case, the transaction doesn’t seem to have gone in Sprint’s favor.

For the customer concluded:

Customer claims Sprint worker said his fingers 'too fat' for iPhone