May 15 2009
Google apology for slow service
Google apologised for what it called a “traffic jam” that resulted in slow service or even interruption on the internet search giant’s main page. Gmail and Google’s news site were also reported as “sluggish” or unavailable to millions of users for about an hour. This is not the first time the company has faced such problems.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8051262.stm
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2242321/google-owns-service-outage
Hackers launch phishing attack on Facebook users
Hackers launched an attack on Facebook’s 200 million users yesterday, successfully gathering passwords from some of them in the latest campaign to prey on members of the popular social networking site. Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said yesterday that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack. He said that Facebook was blocking compromised accounts. Schnitt declined to say how many accounts had been compromised. The hackers got passwords through what is known as a phishing attack, breaking into accounts of some Facebook members, then sending e-mails to friends and urging them to click on links to fake websites.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54D6BN20090514
GyPSii mobile social networking intros on iPhone
An award-winning location aware mobile social networking application GyPSii, has debuted on the Apple iTunes App Store. Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch the free application offers an all-in-one mobile social networking experience, according to makers GeoSentric. Users can capture and share what they are actually doing, building a multi-media virtual diary on their world, including places of interest, creating and sharing “geotagged” content in real time.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=26012
http://www.gomonews.com/all-in-one-mobile-social-networking-arrives-on-the-iphone/
Tech giants line up for e-health dollars
With billions in stimulus dollars available to help doctors and hospitals digitize their health records, it stands to reason that tech companies want to make spending that money as easy as possible. Several of the players–Allscripts, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, and Nuance Communications–have teamed up in an alliance aimed at educating doctors on the many tools available to help set up electronic health records. The EHR Stimulus Alliance is pulling out all the stops, with a road tour, Webcasts, telephone hotline, and other tools all aimed at demystifying the technology and showing case studies of where it has worked.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10241114-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
HP laptop batteries recalled for overheating
After two reports of flaming laptop batteries, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced yesterday that Hewlett-Packard is voluntarily recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries that shipped with several models of its HP and Compaq laptops. The recall affects nine models of HP Pavilions, nine models of Compaq Presarios, two models of HPs, and one HP Compaq laptop model sold between August 2007 and March 2008. For the full list, see the CPSC’s site. There were two separate reports of batteries that “overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage” but no injuries, according to the CPSC report.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10241137-92.html
Credit Crunch Britons Look For Love Online
Broke Britons are looking for love on the internet as staying-in becomes the new going out.The web romance market grew by 20% in the last year and is now worth £80m, Mintel researchers found. They predict it could be worth nearly £150m by 2014. “During recession people spend more time at home rather than spending money going to bars and restaurants and going online is seen as an effective way to meet new people,” analyst Matt King explained.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Online-Dating-Increases-In-Recession-As-Broke-Brits-Find-Love-On-The-Web-Mintel-Research-Suggests/Article/200905215282040?f=rss
