on Wednesday, including Gmail and Drive. The problem, which lasted for about three hours on Wednesday morning, occurred when the main user-authentication system for Google applications was misconfigured. The improper configuration, introduced on Tuesday, caused log-in requests to be funneled to a small number of servers, which in turn ran out of capacity, and the overload caused them to malfunction.
The once-hot netbook may have been decimated by the arrival of tablets, but inexpensive, lightweight laptops are showing staying power. The latest iteration in that category is Chromebooks, laptops with Google’s Chrome OS, which is seen as a lightweight OS alternative to Windows for users who do most of their computing on the Web. There is substantial backing for Chromebooks with companies like Google, Lenovo, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and Acer offering models with different screen sizes and hardware. A first wave of Chromebooks released in 2011 from Samsung and Acer failed to catch on, but a new wave that went on sale late last year have better hardware and a more refined OS. Typical features include 100GB of Google Cloud storage, Wi-Fi, webcams, and in some models, 3G connectivity. However, IDC suggested that early sales of Chromebooks have been weak, and it remains to be seen if they will fill the void left by netbooks. Acer’s Chromebook C7 The $200 Acer Chromebook C7 is the cheapest Chrome OS laptop available. It has an 11.6-inch screen and a 320GB hard drive, while other models have 16GB of local solid-state storage. One disappointment is the three-and-a-half hours of battery life, while more expensive models offer up to six-and-a-half hours. The C7 has an Intel Celeron dual-core processor running at 1.1GHz, 2GB of memory and an HDMI port. Like a majority of other Chromebooks, the screen displays images at a resolution of 1366 by 768. Acer maintains the C7 has sold better than expected, and has said it will come out with more Chromebook models in the future.
Spring is upon us, the time of year when lots of local businesses start stuffing neighborhood mailboxes with flyers for services like lawn care, landscaping, power washing, and so on. That's a time-consuming hassle, of course, and technically it's against the law. Only U.S. postal workers are allowed to put anything into a mailbox. (Newspaper boxes are fair game, assuming there are any left.) The new service offers a different solution. Using your iPad, you snap a photo of each house you want to market to, add the street address, then enter a custom-tailored price for your service. With that bit of recon work done, you can then create and send a postcard to everyone in your database. The photo of the house, a description of your offerings and your price estimate appears on each postcard.
Some of the biggest names in IT including IBM, Microsoft, Google and Intel reported quarterly earnings this week, revealing a picture of the tech sector that, while not as gloomy as had been feared, is nevertheless mixed. The earnings reports showed that while hardware suffered in the first quarter, software sales showed resiliency. The news was enough to send the Nasdaq tech index up 0.92 percent to 1521.92 in Friday afternoon trading. Not all vendors enjoyed shareholder confidence, however. For example, while Microsoft shares were up $1 to $29.79 and Google was up $34.77 to $800.47, IBM declined $16.76 to $190.41 and AMD dropped $0.10 to $2.41. Market surveys in recent weeks showed a precipitous drop in the first quarter for PC sales and raised concerns that tech bellwethers—especially those with exposure to the consumer hardware market—would be reporting dismal sales. Microsoft’s earnings report, however, showed gains in all of the company’s business units. For the quarter ended March 31, , up 18 percent year over year, while profit rose 19 percent to $6.06 billion.
Internet users overwhelmingly enjoy free Web content supported by advertising, and they'd rather see advertisements targeted toward their interests than random ads, according to a survey released this week by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). While it may seem the popularity of free online content is a no-brainer, the DAA said it's important to drive home those points as a U.S. Senate committee hosts a hearing on voluntary do-not-track efforts next week. The DAA, a coalition of online advertising groups, operates a program that allows Web users to opt out of receiving targeted, or behavioral, advertising. said free content like news, weather, and email is "extremely important" to the value of the Internet. More than 75 percent said they'd prefer ad-supported free content on the Web to paying for ad-free content. Just 9 percent said they'd prefer to pay for content. that would require websites and networks to honor do-not-track requests from consumers.
certainly won't hesitate to tap into the unparalleled power that a calcium-rich snack will offer, so it's a case of getting them before they get us, really. And who doesn't enjoy crushing the occasional skull?
Even though PC shipments were down 14 percent last quarter, Microsoft’s Windows division posted revenue about the same as the last year, making up for slumping sales to OEMs with impressive growth in long-term licensing agreements sold to enterprises. But for the second quarter in a row, Microsoft said nothing about Windows 8 sales during , leaving analysts to question whether the company can sustain sales of its operating system without a rapid turnaround in tablets. The lack of any number—the last time Microsoft touted Windows 8 licenses sold was in early January, when it said it had —wasn’t surprising to some. “They’ll wait until the end of the fiscal year to show a more impressive number,” said Wes Miller, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, in a Thursday interview. “And they’ll do that again in October, on the anniversary of Windows 8’s launch.”
There are a lot of file recovery programs out there that can try to recover your files from a damaged drive. There are even free ones, but when your vital data is on the line, R-Studio Data Recovery is quite possibly your best bet. Not only does R-Studio Data Recovery work with FAT and NTFS partitions, it understands all the Linux, Unix (BSD), and Mac OS file systems, and even the new ReFS (Resilient File System) used in Windows Server 2012. It also copies and creates images of drives, and will recover data from said images—a crucial ability when a drive is deteriorating.
This is a test. Please Ignore.
Wie entsteht ein Blockbuster-Game? Im zweiten Teil unserer Serie lesen Sie, wie lange an einer Spielfigur gearbeitet wird, wie viele Dollar das verschlingt und warum kreative Köpfe ganz schön nerven können.
Es soll Menschen geben, die mit dem iPad fotografieren und filmen. Dabei kann der beidhändige Tablet-Einsatz sogar vor Verletzungen bewahren, wie dieses Video zeigt.
Trotz harscher Kritik am neuen Betriebssystem Windows 8 läuft die Geldmaschine Microsoft. Von Januar bis März konnte der Software-Konzern den Umsatz auf 20,5 Milliarden Dollar steigern.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter: So heissen die wertvollsten Social-Media-Marken. Sie bringen es auf einen Wert von 84 Milliarden Dollar. Doch die Chinesen rücken den US-Platzhirschen auf die Pelle.
Schweizer Handybesitzer werden einmal mehr mit unerwünschten Kurznachrichten eingedeckt. Swisscom musste bereits Notmassnahmen ergreifen. Auch Sunrise und Orange sind betroffen.
Nie mehr das Impfbüchlein suchen: Mit diesem Slogan wirbt das Bundesamt für Gesundheit für den elektronischen Impfausweis. Nebenbei sollen die Impfdaten anonym ausgewertet werden.
Das Do-it-yourself-Game «ShootMania Storm» will das Genre der Multiplayer-Shooter revolutionieren. Der Entwickler setzt dafür ganz auf die Kreativität der Community.
Eine technische Störung hat das Festnetz heute morgen um 5 Uhr lahmgelegt. Wann die Probleme behoben sind und wie viele Haushalte betroffen sind, ist noch unklar.
Niemand mag CAPTCHA, die lästige Sicherheitsfunktion im Kampf gegen automatische Spam-Schleudern. Ein neues Tool treibt den Buchstaben-Nonsens auf die Spitze.
Dieses Gadget könnte Smartphones überflüssig machen. Virtual-Reality-Expertin Doris Agotai weiss, wofür wir Google Glass nutzen werden und wie die Datenbrille unser Leben auf den Kopf stellt.
Nach der Vergewaltigung, die zum Tod von Rehtaeh Parsons führte, konnte die kanadische Polizei keinen Täter festnageln. Nun ermitteln die Hacker von Anonymous - mit ersten Resultaten.
Passend zur stürzenden Apple-Aktie geht es in diesem Video dem iPhone 5 an den Kragen. Die Geräte fallen wie Dominosteine, ohne den geringsten Kratzer zu erleiden.
Was hatte der Apple-Gründer mit LSD am Hut? Diese und weitere Fragen beantwortet ein Low-Budget-Film von US-Komikern. Das 80-minütige «Werk» ist nun im Internet verfügbar.
Game-Fans reiben sich die Hände: Oculus Rift verspricht umwerfende Spielereien in 3D. Die Virtual-Reality-Brille haut auch ältere Semester aus den Socken, wie dieses Video zeigt.