Serious Disruption To Telecom / Internet Service Between Europe, Middle East, and Asia

Three of Four under water cables representing the backbone of telecommunications and Internet connectivity between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have been severed and it may take more than a week to fix the situation. While the cause of the break is yet unknown, there were reported seismic activity before the disruption to service was detected.

"We've lost three out of four lines. If the fourth cable breaks, we're looking at a total blackout in the Middle East," Jonathan Wright - director of wholesale products at Interoute, the company that manages part of the optical fibre network, told the BBC.

"These three circuits account for 90% of the traffic and we're going to see more international phone calls dropping and a huge degradation in the quality of local internet," he added.

"Normally you would expect to see one major break per cable per year. With four you should have an insurance policy. For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern."

1974: Altair 8800 Microcomputer Goes On Sale

On this day in 1974 the machine that inspired Paul Allen and Bill Gates, and eventually lead to the creation of Microsoft, went on sale. The Altair 8800 computer kit made by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems of New Mexico marked the start of the consumer computer industry. According to Wired "The Altair 8800 kit sold for just under $400 (about $1,700 in today's money). If you wanted to forgo the case, you could get the kit for under $300. Or you could order the whole deal fully assembled: Old-Computers.com quotes a $595 price."

Google In The Holiday Mood

Check it out! Perform a Google search for anything that contains the word Christmas and you'll get an Easter Egg, or should I say Candy Cane. The results page will displays a string of candy canes, or holly dividing the results from the ads on the right hand side of the page. Hanukkah and Kwanzaa also work. Thanks for spreading the holiday cheer Google!

Apple's Final Macworld And No Jobs!

Apple Inc. announced yesterday that 2009 will mark the final year of it's participation in the Macworld conference and that Phillip Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing will deliver the keynote address. The move has refueled speculation about the health of Steve Jobs who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October, 2003.

The company says "Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways. "

Dell Cashing In On Twitter Craze

According to Venture Beat Dell has used Twitter posts (tweets) to ring up $1 million in sales over the past 18 months. "Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) says Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others." Interestingly Twitter is under much scrutiny because the company has yet to reveal it's business model leaving many to wonder how the service will be monetized? Looks like Dell has been able to do something with the service that the service has yet to do, make sales. Regardless, Twitter is expected to announce it's plan for how to monetize the service in 2009.

For Weird Al, It's All About The Pentiums

Here's a pre Y2K video courtesy of Weird Al Yankovic straight from his Youtube channel. For Al It's All About The Pentiums! For the rest of us it's just fun to step back in time and reminisce about the pre-bubble days...



Thanks to Geeks are Sexy for the find.

Intel Survey Reveals Sex Vs. Technology A Tough Decision For Many

An online survey commissioned by Intel has uncovered that 46% of women and 30% of men would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up the Internet for the same length of time. Intel's goal was not to necessarily compare these two activities but rather to show how essential the Internet has become to people. Of course the survey was conducted online and that probably skews the results... of course the Internet is important to these respondents otherwise they would not have found the survey in the first place. Other findings, according to the Wall Street Journal "95% of respondents said it is very important, important or somewhat important for people to have devices that allow them to access the Internet, and 84% said they saved money by comparing prices online and finding the best deals before making purchase decisions."

Research In Motion Still Hiring

According to the Financial Post, Research in Motion (RIM) has more than 1,250 positions that it needs to fill even with the economy tanking. "Right now, for every engineer who is promoted, RIM is hiring two or three to replace them. Probably in a few more years RIM could do some restructuring but not now." according to an unnamed company insider. "A good technology company will continue to innovate even in bad economic times to take advantage of the rebound," said Joe Campeau, of Richard Ivey School of Business. "If they don't, then everyone else will go past them and they'll burn cash to prevent that from happening." The jobs appear to be spread around the globe but the majority are at the companies head offices in Waterloo, Ontario.

Federal Trade Commission Target Scareware Dealers

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has gone to the courts in an attempt to stop two companies, Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC. from distributing software that they've dubbed "scareware". The companies operate webpages that run a fake "scan" proportedly looking for security problems. The scan returns many ficticious results and prompt the users to pay for removal software that affectively does nothing. Typically the scans report evidence of viruses, spyware and/or illegal pornography. "However," said the FTC, "the scans were entirely false." Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at security firm Finjan says "People are paying 40-60 dollars for bogus software which does nothing,"

A US District court has granted an injunction which stops the companies from advertising their software, and has also asked firms hosting the websites to block customers from accessing them. It has also frozen the assets of the companies so the cash can be reclaimed and refunds given to those caught in the scam.

BBC story here.

Voip Enable Your iPod Touch

It may not be an iPhone but with the addition of a freeware application called truphone and a clip on microphone you can turn your iPod Touch into a Wi-Fi powered Voip phone. "There are a slew of new features we're rolling out for the iPod Touch that will let users call landlines, Skype users or send instant messages. We're talking weeks, not months, before these go live." said Geraldine Wilson - Truphone's CEO. You won't be able to make calls from anywhere like you can on the iPhone, you'll have to be in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, but then again you won't be locked into a rediculously high priced cell phone contract either... cool!

BBC Story here.