Cloud computing services from both Microsoft and Google experienced outages in the past several days. Microsoft's online services infrastructure experienced an issue that affected some customers in North America online last Wednesday, causing interruptions in Office 365 and various Windows Live services for a few hours. That same day, Google's cloud productivity service, Google Docs, went offline for about an hour.
While none resulted in the loss of data, each stoppage caused services to be unavailable to users for hours at a time. The issues encountered over the past week raise questions about just how dependable cloud based services really are.
Microsoft said it experienced network connectivity issues at one of its data centers that services some North American customers. The Google outage was caused by a change designed to improve real time collaboration within the document list," Google said in its Enterprise Blog. "Unfortunately this change exposed a memory management bug which was only evident under heavy usage"
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
China Has Renewed Its Google Content Provider License
The Chinese government has renewed Google's Internet Content Provider license, giving the company another year to operate its local website in China. The license for the China based site Google.cn, must be reviewed annually. China regulates Internet content in part through issuing licenses and overseeing companies like Google and its chief Chinese competitor Baidu Inc. Chinese authorities block or limit access to websites based overseas.
Google scaled back its China operations last year after a disagreement with authorities over its concerns about censorship and hacking. Google said they would would stop filtering its content as required by local regulations. This caused users to fear the company would discontinue its Chinese language services entirely, or that the government would retaliate by banning its websites within the country. Rather, Google began redirecting users from its Chinese domain address, Google.cn, to a website in Hong Kong whose search results Google doesn't filter.
Google scaled back its China operations last year after a disagreement with authorities over its concerns about censorship and hacking. Google said they would would stop filtering its content as required by local regulations. This caused users to fear the company would discontinue its Chinese language services entirely, or that the government would retaliate by banning its websites within the country. Rather, Google began redirecting users from its Chinese domain address, Google.cn, to a website in Hong Kong whose search results Google doesn't filter.
Friday, September 02, 2011
Internet Explorer will drop to an under 50% share by mid 2012
Microsoft's Internet Explorer i headed towards losing its place as the #1 browser by the middle of 2012, according to statistics published by Web metrics company Net Applications.
In August, IE lost almost a percentage point in usage share, falling to 55.3%, a new low for the slowly declining browser. In the last year, IE has dropped 6.9 points. On Windows 7 IE9 accounts for 20.4% of all browsers globally, and 27.7% on Windows 7 in the U.S. IE9 runs on Windows 7 and Vista, but does not work on Windows XP. IE8 is currently the most popular version, with a 30% share overall and 54.4% of all editions of IE.
Almost all IE's decline over the last year is thanks to Google's Chrome browser. In the last 12 months, Chrome has increased by 7.8% points to 15.5%. Firefox on the other hand is in danger of losing its 2nd place spot which it has held for years. If Firefox and Chrome keep to the pace they have been on, Chrome will overtake Firefox about the same time IE falls to under 50%.
In August, IE lost almost a percentage point in usage share, falling to 55.3%, a new low for the slowly declining browser. In the last year, IE has dropped 6.9 points. On Windows 7 IE9 accounts for 20.4% of all browsers globally, and 27.7% on Windows 7 in the U.S. IE9 runs on Windows 7 and Vista, but does not work on Windows XP. IE8 is currently the most popular version, with a 30% share overall and 54.4% of all editions of IE.
Almost all IE's decline over the last year is thanks to Google's Chrome browser. In the last 12 months, Chrome has increased by 7.8% points to 15.5%. Firefox on the other hand is in danger of losing its 2nd place spot which it has held for years. If Firefox and Chrome keep to the pace they have been on, Chrome will overtake Firefox about the same time IE falls to under 50%.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Facebook to Debut Music Service in September
According to Mashable, Facebok will join hands with MOG, Rdio, and Spotify to create a Facebook music service that will be announced at the F8 Facebook developer conference in September. Facebook and its partners, however, downplayed any relationship. Spotify also declined to confirm the report. Spotify already offers to share music with friends via Facebook, including playlists, as does Rdio and MOG. All three services provide a free tier, then charge additional fees for unlimited streaming and mobile playback.
It’s also believed that Facebook will use a Music Dashboard that will work with a persistent play/pause music control button that will appear at the bottom of the screen near the Facebook Chat icon. The Music Dashboard will keep a summary of all the songs you listened to on each service and fill flag up any songs that your friends have recently listened to.
It’s also believed that Facebook will use a Music Dashboard that will work with a persistent play/pause music control button that will appear at the bottom of the screen near the Facebook Chat icon. The Music Dashboard will keep a summary of all the songs you listened to on each service and fill flag up any songs that your friends have recently listened to.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Steve Jobs resigns from Apple
Apple's leader Steve Jobs turned in his resignation on Wednesday as Apple's chief executive. This leaves many wondering whether Apple can continue its success under new leadership.
The shock among Apple fans was widespread even though it was well known that Jobs had serious health problems. Jobs' resignation may have been a surprise, but it wasn't unexpected. Jobs had taken a leave of absence.in 2009 a liver transplant and in the beginning of the year he again stepped away for medical reasons. Jobs did not give a specific reason for resigning but it appears to be health related. Jobs recommended that Apple's board of directors name Tim Cook as the next chief executive. Cook has taken over the leadership role at Apple several times while Jobs was on medical leave.
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, and was then kicked out of the company in 1985. He then returned in 1996, when the firm was in serious financial trouble. Soon after that things started picking up and out came the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.
The shock among Apple fans was widespread even though it was well known that Jobs had serious health problems. Jobs' resignation may have been a surprise, but it wasn't unexpected. Jobs had taken a leave of absence.in 2009 a liver transplant and in the beginning of the year he again stepped away for medical reasons. Jobs did not give a specific reason for resigning but it appears to be health related. Jobs recommended that Apple's board of directors name Tim Cook as the next chief executive. Cook has taken over the leadership role at Apple several times while Jobs was on medical leave.
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, and was then kicked out of the company in 1985. He then returned in 1996, when the firm was in serious financial trouble. Soon after that things started picking up and out came the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Windows 8 will support USB 3.0 and 10 billion devices
The upcoming Windows 8 OS will fully support USB 3.0 and still retain backwards compatibility with the 10 billion existing USB 1.0 and 2.0 devices still in use. USB 3.0 will offer a 10x speed increase over USB 2.0 (up to 5 Gbit/s). USB 3.0 will provide 80% more power than USB 2.0 and allow for faster charging and remove the need for those “Y" cables used by external drives and other high power devices.
As of now there are no chipsets with USB 3.0 controllers onboard and the manufacturer of the motherboard has to use a third party chipset to enable USB 3.0 support. By 2015 all PCs sold will come with USB 3.0 ports, and there will be over 2 billion USB 3.0 devices sold that year as well. Microsoft is promising that Windows 8 will have robust USB 3.0 support.
Other work done to prepare for USB 3.0 included extensive hardware testing and creating a custom tool called MUTT (USB Test Tool) which can test 1000 USB devices for various compatibility issues.
As of now there are no chipsets with USB 3.0 controllers onboard and the manufacturer of the motherboard has to use a third party chipset to enable USB 3.0 support. By 2015 all PCs sold will come with USB 3.0 ports, and there will be over 2 billion USB 3.0 devices sold that year as well. Microsoft is promising that Windows 8 will have robust USB 3.0 support.
Other work done to prepare for USB 3.0 included extensive hardware testing and creating a custom tool called MUTT (USB Test Tool) which can test 1000 USB devices for various compatibility issues.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Microsoft To Reveal Windows 8 Details
Microsoft will announce new details about the architecture and capabilities of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system in the coming weeks to prepare developers and users for what it calls the most significant overhaul of its OS since it released Windows 95.
"Windows 8 re-imagines Windows for a new generation of computing devices, and will be the very best operating system for hundreds of millions of PCs, new and old, used by well over a billion people globally" said Windows division president Steven Sinofksy. Microsoft also said that, with the introduction of Windows 8, for the first time the OS will run on x86 chips from Intel and AMD and also on ARM's system on a chip architecture for tablets and smartphones.
Developers will get their first hands-on look at the OS next month at Microsoft's BUILD conference in Anaheim, CA.
"Windows 8 re-imagines Windows for a new generation of computing devices, and will be the very best operating system for hundreds of millions of PCs, new and old, used by well over a billion people globally" said Windows division president Steven Sinofksy. Microsoft also said that, with the introduction of Windows 8, for the first time the OS will run on x86 chips from Intel and AMD and also on ARM's system on a chip architecture for tablets and smartphones.
Developers will get their first hands-on look at the OS next month at Microsoft's BUILD conference in Anaheim, CA.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Internet Explorer 9 may do the best job of defending against malware links
According to research firm NSS Labs, IE 9 offers Web users the best protection against malware With its new Application Reputation feature. NSS found that IE9 blocks malicious URLs more than 99% of the time. Microsoft continues to improve their IE malware protection in IE9 through its SmartScreen Filter technology and with the addition of SmartScreen Application Reputation technology," NSS reported.
The NSS study refers to malware URLs as links that entice users to download a malicious payload or visit a site known to host malware links. "With a unique URL blocking score of 99.9 percent and over time protection rating of 99.2 percent, Internet Explorer 9 was by far the best at protecting against socially engineered malware," they said. The over time protection rate for Google Chrome, for example, was 13.2 percent, while for Firefox 4 and Safari 5 it was 7.6 percent and for Opera 11, 6.1 percent.
Sophos's Chet Wisniewski challenged the claims made by NSS "Because IE9's unable to block exploits of such software as Adobe Reader and Flash, Apple's iTunes or Oracle 's Java, Microsoft's data doesn't show the real picture,".
NSS explained that social engineering malware remains the most common security threat facing Internet users today, claiming one third of Internet users as victims. Neither Microsoft nor any other browser maker sponsored the report.
The NSS study refers to malware URLs as links that entice users to download a malicious payload or visit a site known to host malware links. "With a unique URL blocking score of 99.9 percent and over time protection rating of 99.2 percent, Internet Explorer 9 was by far the best at protecting against socially engineered malware," they said. The over time protection rate for Google Chrome, for example, was 13.2 percent, while for Firefox 4 and Safari 5 it was 7.6 percent and for Opera 11, 6.1 percent.
Sophos's Chet Wisniewski challenged the claims made by NSS "Because IE9's unable to block exploits of such software as Adobe Reader and Flash, Apple's iTunes or Oracle 's Java, Microsoft's data doesn't show the real picture,".
NSS explained that social engineering malware remains the most common security threat facing Internet users today, claiming one third of Internet users as victims. Neither Microsoft nor any other browser maker sponsored the report.
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