Disconnection
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Siempo's smartphone encourages you not to use it
Do you find having a computer in your pocket that's connected to the sum total of human knowledge a bit... distracting? The founders of Siempo do, which is why they've dreamt up a smartphone that encourages you to live more in the moment. Rather than the usual Android home screen, Siempo only lets you do a handful of things to ensure you don't spend all day staring at it.
ArcheAge scrambles to fix disconnection issues after update
ArcheAge launched a big update yesterday filled with exciting new features -- chiefly, new territories that players can capture, build castles upon, lay siege to, and so forth. At least, you would be able to do any of these things if you were one of the lucky few players capable of logging into the game, which has not been the case for a great many players since the update went live yesterday thanks to serious disconnection issues. As of 7:45 a.m. EST this morning, the official Trion post on the subject says the studio has devised a new build to correct the issue, and the servers were brought down early this morning to apply the patch (they're back up now). However, that might not be enough to pacify the players who are agitating for a rollback under the perception that the update's new territory was claimed while significant portions of the playerbase were forced offline. We'll have more on this situation as it develops. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Our own AA players are in the same boat!]
Verizon dropped 10,000 emergency calls during January snowstorm in Maryland, FCC finds it 'alarming'
Uh oh, Verizon's got itself into a bit of hot water with the old FCC. An outage during a snowstorm last month has reportedly resulted in a whopping 10,000 calls to 911 not being connected by the big red carrier. That would be bad enough in itself, but the less-than-pleased Communications Commission also notes that the emergency services that missed out on these calls were not alerted to the connectivity failure -- in fact, Maryland's Montgomery County officers were the ones to inform Verizon of the fault it was having, which was then promptly repaired within 15 minutes. The FCC is now curtly asking the network to check its entire footprint for similar vulnerabilities -- as the January events were apparently "not unique" -- and to propose remedial actions and monitoring systems to prevent it happening again.
Egypt enters communication blackout with disruption to internet, SMS, and BlackBerry messaging
We don't know what exactly is going on over in Egypt, but the country's government seems to have decided that keeping in touch with the outside world is no longer desirable and has almost completely shut down internet, SMS, and BlackBerry communications. It's not surprising, therefore, that reports are emerging in rather piecemeal form at the moment, though Renesys has hard data showing that almost all routes for exchanging internet traffic with the country have been shut down, with only Noor Group excepted from the block -- a move the internet analytics company theorizes might have been motivated by a desire to keep the Egyptian Stock Exchange online. The reasons for this blackout remain open to speculation and interpretation -- most of which, we remind you, has better destinations than your favorite tech blog -- but its content is clearly an extreme step for any government to take. Check out the links below for further details. [Image credit: seandenigris.com]
AT&T disconnecting critical users? Probably not
You may have heard the hubbub in the last 24 hours about AT&T's new Terms of Service for its DSL accounts, and its apparent hardline approach to customers who may criticize the company. For those of you not up to speed, the long and short of it is that the TOS stipulates that AT&T can and does reserve the right to disconnect any user's account if the telco believes said user is utilizing the connection to "damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." Sounds doomy and gloomy, doesn't it? Well, AT&T issued a statement in response to the backlash it's been getting, making it explicitly clear that it is not the company's policy to axe users who take it to task. Here's what they had to say:"AT&T respects its subscribers' rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from websites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation). We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T. This policy is not new and it's not unique to AT&T."So, according to The Man, you can talk all the smack you want about AT&T and its screwball policies / high prices / use of dental implants to monitor your conversations -- without the fear of having the lines snipped... or so they say.
