disruption
Latest
Ford's commuter van service Chariot halts operations in San Francisco
Chariot, an on-demand commuter van service owned by Ford, had to suspend it's operations in San Francisco due to compliance issues with the California Highway Patrol, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
Dreams, curiosity and a passion for what's next: picking the brain of Innovation Lab's Mads Thimmer
Innovation. According to one Mads Thimmer, it's a word that held a great deal of mystery some 10-plus years ago, but today, "it's thrown around as a cliché." When you really get down to it, though, the art of innovating is a hugely delicate and complex one, fraught with frustration and a curious passion for never settling on the here and now. In covering the world of consumer technology, I've come to form my own understanding of what innovation is, what it isn't and how companies are embracing (or outright shunning) the idea. After an evening with the cofounder of Innovation Lab, however, I was rightfully ready to toss my own preconceived notions aside.
Bay Area transit operator cuts cell service to thwart protest, activists abandon cause for Angry Birds
It looks like not even good old civil disobedience can survive without decent reception these days. In a seemingly successful attempt to shut down a protest of BART -- the Bay Area's answer to a subway system -- operators pulled the plug on cell service to multiple train stations, leaving would-be activists without a major organizing tool. The demonstration would have been the second in as many months in response to the shooting of a man by transit police. Officials had this to say in defense of the disruption: A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators. BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform. That didn't seem to sit well with some, as the cutoff has lead to a campaign by hackers, comparing the system to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who disconnected the country's internet during its recent revolution. It may have a ring to it, but muBARTek does seem a little much, don't you think?
Blood Sport: Finding your PVP playstyle in arena, part 2
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 Gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in Blood Sport. We talked last week about finding your PVP playstyle in an attempt to find better partners. People with the same view on how an arena battle should be won usually find themselves doing much better than otherwise. The strategy doesn't have to be necessarily the best strategy or tactics used, as long as everyone is on the same page. I've seen inferior strategies work wonders when everyone on the opposing team is in sync with each other. While we went over a variety of topics, including offense vs. defense, crowd control vs. damage, and leader vs. follower mentality, I don't believe I've quite done justice to healers or overarching views on arena. So we'll be discussing this for a bit more today, then moving onto something else next week.
Verizon's LTE network takes the night off, leaves a bunch of Thunderbolt users bewildered
Is your fancy new phone lacking that certain extra G that makes it special? Worry not, it's not just your device, Verizon's entire LTE network seems to be having problems as outages have been reported from across the US. We tested our own Thunderbolt in San Francisco this morning and it was indeed making do with only 3G connectivity. It's important to note that Verizon's 3G network seems to be ticking along quite alright, it's just 4G service that's down at the moment. Some folks have reported losing both 3G and 4G connectivity, but that's owing to a documented issue with 3G provisioning on the Thunderbolt -- we've noted the way to overcome that problem in a previous post. For now, just enjoy your regular-speed mobile internet until the super-fast stuff is fixed and back up. Update: The Verizon Wireless Twitter account has confirmed the issue, and that the company's network engineers are "working to resolve quickly." Update 2: As of 4:13pm ET Verizon has determined the cause and is "working with major vendors to restore connections." Still no ETA for a fix. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
China, predictably, denies Google's accusations of Gmail tampering
On Monday, Google expressed its belief that its email users in China were experiencing "a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail." Now, as is par for this thorny course, the Chinese state has come out with a terse rebuttal, saying simply that "this is an unacceptable accusation." The retort was, says the BBC, part of a regular news conference on Tuesday and it doesn't appear that any more time was spent on the subject. Which is odd since most people would tend to act to prevent something they see as unacceptable -- but then we suppose China already has a pretty long list of folks it'd like to shut up, Google's just gonna have to get in line and wait its turn. There's a good citizen.
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]
