Tag: down

Apple Store Is Down Worldwide, New Products In Line?

The worldwide Apple store is down, and it has been down for the past 3 hours, giving rise to speculations that new/refreshed products will soon be announced.

Apple, from time to time, takes down its websites for maintenance and user interface upgrades so it could all just be a false alarm. However, if Apple were to announce a new device right now, it would most probably be a new line of Macbook Pros. Other than that, it could officially release the Mac Pro, the device they said would be announced later this year.

The new Mac Pro will be at least doubly powerful on every count than its predecessors. Its flash storage will be 10 times faster than any hard drive Apple has installed in its Mac Pros yet. The flash storage will offer 1.26 Gbps for reading and 1 Gpbs for writing. It will run on Intel Xeon chips, with up to 12-core configurations possible.

Among the changes to the casing, the new Mac Pro will be able to rotate using a handle on top. Motion sensors will detect when it is being rotated and the computer will light up the input panel for greater visibility.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s a false alarm.

July 12, 2013
Wikipedia back online after brief service cut

Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia was knocked offline on Monday thanks to two accidentally cut cables near a data centre in Florida.

The site, and various associated services, were inaccessible or extremely sluggish for over two hours beginning at around 1430 BST on Monday.

A status web page showed various parts of the Wikimedia network as suffering performance issues.

Wikipedia ruled out any suggestion of malicious intent being behind problem.

The two cables, which stretched between Tampa and Virginia, were broken for an hour and six minutes, the site said.

After the cables were repaired, it took another hour for basic service on Wikipedia to be restored.

Its mobile site appeared to unaffected, although the service’s API – application programming interface – continued to suffer problems even when the main site had been restored.

David Gerard, a UK spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation – the charity which owns Wikipedia and other similar sites – told the BBC that the problem had been fixed.

“Things appear to have been patched up, services are being brought back and things are getting to OK now,” he said.

“Someone cut the cables going to the Tampa, Florida data centre. We have two big [centres], one in Florida and one in Virginia, and some network proxies in Amsterdam.

“Everyone in that data centre was affected!”

He said it was not yet clear what had caused the cut, or where exactly it had taken place.

Mr Gerard joked that due to the site’s limited financial resources, some of its infrastructure relied on “gaffer tape and string”.

In an error message posted to the site, the Wikimedia Foundation reiterated its reliance on donations to fund its continued operation.

“The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which hosts some of the most popular sites on the internet,” the message read.

“It has a constant need to purchase new hardware. If you would like to help, please donate.”

Despite its limited funding, the site is considered to have impressive reliability. Its last significant down time was deliberate – the site went “offline” for 24 hours in protest at proposed anti-piracy bills in the US.

August 7, 2012
Google to shut down podcast app Listen, Video for Business & Apps for Teams

Google will be shuttering Apps for Teams, Google Listen, Google Video for Business and an unspecified number of its more than 150 blogs.

[quote]“Technology has the power to change people’s lives. But to make a difference, we need to carefully consider what to focus on, and make hard decisions about what we won’t pursue,” Google wrote in a blog post. “This enables us to devote more time and resources giving you products you love, and making them better for you.”[/quote]

Google says it’s made changes to around 50 products, features and services in the past year. By eliminating products, it says, it can better allocate its time to more popular products, which will be used by more people.

Google Apps for Teams was launched in 2008 to allow people with school or business email addresses to collaborate on non-email applications, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk. Come Sept. 4, Google will turn Team accounts into regular Google accounts.

In 2009, Google Listen was launched for improved podcast discovery, which the company says has been made irrelevant because of Google Play. The podcast search function will be discontinued Nov. 1, though people who’ve already downloaded specific tracks will still be able to listen. Podcast subscriptions will be available in Google Reader, under the “Listen Subscription” folder.

Google Video for Business has allowed Apps for Business and Apps for Education users to use video for internal communications. Stored videos will be migrated this fall into Google Drive, but will not count against a user’s storage quota.

Though Google did not elaborate on which of its more than 150 blogs it would be terminating, the company says it won’t reduce post quantity, rather it will consolidate its communications in its most popular blogs.

August 6, 2012
Google Talk back in service after suffering global outage

The Google Talk IM and video chat service suffered a massive global outage beginning early on Thursday, leaving users mum for more than four hours. The service was restored around 8.25PM.

The outage was first reported by users on Twitter, a social networking website. “Google talk being down is massively annoying! You don’t realise how much you take it for granted,” Pete Gould, a Twitter user said.

Many Google Talk users reported that they could log into the service, saw their contacts with the respective status but failed to send messages to them. Some other users could not log in. The service is not only used by people to keep in touch with friends but has also become a popular way to interact with co-workers in offices.

July 26, 2012
Breaking Apple Store Down – iPhone 5 is coming

Guess what folks, its just about an hour to the iPhone 5 announcement and the Apple store is down. The iPhone 5 is coming, be sure to check out the live blog at 10:30 pm for the latest updates from the Announcement.

October 4, 2011
How to Shut Down a Nuclear Reactor

At the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, UK, seawater is taken in and filtered before it is used to cool down the reactor cores. It is not unusual for these inlets to be clogged with debris from the ocean, mainly seaweed and jellyfish. But on the 28th of June, the power plant faced a highly unusual situation.

Clouds of jellyfish seemed to be pulled towards the plant and clogged its intake filters. This reduced the flow of cool seawater to the reactor cores. At first the plant engineers tried to reduce the load on the cores to reduce the amount of water required to cool them, but that was not sufficient and the cores had to eventually be shut down. Local fishermen were employed by the plant in the effort to clear up the jellyfish. They also used spotter planes to identify the large swarms or blooms of the sea creatures out in the open ocean. Large industrial vacuum cleaners (mounted on trucks) were also used to clear the water of any jellyfish that made it past the intake filters.

The incident has been picked up by environmentalists to prove the unreliability of nuclear power, however the plant bosses claim that the public was never in any danger. The plant is regularly taken offline to ensure that its in good working order and this incident was no different. One of the plants cores was brought back online today while the other core is still being serviced.

Why the jellyfish decided to make the sudden migration to the plant’s intake filters remains a mystery to experts and has stumped locals. So how many jellyfish did they end up catching? Over 600 tons!

July 1, 2011
Apple Shuts downs the Online store, New MacBooks coming?

Looks like as per the rumors the new MacBooks are slated for today and the possible refresh is happening as we speak.

As per rumors the new MacBook pro 13 inchers are getting the core 13-15 treatment, with basic upgrades in the 15 inch and 17 inch versions, there is also a possibility of the new sandy bridge processors to be added to the devices.

Stay tuned as we will have the updates once the store is back online

February 24, 2011