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The Telecom Digest for July 2, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 160 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
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Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:32:52 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Facebook's Email Switch Causing More Problems
Message-ID: <p062408efcc157e2918f8@[10.0.1.6]>
Facebook's Email Switch Causing More Problems
Karsten Strauss
6/30/2012
Remember when it was reported that Facebook was changing users'
default email addresses to Facebook email addresses? Well, [a]
journalist [named] Violet Blue wrote today that there's feedback from
around the web that the change may have negative side effects, namely
the alteration of email addresses on personal devices. Possibly as a
result, emails are being redirected or even lost.
The social networking site had previously offered users the option of
signing on to have a Facebook email address but recently decided to
simply automatically sign up all of its users for the service.
Ms. Blue also reported that user contact info would be altered as
part of Apple's new iOS 6 Facebook integration. "Facebook for iOS
will change address books without any warning," according to the
piece.
...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2012/06/30/facebooks-email-switch-causing-more-problems/
-or-
http://goo.gl/TTrcm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57464415-93/facebook-e-mail-mess-address-books-altered-e-mail-lost/
-or-
http://goo.gl/HRmjI
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406284,00.asp
***** Moderator's Note *****
Jill Duffy's comments for PC Magazine (third link, above) make me want
to shout "FINALLY"! It seems that I'm not the only person who is
questioning the (dubious) value of FaceTube.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:32:52 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Amazon Web Services Knocked Offline by Storms
Message-ID: <p062408f0cc157eea460a@[10.0.1.6]>
Amazon Web Services Knocked Offline by Storms
By NICK BILTON
JUNE 30, 2012
People who tried to watch Netflix on Friday evening saw nothing but
red. Instagram users couldn't upload or view photos. And a number of
other Web sites and services were knocked offline. Storms had
disrupted Amazon Web Services, which stores vast amounts of data for
companies worldwide.
The problems first began around 11 p.m., when a roiling storm caused
numerous electrical failures on the East Coast that left two million
people without power and at least six people dead.
Late Friday, on the company's status blog, Amazon said it was
"investigating elevated error rates impacting a limited number" of
customers. The company noted that the failure had happened at a
server facility in Virginia and it was because of the lighting storm
in the area.
While Amazon continued to update its status blog, information on the
troubles remained relatively sparse throughout the evening.
...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/amazon-web-services-knocked-offline-by-storms/
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:42:36 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Cloud Leaves Some Tech Giants Seeking a Silver Lining
Message-ID: <p062408f5cc1584779359@[10.0.1.6]>
Cloud Leaves Some Tech Giants Seeking a Silver Lining
By QUENTIN HARDY
June 30, 2012
JUNE 2012 may well go down as the month that the tech world entered
a new era.
On June 11, Apple showed its next operating system for iPhones and
iPads. It offered maps and speech recognition, plus music and movies
on iTunes, all tied via the Internet to Apple's "cloud" of servers.
A week later, Microsoft, known better for software, demonstrated the
Surface tablet, its answer to the iPad. The Surface interacts with
both the Web and Microsoft's cloud, called Windows Azure. And, last
Wednesday, Google introduced its newest cloud-connected phone and
tablet, as well as a media player called Nexus Q. The player works
with the devices, the Internet and the Google cloud.
Remarkably fast, a multibillion-dollar industry is moving away from
personal computers made mostly with Microsoft Windows software and
Intel semiconductor chips. The combined revenue from these largely
so-called Wintel desktops and laptops last year was about $70 billion
at Dell and Hewlett-Packard. But these companies played virtually no
part in the June shows from Apple, Microsoft and Google.
Asked what part it hoped to play in the cloud-dominated future, Dell
declined to comment. An H.P. spokesman said in a statement that his
company had computer servers and software in "eight of 10 of the
world's most trafficked sites, four out of five of the world's
largest search engines, the three most popular social media
properties in the U.S." He said nothing about PCs.
The tech future also poses challenges for Intel, which has been
diversifying. Its chips are now in Apple computers and a host of
other devices. Intel still has a significant place in the market, but
often with lower-margin chips, and increased competition. Another
chip company, Nvidia, got a shout from Google's stage.
We are seeing a new business ecosystem with all sorts of mobile and
cloud-connected devices. Each is a powerful computer, with
connections to a nearly infinite amount of data storage and
processing in the cloud.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/technology/cloud-leaves-some-tech-giants-seeking-a-silver-lining.html
-or-
http://goo.gl/CTgd5
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:42:36 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Google's Computers Now for Hire
Message-ID: <p062408f6cc158560ca04@[10.0.1.6]>
Google's Computers Now for Hire
By QUENTIN HARDY
JUNE 28, 2012
Cloud computing just got a lot bigger.
On Thursday Google announced that it would offer computing as a
service accessible over the Internet, much like Amazon Web Services,
Microsoft Azure, Rackspace and others. Google said its prices would be
about 50 percent below those of current market rates.
Urs Hölzle, the Google senior vice president for technical
infrastructure, said Google was drawing off its own long history of
managing millions of servers around the world. "We've solved a lot of
the problems, and are passing on the savings," he said. "It's a
natural step for us."
As a demonstration of what the product, Google Compute Engine, could
do, Mr. Hölzle announced a genetic mapping project that would use
600,000 computing cores, which are the processing units on a
semiconductor.
Mr. Hölzle was speaking at Google I/O, the company's annual conference
for software developers, which this year drew 5,500 people. Google is
hoping the developers will build applications on its public cloud, and
help persuade corporations to move resources there.
Google's move is not surprising, given the success Amazon and others
have had in persuading corporations to ditch much of their on-site
data storage and computing resources in favor of a publicly shared
"cloud" of computing.
If anything, Google is somewhat late to the game. Google pioneered
many of the techniques in cloud computing, but for years kept its
technology proprietary. Over the past few years Google has entered
parts of the business like online storage, application deployment, and
pattern-finding algorithms for rent.
On Thursday Google also announced that its Application Engine had over
one million applications in use, and was serving applications to
customers up to 7.5 billion times daily.
...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/googles-computers-now-for-hire/
***** Moderator's Note *****
Most computer technology races go to those who start first, not to
those who have the best product. The information superhighway is
littered with the skeletons of also-rans who tried to be the best, but
not fast enough: Visicalc, Ashton-Tate, and on and on.
Google can leapfrog its competitors, but only if it's able to offer
API's that allow customers to leverage their investment in code and
training.
Bill Horne
Moderator
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