Tag: mh370

Revisiting 2014: Top Technology Failures of Last Year

The world of technology saw many ups and down last year. It was predominantly a good year for the tech industry, but there were some visible failures as well. While the sales of smartphones reached new altitudes, the biggest name of mobile telephony, Nokia departed from the mobile phone business. Several high-level security breaches questioned the safety of online storage. As 2014 comes to a close, we decided to list the gleaming failures of the tech industry.

1. Sony Pictures:

Never before has a movie been called an ‘act of war’, and you wouldn’t have guessed that it would be a Seth Rogen movie. The film led to one of the biggest ever cyber-attacks on a major movie studio. Sony Pictures was brought down and humiliated by a group called the Guardians of Peace or #GOP. They claimed to have stolen more than 100 Terabytes of data from the studio. The hackers soon began unveiling details from the Sony data, that was embarrassing not just to the studio, but also to some big names from the entertainment industry including Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Adam Sandler. The hack is also the reason of heavy diplomatic tussle between the USA and North Korea.

2. iCloud Hack:

Another major cyber breach took place at Apple’s trusted iCloud storage. Thousands of private and intimate photos of celebrities were leaked online. This caused quite a furor around the world and put Apple in an awkward spot. Apple later confirmed that the hackers responsible for the leak had obtained the images using a “very targeted attack” on account information, such as passwords, rather than any specific security vulnerability in the iCloud service itself.

3. Uber:

The app based cab service had to face one PR disaster after another. There were multiple complaints of its driver harassing the passengers or sexually assaulting them. A highly publicized rape case in India led the company to temporarily cease its operations in many parts of the country. There were also revelations that Uber was spying on journalists who were being critical of the company. Uber also tried to take down its competition by ordering about 6000 rides and then canceling them. Even the drivers reported that they were exploited by the company. Guess for its new year resolution, Uber’s only resolution should be: Don’t be evil.

4. Malaysian Airlines MH 370:

On 8th March 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared – vanished, leaving behind many questions and limited answers. No one would have thought that in the age of satellites and modern communication equipments, a plane can just disappear from the radar screens. The disappearance also led to several conspiracy theories. The last signal from the aircraft was broadcasted when it was over South China sea. There was a massive multinational effort to locate the lost plane, but it yielded no results. The search was the largest and most expensive in aviation history. There was also added bad news for Malaysian Airlines whose other plane, MH 17 was shot down pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine using surface to air missiles.

5. Apple iPhone 6 Plus:

After months of speculations and ever present hysteria around it, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were launched with much fanfare albeit with a faulty livestream. The bigger variant, the iPhone 6 Plus soon became the butt of all jokes following reports of its bendability. Users found that the new device was easy to bend, and it quickly started trending on social media with the tag “#Bendgate”. There is an easy fix for the issue, and that is to use the phone with a protective case.

6. Amazon Fire Phone:

Amazon really hyped its phone. There was a lot of buzz before the launch of the device, but it failed to capture commercial appeal. The device had some features like 3D display that could have been its defining element but turned out to be gimmicky. That coupled with below average battery performance, and low app availability led to low sales and forced the company to slash prices rapidly. Some reviewers even called it more of a prototype than a real device. Amazon has now begun working on the Amazon Fire Phone 2, which is expected to come out in 2016.

7. BlackBerry:

The company that was identified as one of the pioneers of the smartphone market has rapidly lost market share ever since the advent of the iPhone and Android ecosystems. Seeing that it was not going to carve out a place for itself in the brutal touch screen device market, the company decided to go back to its roots. The first device in this new attempt by the company was the Passport. Though the company tried to bring innovations into the device like a keyboard that also acts as a touchpad and a square display, it hasn’t managed to entice a lot of folks. This ultra wide device cannot be used with one hand and takes its own sweet time to focus while taking photos. The second device from the company called the Classic, might help bring back the experience that BlackBerry users were used to and get the company out of these times of peril.

8. Sony:

The year 2014 wasn’t really kind to this consumer electronics giant. The company lost a massive amount of money, in terms of billions. Its smartphone market share constantly kept falling along with its other electronics. The end of the year brought it a massive torment when its Hollywood studio got hacked by the North Korean hackers. The only saving grace for the company was its PlayStation business which saw an upward trajectory this year. All these misfortunes caused the company to introspect and set a goal of returning back to profitability.

9. Microsoft Kinect 2.0:

Seems like consumers are not ready for motion capture or spending extra for a hands-free gaming experience. Microsoft bet big money on the Kinect 2.0 and brought it in the market with improved functionalities. Microsoft was selling Kinect with the Xbox One. Sales were slow, and so Microsoft decided to unbundle the Kinect and sold Xbox One without it and cut $100 off the price. The result: Microsoft’s console easily beat Sony’s PlayStation in holiday sales. Though it is not the end of the Kinect as of yet. As the motion-based games and technology gets better, more folks will get comfortable to give the boot to the good old controllers and get on the Kinect bandwagon. It’s just a matter of time.

January 1, 2015
Australia Detects Two Objects Measuring 79 Feet, Could be Parts of MH370

Several days and searches later, when many countries came up negative in their search for the MH370(The Malaysian Airlines flight which went missing about 10 days ago) it seems that we may finally have a positive lead to locating the missing aircraft.

No information, or debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been found ever since it disappeared on March 8. This has been one of the largest search efforts in the aviation history , but at the same time, what concerns everyone is what happened to those 239 people in the plane.

Australia had sent aircrafts and a navy ship to a particular area in the southern Indian Ocean to determine whether two large floating objects spotted by a satellite are pieces of wreckage from the Malaysian jet MH370.

Satellite imagery analyzed by experts shows two objects of big sizes around the southern Indian Ocean, said John Young, general manager of Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority. This was spotted about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth.

Here’s the statement that Abbott gave to Parliament:

I would like to inform the House that new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The Australia Maritime Safety Authority has receive information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search.

Following specialist analysis of this imagery two possible objects of the search have been identified. I can inform the House that a Royal Australian Air Force Orion has been diverted to attempt to locate the objects. This Orion is expected to arrive in the area at about this time. Three more aircraft will follow this Orion for more intensive followup search.

I’ve spoken to my Malaysian counterpart, Prime Minister Najib Razak and informed him of these developments. I should tell the House and we must keep this in mind, the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370, but I did want to inform the house of this potentially important development.

It is not clear if this information is true or not, but it is important to follow up leads as the aircraft is missing since two weeks and was carrying 239 passengers.

March 20, 2014
Hyderabad IT professional Spots MH370 in Satellite Images

Several days and several searches later, when many countries came up empty in their search for the MH370, Malaysian Airlines flight which went missing about 10 days ago, A Hyderabad based software techie may have found possibly the most vital clue in finding this aircraft. Anoop Madhav Yeggina, an IT professional working with a software company in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, uploaded a satellite image and claimed it was the image of the missing flight. While searching images of DigitalGlobe Satellite QB02, Anoop had found a satellite image of a large aircraft flying very low above the Andaman Islands on March 8.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Anoop Madhav Yeggina”]I am confident that the image is that of the missing plane because of many reasons. First giveaway is the fact that the image was captured just above a forest and very close to the Shibpur air strip of Andaman Islands.The air strip is exclusively used by the defence forces with no permission for civilian aircraft in this area. A close look at the image will reveal if it is flying extremely low so much so that the clouds are above it which suggests it was done to avoid detection by radar. Most importantly, the standard scale measurement and colour of the missing plane matches with that of the plane in the image[/quote]

According to Anoop, the aircraft matches the dimensions of the missing airliner and also the colour. The area in which the image was taken, is meant for Defence Aircraft so a commercial airliner in this area could mean that there is a high possibility of a highjack. Considering it has been 10 days, there is no possible way the Aircraft could remain in the air without refuelling. Lots of outcomes of the current scenario can be had including a large possibility of the image being incorrect.

Update :

It has since been verified that the image of the aircraft is actually a dated image, where the fields around the aircraft in the image match an old stock image from as old as 2009 and are significantly different in the present version, at Coordinates:13.29431,92.99277.

March 19, 2014