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Overheating 'caused Outlook failure'

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 14 Maret 2013 | 23.34

14 March 2013 Last updated at 06:40 ET

Microsoft has blamed an overheating data centre for a 16-hour shutdown of its Outlook and Hotmail systems.

In a blog post, it said a "rapid and substantial temperature spike" had caused a large number of servers to stop working.

The temperature rise had been due to a firmware update failure, wrote Arthur de Haan, Microsoft vice president.

Microsoft is in the process of migrating millions of Hotmail users to the new Outlook.com service.

The move is seen by some as an attempt to claw back ground lost to competitors such as Google.

"Overall the upgrade has been going very well," said Mr De Haan.

"That said, we had an issue yesterday and wanted to provide you with a deeper look at what happened."

The outage began at 20:35 GMT on 12 March and services were fully restored the following day at 12.43 GMT.

"On the afternoon of the 12th, in one physical region of one of our data centres, we performed our regular process of updating the firmware on a core part of our physical plant," said Mr De Haan.

"This is an update that had been done successfully previously, but failed in this specific instance in an unexpected way."

He confirmed that part of the company's cloud storage system, SkyDrive, had also been affected.

"We sincerely apologise and regret the impact this outage had on all of you," he said.


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Microsoft opens up on Kinect code

12 March 2013 Last updated at 06:06 ET

Microsoft has opened up access to some of the code for its Kinect for Windows motion-sensing device.

The device, first built for the Xbox, lets people play games by moving their body instead of using a controller.

Before now anyone wanting to use the Kinect had to work via an official software toolkit that hid the underlying code.

Microsoft said it had opened the code up to make the Kinect easier to use and get feedback about how to improve it.

Soon after the Kinect's 2010 release, hardware hackers wrote code that let them control the device so they could use it for their own projects.

Later on, Microsoft aided these "home-brew" efforts with the release of a software development kit and a program that allowed the Kinect to be controlled via Windows.

However, both these programs hid the core code of the device, limiting what developers and others could do with the gadget.

Now, Microsoft has released 22 code samples for the Kinect for Windows that expose the computer code that helps it track faces, interpret gestures and determine colours, among other things.

The code has been put on the CodePlex website so developers can freely download and share the software.

Microsoft made the announcement about the code sharing on a blog and said it had taken the step to help those that wanted to use Kinect for their own ends and to help improve the control software.

As the core Kinect code is updated and changed, new samples could be posted to CodePlex, said Microsoft spokesman Ben Lower.


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Pirate Bay for 3D printing launched

12 March 2013 Last updated at 13:55 ET

The company that developed 3D printed gun parts has announced plans to launch a new firm, dedicated to copyright-free blueprints for a range of 3D printable objects.

Defcad, as the firm will be known, has already been dubbed the Pirate Bay of 3D printing.

The site will become a "search engine for 3D printing," according to its founders.

But its flouting of copyright is likely to face legal challenges.

Wiki weapon

The firm is the brainchild of Cody Wilson, law student and self-styled crypto-anarchist.

Last year he set up Defense Distributed, a project aiming to print gun parts.

The project provoked controversy with 3D printing firm MakerBot pulling gun part blueprints from its website in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings and 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys refusing permission for its machines to be used by the company.

It is also facing legal challenges to shut the site down.

Despite the set-backs, it released a video this month demonstrating an AR-15 with a 3D printed part firing more than 600 rounds.

Meanwhile its blueprints at non-profit Defcad.org have seen 400,000 downloads since the site was launched, according to founder Cody Wilson.

Announcing the new for-profit Defcad.com at the South by South West conference in Texas, Mr Wilson said it was an obvious next step for the wiki weapon project.

"Help us turn Defcad into the world's first unblockable, open-source search engine for 3D printable parts," says Mr Wilson in the video posted on the website looking for funding.

In the video, Mr Wilson said the revolution which many predict 3D printing will bring about will only happen if it can be freed from corporate ties.

The blueprints available on the site will be for "important stuff", he said. "Not trinkets, not garden gnomes but the things institutions and industries have an interest in keeping from us; access, medical devices, drugs, goods, guns."

"Supplying consumers with blueprints to print products designed by third parties is a business model fraught with risk," said Lorna Caddy of law firm Taylor Wessing.

"Many of those products will be protected by intellectual property rights, such as design law. Owners of those rights could assert them in the courts to prevent their designs being further distributed and to seek financial compensation," she added.


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Call of Duty dominates 2012 sales

13 March 2013 Last updated at 06:45 ET

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the UK's biggest selling entertainment release of last year - beating the top-selling music album, by Emeli Sande, by 1.2 million copies.

Activision's game sold almost 2.7 million copies, and was closely followed in the chart by EA's Fifa 13.

Film titles The Dark Knight Rises and The Twilight Saga took third and fourth spot.

Overall, sales of entertainment products were down 12% year-on-year.

In what has been described by the Entertainment Retail Association (ERA) as a "poor" year across the board, sales of the Top 40 titles were down 25% when compared to last year's big hitters.

Continue reading the main story
  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (game) - 2,672,364 sales
  2. Fifa 13 (game) - 2,601,877
  3. The Dark Knight Rises (film) - 1,694,434
  4. The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (film) - 1,515,604
  5. Emeli Sande, Our Version of Events (album) - 1,446,844
  6. Now 83 (album) - 1,389,006
  7. Avengers Assemble (film) - 1,349,937
  8. Ted (film) - 1,188,295
  9. War Horse (film) - 986,870
  10. The Hunger Games (film) - 946,592

Source: ERA

Kim Bayley, director of the ERA, blamed the slump on a weak year with few blockbuster hits.

"2012 was a tough year for entertainment due to a number of factors, but this sharp 25% shrinkage in sales of the biggest titles suggests that the quality of releases was at least partly to blame.

"Luckily 2013 has got off to a good start with Skyfall already selling more than two million copies - way ahead of last year's biggest-selling video, The Dark Knight Rises."

Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, is on course to beat Call of Duty's tally within just a couple of months of its release, the ERA said.

Sande's Our Version of Events was the top-selling music title by some considerable distance, aside from two "Now That's What I Call Music" compilations.

Other video games making a strong showing include Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3 - which shifted 886,198 copies - and Microsoft's Halo 4, with 753,489.

The chart also showed a strong showing for television series Mrs Brown's Boys.

The chart aggregates sales data from the Official Charts Company and GFK Chart-track to determine the year's standings.


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Hotmail and Outlook hit by fault

13 March 2013 Last updated at 09:15 ET

Users of Outlook and Hotmail webmail services have been hit by a lengthy fault, Microsoft has confirmed.

A status message informed users on Wednesday morning about the issues, with the company adding it was "working to restore service right now".

Users reported not seeing emails that should have reached their accounts.

Microsoft is in the process of migrating millions of users from Hotmail, which launched in 1998, to new Outlook.com accounts.

Problems began to hit the services on Tuesday evening, with Microsoft acknowledging it had a problem at 21:35 GMT.

According to reports, some users noted being unable to see certain emails in the accounts, while others reported email was simply inaccessible altogether.

A message posted to Microsoft's service status page on Wednesday morning said: "Fixing the problem is taking longer than we hoped. We apologise for the lengthy interruption in service."

It said a further update would be posted by Wednesday at 13:12 GMT.

'Seamless and instant'

Some users have suggested there have been similar issues on the SkyDrive cloud storage service, but Microsoft has offered no comment on those reports.

Hotmail users will be migrated to the new Outlook.com service, but can retain their Hotmail.com email address should they wish.

The move has been seen as an attempt by the Windows-maker to claw back ground lost to competitors such as Google, whose Gmail service has proved immensely popular since its launch in 2004.

In a blog post explaining the changes, Microsoft's David Law wrote: "When we say that we're confident Outlook.com is the best email choice for consumers, we mean it.

"As Outlook.com comes out of preview, we're also announcing that we will soon upgrade every Hotmail user to Outlook.com.

"The upgrade is seamless and instant."


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Value of Google ads queried by eBay

13 March 2013 Last updated at 09:47 ET

A report by auction website eBay has found that paying for advertising in the form of keywords on search engines has little effect on sales.

Platforms such as Google and Bing offer companies the option to "buy" words.

This means their websites appear more prominently if a person searches for a particular term.

The eBay study found that most people who clicked through as a result of this service were loyal customers who would have come to the site anyway.

"Incremental revenue from paid search was far smaller than expected because existing customers would have come to eBay regardless, whether directly or through other marketing channels," said an eBay representative.

In carrying out the study, presented at an economics conference held at Stanford University, eBay removed its paid-search keywords from MSN and Yahoo platforms in the US, while retaining them on Google.

Natural search

They found that without the advertising, users still clicked through as the results appeared on the search engine anyway.

"Removal of these advertisements simply raised the prominence of the eBay natural search result," read the report by Thomas Blake, Chris Nosko, and Steve Tadelis from eBay.

"Shutting paid search advertisements closed one (costly) path to a firm's website but diverted traffic to the next easiest path (natural search), which is free to the advertiser."

There is no suggestion that eBay now plans to change the way in which it currently spends on search engine advertising.

Google said that its own research suggested there was a significant increase in clicks as a result of search advertising.

But a company representative added: "Since outcomes differ so much among advertisers and are influenced by many different factors, we encourage advertisers to experiment with their own campaigns."

Household name

Dr Philip Alford, director of the Digital Hub in the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University, told the BBC that the size of the brand made a big difference to the effectiveness of paid searches.

EBay has become a household brand name, they already have a highly engaged user base," he said, adding that many people would search the website directly when shopping online.

"With Google ad words, particularly for smaller organisations, it can make a lot of sense because for some of them, their websites aren't at a stage yet where they have been sufficiently indexed by Google, so they struggle to come up in natural searches for terms.

"The more click your ad gets, you get rewarded over time with a higher listing as you are perceived by Google as being relevant," he added.

"But it is interesting that a lot of people still are paying for terms that actually appear quite high up the listings in the search results anyway."


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iPhone turned into microscope for £5

13 March 2013 Last updated at 12:23 ET

Scientists used an iPhone 4S to diagnose intestinal worm infections in schoolchildren in rural Tanzania.

They attached an $8 (£5) ball lens to the handset camera lens, and used a cheap torch and double-sided tape to create an improvised microscope.

Pictures were then taken of stool samples placed on lab slides, wrapped in cellophane and taped to the phone.

They were studied for the presence of eggs, the main sign of the presence of the parasites.

When the results were double-checked with a laboratory light microscope, the device had managed to pick up 70% of the samples with infections present - and 90% of the heavier infections.

The study has been published this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Researcher Dr Isaac Bogoch, who specialises in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Toronto General Hospital, told the BBC he had read about smartphone microscopes being trialled in a laboratory and decided to "recreate it in a real world setting".

"Ultimately we'd like something like this to be a useful diagnostic test. We want to put it in the hands of someone who might be able to use it," he said.

"70% (accuracy) isn't really good enough, we want to be above 80% and we're not quite there yet," he added.

"The technology is out there. We want to use materials that are affordable and easy to procure."

Camera key

Dr Bogoch and his team, which included experts from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, said the only reason he used an Apple iPhone was because it was his own handset.

"You need the ball lens to help with the magnification - but any mobile phone with a decent camera and a zoom function will be sufficient," he explained.

The smallest eggs visible using the smartphone were 40-60 micrometres in diameter.

"From an egg standpoint that is not tiny but it's not enormous either," said Dr Bogoch.

"The microscope was very good at diagnosing children with heavier infection intensities as there are more eggs, so they are easier to see."

Intestinal worms are estimated to affect up to two billion people around the world, mainly in poor areas.

"These parasitic infections cause malnutrition, stunted growth, and stunted mental development," added Dr Bogoch.

"It's a big deal, a big problem."


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Samsung set to launch S4 smartphone

13 March 2013 Last updated at 21:45 ET

Samsung is set to launch a device in its flagship premium smartphone range, expected to be named the Galaxy S4.

It follows the S3, a handset that has sold more than 40 million units. The Galaxy handsets are seen as the closest competitor to Apple's iPhone.

Analysts predict software that tracks where users are looking and automatically scrolls down the page as it is read, without it being touched.

There is also expected to be a souped-up camera and processor.

But crucial to Samsung's future success, analysts say, is how the South Korean company plans to turn its strong position in the smartphone market into greater success with other devices such as tablets.

Prior to Thursday's launch in New York, Samsung has unleashed a huge advertising campaign, including a series of videos involving a small boy tasked with looking after a "top secret" box.

Heavy customisation

Like the S3, the S4 is expected to run on Google's Android operating system - but analysts are predicting some heavy customisation from Samsung in order to give the device a more distinctive feel and, crucially, set it apart from its competitors' Android-based handsets.

This is important, says Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, if Samsung is to gain a higher level of loyalty to its device range.

Unlike with Apple, where a large number of iPhone owners gravitate towards the iPad when they decide to purchase a tablet, the same cannot be said of other brands, where customers more likely to mix and match.

"We will see more of a step towards more 'stickiness' towards the brand," Ms Cozza says.

"Already the Galaxy S3 can be seen as an alternative to the iPhone, [but] the integration that Apple offers with iPad is still not matched. Samsung is not there."

The expectation the S4 will feature eye-tracking capability has been heightened by existing technology in the Galaxy S3 - the phone's Smart Stay function stops the screen from dimming when somebody is looking at it.

Furthermore, the New York Times notes that Samsung filed for a couple of trademarks this year named "Eye Scroll" and "Eye Pause".

Analysts also predict the standard array of upgrades - faster processor, better camera - and Ms Cozza predicts we will see something of a small leap in a major area of Samsung's expertise.

"I would think they will leverage some strength in display," she says. "Providing something on the display side that is different."

Supposed leaked images of the phone show a device that is slightly bigger than the S3, but largely the same in appearance.

Another company relying on the S4 to follow successfully in the S3's footsteps is Google.

Its Android software is used by more smartphone users than's Apple's iOS - but makes less money from apps and other related products.

Of the Android crowd, Samsung is streets ahead in market share, making more than 60% of all Android smartphones sold.

Some analysts believe this dominance could lead to Samsung looking at how it can assert far more control over the operating system - perhaps in a way similar to Amazon which, with its Kindle tablets, launched its own curated app store for its users to buy from instead of Google's default shop.

As well as cutting out Google's share of the app sale - a curated store also allows for applications designed specifically for a certain device, rather than the largely one-size-fits-all situation in the Google Play store.

Ovum's principal device analyst, Tony Cripps, says Samsung needs to take these steps if it is to fend off the threat from other hardware manufacturers such as Chinese firm Huawei.

"While Samsung continues to grow its shipments impressively, the company undermines its own position in the broader ecosystem by providing Google a huge mobile platform from which to influence consumers, application developers and advertisers," he says.

"It is very difficult for Samsung to achieve that level of influence itself while it depends on Google to supply device software and key applications and services through Android.

"Lacking a powerful ecosystem of its own clearly positions the company lower down in the value chain than either Google or Apple."

With Apple suffering from a dipped share price, and a few recent missteps with product launches, the time is perhaps ripe for Samsung to pile pressure on the iPhone-maker.

"It is a important device for them because they have got to a point where they are competing head-to-head with Apple, creating a lot of expectation," says Gartner's Ms Cozza.

"All eyes are on this device now."


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Google to retire Reader service

14 March 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET

Google is to shut down its Reader service in July, as usage has declined.

A petition to save the service, which aggregates news content from web feeds, had 25,000 signatures in a few hours.

Experts say shutting Reader is part of Google's plan to migrate more people to its social media service, Google+.

Google said in its official blog: "There are two simple reasons for this - usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we are pouring all of our energy into fewer products."

It added users and developers who wanted to use alternatives could export their data, including their subscriptions over the next four months, using its Google Takeout service.

Google Reader launched in 2005, when Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds were a new way to keep tabs on favourite websites and blogs.

The news of its demise has led to a debate about the service on Twitter. Some said its launch had effectively destroyed other RSS competitors.

Security consultant @cortesi tweeted: "Google - a destroyer of ecosystems".

In his blog, he added:" "Google destroyed the RSS feed-reader ecosystem with a subsidised product, stifling its competitors and killing innovation.

"It then neglected Google Reader itself for years, after it had effectively become the only player."

Adam Leach, a principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said Google's business model was to offer free services in order to draw people into its other offerings.

Now, he said, Google wanted people to experience their favourite websites in a more social way and was seeking to migrate its aggregation platforms to its social media service.

"This has been on the cards for a while. It is part of Google's strategy to shift people to Google + and other social tools," he said.

Doomed to fail

He added he would personally miss the service.

"I use Google Reader every day," he said.

"It is one of those tools that sits in the background and allows you to keep pace with what is going on."

But Chris Wetherell, one of Reader's chief engineers, told tech news site GigaOm it had been "doomed to fail from the very beginning because Google "never really believed in the project".


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UK broadband hits double figures

14 March 2013 Last updated at 09:23 ET

The average speed of home broadband is now 12Mbps (megabits per second), according to research from regulator Ofcom.

That has risen by a third since its last report in May 2012 and trebled in the past four years.

Increasingly consumers are upgrading their broadband packages to super-fast services of 30Mbps or above.

The increasing appetite for online video and more devices per household were driving the changes, Ofcom said.

By November 2012, more than three-quarters of the UK's home broadband users were on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps.

Continue reading the main story
  • Nov 2008 - 3.6Mbps average
  • Nov 2009 - 4.1Mbps average
  • Nov 2010 - 5.2Mbps average
  • May 2011 - 6.8Mbps average
  • Nov 2011 - 7.6Mbps average
  • May 2012 - 9.0Mbps average
  • Nov 2012 - 12.0Mbps average

The proportion of broadband connections classed as superfast was up to 13%, from 5% the previous year.

Superfast connections are getting faster, with average speeds rising from 35.8Mbps in May 2012 to 44.6Mbps in November 2012.

They are also getting cheaper - customers can upgrade for as little as £5, according to Ofcom.

Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, said "Our research shows that UK consumers are adopting faster broadband packages to cater for their increasing use of bandwidth-heavy services such as video streaming.

"The increase in the average number of connected devices in UK homes is also driving the need for speed," he said.

Digital ghettos

The report also looked at upload speeds, important to consumers wishing to share large files or use real-time video communications. The average upload speed was 1.4Mbps, up from 0.3Mbps average in May.

Price comparison website broadbandchoices.co.uk said that the prices of super-fast services needed to fall.

"An increase of 3.1Mbps (34%) in UK broadband speeds is significant, but this is entirely down to the increased availability of fibre optic services and these do not come cheap - you could end up paying five times as much for fibre optic as you would for standard ADSL," said Dominic Baliszewski, the website's telecoms expert.

He also pointed out that the increasing speeds were unlikely to affect those struggling on much slower speeds in the countryside: "Unfortunately this report will be cold comfort to rural dwellers stuck in 'digital ghettos' who are struggling to get more than a few megabits per second.

"British households are still having to play a postcode lottery when it comes to broadband speed; the government's vision for UK broadband to be fastest in Europe by 2015 is a long way from being realised," he said.

Natural limit

This week the Community Broadband Network launched a report looking at fresh ways to fund broadband to the last 10% of the UK.

It wants the government to provide loans directly to communities wanting to build their own networks.

Meanwhile a report from telecoms analyst firm PointTopic said that there was a natural limit to the speeds consumers would need.

"Today that 'point' is in the 60-70Mbps range," said Oliver Johnson, chief executive at Point Topic.

"Enough to stream a high definition video or three with perhaps some light browsing on the side and if the kids are old enough an online game and a music stream," he added.


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