Bublcam for 360-Degree Video


Bublcam's 360 Degree Spherical Camera.

Bublcam's CEO Sean Ramsay stopped by the office to show off the current version of the device, available for preorder for $579. The camera’s price makes it more of a “prosumer” device than something like a GoPro. That means that Bublcam has to find markets willing to pay more for the advantages that come with being able to capture a complete 360 degree sphere of video.

National Weather Service Website Down

The National Weather Service official website was slow to respond Monday August 25, 2014 for most of the day. Services, such as the hourly forecast graphs, and text forecast discussions were inaccessible. Several internal links from forecast.weather.gov were inaccessible and produced an error page with the following messages ...

(1)

An error occurred while processing your request.

Reference #97.6fee32b8.1409001160.1d0386c2

(2)

An error occurred while processing your request.

Reference #97.6fee32b8.1409001298.1d03ea79

Access time average about 14 to 15 ms according to isitdownrightnow.com on August 25, 2014 at about 4:20 p.m. CDT.

Apparently a rogue or misconfigured app caused the interference with the National Weather Service website.  The National Weather Service did not release any information about the the specific app that was causing the problem or any other details.

A message on Monday, August 25, 2014 read ...

TO - ALL CUSTOMERS SUBJECT - POINT FORECAST ISSUES . WE ARE PROVIDING NOTICE TO ALL THAT NIDS HAS IDENTIFIED AN ABUSING ANDROID APP THAT IS IMPACTING FORECAST.WEATHER.GOV. WE HAVE FORCED ALL SITES TO ZONES WHILE WE WORK WITH THE DEVELOPER. AKAMAI IS BEING ENGAGED TO BLOCK THE APPLICATION. WE CONTINUE TO WORK ON THIS ISSUE AND APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE AS WE WORK TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE. . NIDS - KM

Then Tuesday, August 26, 2014 a message read ...

Last Update: Tue Aug 26 19:05:01 2014 GMT
NWS TOC Operational Status Message

Tue Aug 26 02:42:58 2014 GMT

NOXX01 KWBC 260240
TO - ALL CUSTOMERS
SUBJECT - POINT FORECAST ISSUES
.
AKAMAI HAS INSTALLED FILTERS WHICH BLOCK
THE OFFENDING TRAFFIC.  NIDS HAS VERIFIED THAT
THE TRAFFIC IS BEING BLOCKED.  ALL SYSTEM ARE
NORMALIZED.  WE APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE.
PLEASE NOTIFY THE TOC AT TOC.NWSTG-AT-NOAA.GOV
IF ANY FURTHER ISSUES ARE IDENTIFIED.
THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.
NIDS - KM

There were no messages regarding the problem on the official Twitter or official Facebook for the National Weather Service as of 4:20 pm. CDT.

The NWS has suffered a series of telecommunications problems during the past two years. In April, several important local NWS websites went down during spring's first major tornado outbreak. In May 2014, warnings were not broadcast via the website and via automated channels when an EF-3 tornado touched down near Albany, New York.

On some occasions, the National Weather Service has turned to Facebook and Twitter to make announcements when the website is not working properly.


See also ...
http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/weather.gov.html

http://weather.gov

forecast.weather.gov

TouchPico Android Projector


Kyle Russell talks to TouchJet about their new Android based pico projector that allows you to turn any smooth surface into a touch screen interface.

Deloitte: British Smartphone Users Downloading Few Apps


A Deloitte survey shows that 31% of British smartphone users do not download apps. What's next for the app economy?

Deloitte found that 90 percent of people never spend money on apps in Great Britain.

Nearly one in three people in the U.K. do not download any apps in a typical month, according to a report released by research firm Deloitte. Researchers at Deloitte report that people had found their ideal number of apps, which includes a few social media and music streaming apps.

Deloitte points out that the app market is not shrinking, but the app stats are falling because most smartphone users now are over 50 and have less interest in using apps.

Don't Call Police 9-1-1 for Facebook Outage: Yes it Happened When Facebook Was Down at 11:05 CDT on Friday, August 1, 2014

Facebook experienced an outage about 11:00 a.m. Friday, August 1, 2014. Facebook was sluggish and also put out a message that said ...

Sorry, something went wrong.

We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.

Go Back

Facebook © 2014 · Help



Before the "Sorry" message, the displayed web page said "Service Unavailable"

Sgt. Burton Brink, PIO CV Station (La Crescenta), an officer from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department used Facebook's social media competitor Twitter on Friday to remind people that 9-1-1 is for law enforcement issues. Facebook users called 9-1-1 for help to report that the social media website was down.


A message posted by a Facebook developer said the site "is currently experiencing an issue that is affecting all API and web surfaces. Our engineers detected the issue quickly and are working to resolve it ASAP. We'll update shortly."

Facebook gradually returned to 100 percent by about 12:00 p.m. CDT Friday.

Facebook also recently experienced an outage on Friday, July 4, 2014. People could see the Facebook page, but couldn't update their status.


You can always check the Status of common Internet services here ...

Digital-Lifestyle STATUSES ...