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Google and Facebook Invest In Londons East End

Posted by on Thursday, 4 November, 2010

Facebook Invest in London Silicon Valley

Facebook Investment in East End Silicon Valley

After months of discussions with American social media network Facebook and world giant search engine Google, prime minister David Cameron announces that they are closer than ever to getting the investment needed to create an East End Silicon Valley.

The whole prinicipal of the move is to create Euorpe’s largest technology hub of innovation right next to the Olympic stadium in the East End of London. Along with the Google and Facebook investment, rumours have been spreading that there are also more companies seeking to invest in the multi billion project which is due to start once the Olypmic Games have passed.

At a conference today, David Cameron said: “Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make East London one of the world’s great technology centres.”

Hearing the speech made by Mr Cameron, the Vice President or Facebook, Joanna Shields said she was happy with things so far, as it “will give start ups and innovators in the UK a home to realise their ambitions as part of the London 2012 Olympics legacy”.

Google Invest In East End Silicon Valley

Google Investment in East End Silicon Valley

The other companies who are looking to take part in the dubbed “Silicon Fen” are Cisco Syetems, British Telecom and Intel Inc.

Mr Cameron finshed off his statement with: “I want to encourage the sort of creative innovation that exists in America.”

This all sounds like a good few steps forward in bringing the UK up to speed with the rest of the world, but it also makes me think it may have played a major part in the decission not to put Google in the European Courts for breach of the Data Protection Act when they took thousands of personal details from PC’s whilst taking images for their Google Street Maps?

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Discovery Delayed by 24 Hours by NASA Fault Check

Posted by on Wednesday, 3 November, 2010
Discovery Awaiting Final Electronics Test

Space Shuttle Discovery

Your ready for a big meeting and your lift doesn’t arrive, you just call a cab and away you go. Well, not for the Astronauts who are waiting to be blasted off at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida this week, as they suddenly get held up with a ‘technical’ hitch in the electronics.

There  never seems to be a launch without a hitch, be it a fault with the aircraft or the weather conditions not being suitable.

And this weeks launch is not going to disappoint with the 24 hours delay so that NASA can investigate a problem which seems to be causing some concerns, yet they can not get to the bottom of ‘WHY’ it is happening.

So, what is it that is holding the big bird up from it’s final launch?

According to engineers from the Space Centre in Kennedy, there was a fault that kept coming up on the pre check which told them the back up engines were at fault – obviously, something pretty important when you consider how far they are going, right?

Absolutely, but when asked the big question after the announcement, Launch Director Michael Leinbach replied: “It’s another day in paradise.”

“This is part of the business, you fly when you’re ready and you don’t if you’re not, and we’re not ready to go.”
And they are just so right, it would be like turning up at the airport without your passport – yet slightly more serious!
So, the delay is expected to roll over to Thursday 3:29 p.m. EDT at the latest – unless something else pops up and takes them by surprise. And with a 70% chance of a low cloud base, I guess that the 6 man Discovery crew headed by commander Steven Lindsey may not be holding their breath.
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Windows Phone 7 Launches Tomorrow Morning

Posted by on Wednesday, 20 October, 2010

The all new Windows Phone 7 Operating System Screen Dump

Are You Camping Outside A Store Near You?

Well, Windows Phone 7 finally launches around the globe tomorrow, and tech freaks are pretty much on the fence going by previous launches for mobile media unts and handsets. But, it won’t be long until we hear the first views of the general public and their opinion, because no matter how many experts try to explain what they see, it’s the public who buy them.

Windows Mobile 7In Singapore, Singtel have confirmed their plans for the ‘Urber’ sharp Windows 7, and are one of the first networks who will be releasing the handset first thing tomorrow morning.

What seems to have attracted a lot of interest is the game play status, where Microsoft have allowed ‘XBOX’ games to be played on the handset, of which one of the more popular is Armor Valley which was developed by Protege. And if that just scratches the surface, Microsoft have confirmed that this will be only one title of the 50 top games being released for the handset globally.

Yuen Kuan Moon, SingTel’s Executive Vice President said: “We are also bringing our own set of developers whom we have been grooming and working with on other platforms to introduce them onto Windows Phone 7 platform…you’ll see more and more of the local apps that we have on other platforms being ported into Windows Phone 7.”

To mention a couple of ‘Apps’ which are going to be ported into Mobile 7 Phase 1 programming will be AMPed music and the Mobile TV live streaming service.

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Toshiba To Launch First 3D TV Without Glasses

Posted by on Monday, 4 October, 2010

Toshiba To Launch The First 3D TV Without Glasses in December 2010

3D Glasses Will Become A Thing Of The Past.

Electrical and TV giant, Toshiba, have announced that they are in the final stages of launching their new Liquid Crystal Display 3D TV without glasses – which is forecast to hit the market around late December, ready for the January sales.

The only one issue as it stands is that it will only be released in Japan to begin with, and no plans have been made for either the US or European market.

Early noise from the technology driven Japanese company are that it will only be available in two screen sizes to begin with, a 12inch portable style screen and a 20inch home edition, even though they displayed a 56inch version for the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Prices have been indicated to be 120,000 JPY (£980.00/$1,500) for the 12inch model, and 240,000 JPY (£1950.00/$3,000) for the 20inch version. Obviously these are pre-release prices which are not guaranteed, but you can safely say that by showing this hand, Toshiba will be able to gauge the reaction for the rest of the world markets within a matter of weeks of releasing the first edition in Japan.

Masaaki Oosumi, head of Toshiba’s digital products division said: “It’s still not at a satisfactory level in terms of price or screen size, but if you take a long-term view of 3-D technology, the direction is ultimately toward glasses-free.”

Since the release of 3D TV in the UK, and transmission of ‘Live’ events by BSkyB, manufacturer’s have completely flooded the market with ’3D’ boxes that require glasses. Industry experts said that this was more than likely to use up old screen stock which would have been rendered useless if not swiftly shifted into the market place.

And surprisingly not, this is where Toshiba decided to play their hand slightly closer to their chest, and develop a completely new screen pixel which would allow for three dimensional to be viewable by the naked eye.

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Apple iPhone 4 Released in China

Posted by on Saturday, 25 September, 2010

iPhone 4 Beijing – China: The big Apple iPhone 4 launch started on Saturday morning, where flocking buyers queued for hours to get hold of one of the new mobile devices. China, which is where most of the technology of the world is produced, was one of the last launches for this handset, so it was surprising to see the 1000′s of people who had spent hours waiting for the doors to open.

One of the new Apple stores which is based in Xidan’s City shopping mall witnessed crowds nearing 1000 people, which is only one of the two new stores that Apple has opened in Beijing this year. Some of the anxious buyers had been camping out in front of the store for over 48 hours, to make sure they were one of the first to get their hands on the new handset.

One of the first people in the queue was Yu Zhong Hui, who said, “Physically, it has been painfull, yet mentally, I am VERY happy.” He continued with, “When you want something, you have to pay a price. The price I paid was everyone having to see me waiting outside.”

What seems to have surprised Applemore than anything is that the iPhone 4 launch has attracted far more customers in China than the previously launched 3G model. And whilst Apple refused to comment on how sales were doing, the mobile carrier for the device, China Unicom, claim that they have signed up more than 50,000 people for the latest iPhone 4 within the first day of release.

Much like the launch of the iPhone 3G, the black market was always going to be making handsets available way before the official launch, where by eager buyers have been purchasing the new model from overseas on platforms like eBay and Amazon.

The release price for the iPhone 4 16GB with no contract was set at $744 or 4,999Yuan, whilst the 32GB handset was $893 or 5,999 Yuan.

What is surprising is the amount of followers of Apple in China who waited for the official release, considering that manufacturers of “copied” handsets have been selling like hot cakes for the last 3 months.

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Facebook Suffers Another Night Of Problems

Posted by on Friday, 24 September, 2010

Facebook Outage Problems Strike AgainThousands of Facebook users launched a huge outcry last night when they were unable to access the social media platform for up to 3 hours, which was probably one of the worst down times Facebook has witnessed over the last few years.

According to a posting made by Facebook, this was traced back to a system change that they were in the process of making.

Without trying to confuse many people, the change was a selection of data which was requested whenever the error checking software did a routine pass, and found invalid data on the the system. So, logic taking the lead, the software found the fault, and kept trying to replace the code with the same faulty code it found, creating an everlasting loop effect – until it was rectified.

For many users, it simply resulted in a “DNS Error” message and would not let them access the site.

In the quote made by Facebook; “The way to stop the feedback cycle was quite painful – we had to stop all traffic to this database cluster, which meant turning off the site,”

“Once the databases had recovered and the root cause had been fixed, we slowly allowed more people back onto the site” commented Robert Jackson, the Director of Software Engineering.

What has since been released is slightly more concerning, after the bad press over the Facebook “Security” issue this last couple of months.

Since understanding the problem, they have turned off their automated system so they could keep the site live. Doesn’t sound that bad, until you understand that this system plays a major role in the protection over the site.

Technical engineers are trying to find an alternative way to handle this situation so it won’t happen again. But for the mean time, the words from Facebook are; “We apologize again for the site outage, and we want you to know that we take the performance and reliability of Facebook very seriously.”

So that’s twice in two days that the application has been interupted – this time by the software and the other was blamed on a third party network provider, who made the site inaccessible on Wednesday for many people.

Knowing what you have read, are you still concerned about the Facebook security issue which has been breached? Tell us about it below!

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Stuxnet Virus Bound For Iranian Infrastructure

Posted by on Thursday, 23 September, 2010

Iraian Nuclear Power Station
Whilst we are all sleeping and dreaming of what we will be doing the next day, officials around the globe are keeping up to speed with the Stuxnet ‘Super Virus’ and it’s where abouts.

The Stuxnet Virus has bee described as being the most ‘complexed’ piece of computer malware ever produced or seen on the web, with concerns it was designed to hit places of big importance, potentially like the Iranian Nuclear Power Plant.

There are claims that the virus was first detected back in 2009 and has been circulating ever since, with very little effect.

Researchers have said that the virus is a potentially dangerous and extremely complexed to the degree that it was designed to penetrate large sections of business infrastructure for example, power plants, pumping stations and places of major industry.

Security expert from Symantec Internet Security, Liam O’Murchu said that their exclusive information shows that Iran was suffering with more infections than anywhere else in the world, and that he thought this virus was bound for the same place.

The one major problem with the Stuxnet Virus, is that it was written and designed to attack computers and software that were traditionally not connected to the internet for obvious reasons. The worm manages to get itself into USB style memory sticks and is passed on when people use them for moving files from system to system.

Once the worm has embedded itself, it then seeks out specific configurations on software programmes supplied by companies like Siemens, and replaces certain sections of script which then instructs the machinery to work in a different way.

Right now, the virus is only supposed to be a concern for high end industries. But according to some security experts, it has not been completely written off as something which could work on most programmes currently used by small businesses, and transfered in on memory sticks from employee’s who may not have the security to spot the worm from a home pc.

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Microsoft Zune Software Launch Before Windows Mobile 7 Released

Posted by on Tuesday, 21 September, 2010

Microsoft Zune
The most anticipated launch of the Zune Software, platform and music store from Microsoft is due to launch in the Autumn of 2010 in at least 20 countries, according to a press leak from Microsoft HQ earlier today.

Even though Microsoft are confident that the New Zune system will take off with a bang, most within the industry are still saying that it is a slightly premature decision to open the flood gates without having the Windows Mobile 7 ready and launched at the same time.

This alone tells it’s own story, because if they are confident enough to launch the application store which the phone will be using, it must mean that the launch of the phone is slightly closer than they are letting on.

Windows Mobile 7Early rumours indicated that the launch of the Windows Mobile 7 could be as early as October according to industry insiders at pocket-lint.com – whilst others are being slightly more optimistic with a late November launch.

The oone thing which is pretty much a certainty is that the launch will be on GSM Networks, which should at least keep T Mobile happy in the USA.

Although Microsoft are saying that the launch will see much of the services being available to the world market, they have dropped out that the UK will get full services along with France, yet Canada will not get access to the music store and Germany will get everything apart from the music pass subscription service.

Click on the following link to find out more about the launch of Zune, as well as a list of all the countries where Zuen will be available and what they will be able to use.

Microsoft Zune Software Launch

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Facebook Places a Slow Take Up

Posted by on Sunday, 19 September, 2010

Facebook Places UKTechnology is all around us, and daily more and more services pop up from under the skirting board in hope to not only improve user experience, but earn more and more profits for the owners.

This week was no different, with Facebook announcing the release of ‘Facebook Places’ which is a locator street map for people to use on facebook so they can find certain places of interest, and businesses alike.

Although it may sound slightly strange, this could well be something which is needed to fend of the stiff competition from people like Google – who already adopt this system for live web, as well as the live navigation on the Android mobile phone.

Facebook Places USA
The application was rolled out in the USA some time ago – and was taken up pretty well by users across the country. But, this may not be the case for the UK, with many users taking time to test the service over privacy issues, which have been a huge concern over the last few months.

Once the service has been roled out fully, people may begin to trust the power and use of the application – but until FB manages to get local businesses to sign up and use the service, the mainstream chain stores are the only places which can be found.

Great of you are a high street chain, but yet again the smaller business is being forced into doing something they have no control over, which is something that has been under the microscope since Google started it’s free ads on Google Places.

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The All New BBC iPlayer Gets Unveiled

Posted by on Monday, 6 September, 2010

BBC iPlayer
In a week which has been as busy as any other, the BBC quietly sneaks up from behind and launches the all the iPlayer. But hold on there, because they have gone that one step further this time and created something a little bit special.

The completely revamped iPlayer features a Brand New Design that makes it easier to find TV programmes, personalisation tools, so that users can customise their viewing experience, and social networking integration, to enable people to share their favourite shows on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

This new-look iPlayer, which goes “LIVE” later today, is the first major upgrade to the catch-up TV service since it launched in December 2007. With more than 1.1 billion minutes of video are watched on iPlayer every month. The service is available on a variety of platforms, including through television sets, on-demand TV services, online, through games consoles and on mobile devices.

Personally, I liked the iPlayer from day one and never even gave it a second thought – but now iI have had a chance of testing the new service, I can honestly say that it works far in excess of anyones imagination.

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