cloud computing and why it’s a good or bad idea
A new experiment has shown that zapping clouds with electrical charge can alter droplet sizes in fog or, potentially, help a constipated cloud to rain. Last year Giles Harrison, from the University of Reading, and colleagues from the University of Bath, spent many early mornings chasing fogs in the Somerset Levels, flying uncrewed aircraft into Read more about Scientists zap clouds with electricity to make them rain[…]
New Fitbit users will be required to sign-up with a Google account, from next year, while it also appears one will be needed to access some of the new features in years to come. Google has been slowly integrating Fitbit into the fold since buying the company back in November 2019. Indeed, the latest products Read more about Fitbit accounts are being replaced by Google accounts[…]
That floor won’t clean itself… well, quite literally it won’t, especially if the vacuum robot you bought to clean the floor won’t hop off its dock when the servers are down Users started reporting issues with their Roomba app around midday Friday. The status page for iRobot, the maker of Roomba, identified there were outages Read more about Roombas don’t work if an iRobot server is down[…]
The incident began at 0627 UTC (2327 Pacific Time) and it took until 0742 UTC (0042 Pacific) before the company managed to bring all its datacenters back online and verify they were working correctly. During this time a variety of sites and services relying on Cloudflare went dark while engineers frantically worked to undo the Read more about Cloudflare explains hour long outage which broke a lot of internets[…]
Ubisoft has turned off online services for 91 games, including Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell, Just Dance, and more across multiple console and PC platforms. These shutdowns have since been gathered together in one list by Ubisoft. This news comes from a blog Ubisoft posted on April 22 listing 91 different games that have had Read more about Ubisoft Shut Down 91 Games Since 2021[…]
Is your Insteon smart home system down? I’m getting reports from dozens of Insteon users that as of Friday their smart home hubs have stopped working. So far, none of them have heard from the company, and Insteon’s Twitter account hasn’t been updated since June 2021. I reached out to Rob Lilleness, the president and Read more about Insteon is down and may not be coming back – yay cloud, your hardware is now a paperweight[…]
Apple’s services came back online in the late afternoon. Apple’s system status page shows that all of the services that had previously been listed as “down” are now back in the green. It’s still unclear what happened exactly, and Apple never returned Gizmodo’s email for comment on the situation. Apple is experiencing massive technical difficulties, Read more about Apple Maps, Music, iMessage, App Store, and iCloud Are Down[…]
Amazon’s crucial web services business AWS has experienced problems today due to a power outage, affecting services like Slack, Imgur, and the Epic Games store for some users. It’s not looking good if you’re working from home, with some Slack users unable to view or upload images and work management tool Asana also hit by Read more about Amazon’s AWS logs third outage this month, affecting Slack, Epic Games Store, Asana and more[…]
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the engine that powers many of the internet’s most-trafficked websites and apps, appears to be experiencing a widespread outage that is bringing down several popular services. Amazon, Disney+, and Venmo are all being affected by the outage, and are showing error messages when users attempt to visit their websites. Amazon appears Read more about AWS Outage Takes Down Amazon, Disney+, Venmo, loads of online games[…]
Some Tesla drivers who fancied going for a spin on Saturday were unable to do so after an update to the cars’ companion app produced server errors. Teslas don’t use conventional keys. Instead they require the presence of a fob, key card, or authenticated mobile phone app that links to the electric vehicles over Bluetooth. Read more about Tesla drivers locked out of their cars by server error[…]
Google Cloud suffered a brief outage, seemingly bringing down or disrupting a whole bunch of websites relying on its systems. If you’ve had trouble accessing Snapchat, Discord, Spotify, Etsy, retailers like Home Depot, and others today, this is likely why: a fault developed in Google Cloud’s networking infrastructure, resulting in websites throwing up 404 errors. Read more about Google Cloud partially fixes load balancer issues that killed Snapchat, spotify, etsy, discord and many many more[…]
Facebook offered “sincere apologies” Monday afternoon as a sweeping outage of its site and various other properties, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, stretched for more than six hours and helped to wipe more than $50 billion off Facebook’s market cap — the stock’s worst day of trading in almost a year. The issues started around Read more about Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp hit by 6 hr + global outage, stock tanks[…]
July this year, Security Discovery researcher Bob Diachenko came across a plethora of JSON records in an exposed Elasticsearch cluster that piqued his interest. The 1.9 million-strong recordset contained sensitive information on people, including their names, country citizenship, gender, date of birth, passport details, and no-fly status. The exposed server was indexed by search engines Censys and ZoomEye, Read more about Secret terrorist watchlist with 2 million records exposed online[…]
A $291 Adobe cancelation fee has provoked fierce criticism of the creative software company. A post from a customer has gone viral on Twitter, after he discovered that he would have to pay nearly $300 to bring his Creative Cloud subscription to an end. It has sparked a discussion about Adobe’s practices, with many others Read more about $291 Adobe Cancelation Fee Sees Twitter Users Argue it’s ‘Morally Correct’ to Pirate Software[…]
Microsoft is reporting an outage of Office 365, including Microsoft Teams. On its status page, Microsoft adds: Users may be unable to access multiple Microsoft services. User impact: Users may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics 365 services, including the Service Health Dashboard. More info: Any service that leverages Azure Active Read more about Microsoft Office 365 Down For Some Users[…]
If you own a 2013 SmartThings hub (that’s the original) or a SmartThings Link for the Nvidia Shield TV, your hardware will stop working on June 30 of this year. The device depreciation is part of the announced exodus from manufacturing and supporting its own hardware and the Groovy IDE that Samsung Smartthings announced last Read more about SmartThings bricks all hardware (2013 – 2021) wtf?[…]
Like it or not, connected cars have become a staple of every day life for millions of Americans. The ability to interact with our cars from afar past the key fob has become something we expect to work, but that all relies on the underpinnings of critical IT infrastructure. And when something isn’t working as Read more about Kia’s Network Is Down, Finance Sites to Owner Apps, Nobody Will Say Why – yay connected cars[…]
Google services such as YouTube and Gmail started the week with an almighty bang as the Chocolate Factory’s cloud came crashing to the ground. Despite an insistence from the company’s various health dashboards that all was fine and dandy, it most definitely was not. Those seeking distraction in video form were treated to YouTube’s “Something Read more about World+dog share in collective panic attack as Google slides off the face of the internet[…]
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s internet infrastructure service that is the backbone of many websites and apps, experienced a multi-hour outage on Wednesday that affected a large portion of the internet. The service has been nearly fully restored as of 4:18AM ET on Thursday morning, according to Amazon. Source: Prolonged AWS outage takes down a Read more about Prolonged AWS outage takes down a big chunk of the internet[…]
The video locker was slow to load videos and balked when asked to upload new content on Wednesday, from just before midnight GMT. While all but night-owl European users mostly missed the mess, North American users woke up without their favourite early morning streams and some Asian users were also deprived of their favourite vids Read more about YouTube to world: Move along, nothing to see here … because we’re having an outage[…]
Traditionally a night for fireworks, 5 November saw some sort of detonation within the Microsoft 365 infrastructure in the form of a borked update or, as the company delicately put it: “an issue wherein some users may be unable to access their mailboxes through Exchange Online via all connection methods.” There was good news, however, Read more about Network driver issue shaves 12 more hours off Microsoft’s ‘365’ infrastructure, and yeah, it was Exchange Online again[…]
The rivalry between Apple and Microsoft continued last night as the fruity firm’s cloud services took a tumble a mere day after Azure crapped itself. While Apple has remained silent on what happened (we asked; it did not respond), the vast majority of its services wobbled over a two-hour period early this morning (UK time). Read more about Not one to be outdone by Microsoft, Apple’s cloud fell over too. Unlike Microsoft, it hasn’t said what happened[…]
TESLA’s network completely dropped on Wednesday in a massive outage that left drivers unable to connect to their cars. According to Electrek, internal systems were fully down and around 11am ET, leaving users unable to connect their vehicles to the mobile app. 3 Tesla users were unable to connect their cars to their mobile apps Read more about Tesla network goes down leaving drivers unable to connect to their cars with mobile app in massive outage – yay cloud[…]
In 2015, German sportswear manufacturer Adidas acquired a plucky Austrian IoT startup called Runtastic, which, among other things, manufactured a $129.99 “smart” scale called Libra. Now that product is being discontinued, preventing owners from synchronising their data or even downloading the app required to use it. In a post published yesterday, Adidas announced the discontinuation Read more about Adidas now stands for All Day I’m Disconnecting All Servers as owners of ‘smart’ Libra scales furious over bricked kit – don’t trust stuff that needs cloud[…]
Netgear has decided that users of some of its managed network switches don’t need access to the equipment’s full user interface – unless they register their details with Netgear first. For instance, owners of its 64W Power-over-Ethernet eight-port managed gigabit switch GC108P, and its 126W variant GC108PP, need to hand over information about themselves to Read more about Some managed Netgear switches suddenly need a cloud account to use its full UI. Also may not update security. Time to change vendor.[…]