Weekend’s Top 8 roundup – 21st Nov

Thanksgiving week here in the USA, we see record sales, US Navy suffers data breach, Scotland’s unicorn sold to China, Oracle buys a DNS company, Twitter laying off over 300 people, a battery that lasts for weeks from a charge in seconds, and how swearing can show your intelligence.

Thanksgiving week here in the USA, we see record sales, US Navy suffers data breach, Scotland’s unicorn sold to China, Oracle buys a DNS company, Twitter laying off over 300 people, a battery that lasts for weeks from a charge in seconds, and how swearing can show your intelligence.

  1. US Navy suffers data breach with 130,000 names out in the open
    2016-11-26_08h58_48Another data breach story to tell, however this one is a little more unique considering it is the military data of current and in-active personnel that was hacked, from a consultant at HP when their laptop was stolen.

    One has to naturally ask why an external consultant was hosting this data on their laptop in the first place?  That exhibits very poor development processes.  Shame on you HP.

  2. Scotland’s unicorn, Skyscanner, is sold to a Chinese company for £1.4B
    2016-11-26_09h04_03.pngA company based in Edinburgh founded in 2003 offering cheap deals on air travel and hotels sold to a Chinese company this week.  What is interesting about this story is that illustrates that ignoring China may be a mistake; they only opened an office there in 2012 and then acquired a Chinese rival.  A risky move at the time I am sure, but it has paid off now.

    Incidentally, speaking of unicorns, did you know that the unicorn is the official animal of Scotland?  I just made your next dinner party more interesting – thank you.

  3. Dyn, the DNS company, sells to Oracle for $600M
    2016-11-26_09h10_36.pngAnother healthy purchase, is that of the start-up come good, Dyn, who provide DNS resolution services for many of the big properties of the Internet.   Oracle has snapped them up to further cement their move into the cloud industry.  Dyn are a great company, so let us hope Oracle, doesn’t get all Oracle on them and leave them to do their thing.

    If the name Dyn sounds familiar then you are right, they were taken down as part of a massive DoS attack on the Internet a few weeks ago.

  4. An overzealous salesman offers cloud services to Amazon’s CTO
    2016-11-26_09h21_39This one is just one of those legendary tales that illustrates just how bad cold emailing from a list can be.  One salesman emailed Werner Vogels, the considered father of cloud computing, asking if Amazon had made the transition to the cloud yet.  Oops.

    Vogels shamed them on Twitter – which is a shame; I would have strung the sales guy on a little more to see at what point some research kicked in humility struck the poor guy.

  5. Twitter is planning on laying off 350 employees
    2016-11-26_09h33_08The media’s best loved channel is struggling despite record numbers of eyeballs on its product.  The problem is of course, turning those eyeballs into paying customers.  This week in their earnings call they said this move was a way to make the company more efficient.

    Some companies are just not intended to make money; Twitter is a feature, not a product, and should just be bought by a large media company and integrated.

  6. Battery that charges in seconds, but lasts for weeks?
    2016-11-26_09h37_03.pngThe news that researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a supercapacitor that can last 20 times longer than the current battery technology has people dreaming of real cord-cutting!  Not only that, but it only takes a few seconds to bring it back to full charge.

    This is truly science fiction stuff and if they can pull this off and commercialize it they may have solved one of man’s biggest problems – how do I make my phone last a full day!?

  7. Black Friday is set to break all records; $1B purchased on smartphones alone
    2016-11-26_09h56_42This is Thanksgiving week in the USA, and that means only one thing, bargains galore!  This year retailers are saying their tills are ringing louder than before even though a lot of have purposely closed on Black Friday as a mark of anti-consumerism.

    What is interesting, more people are using their phones for grabbing bargains, with over $1B in sales originating from handsets.  I will confess to doing this – I was in BestBuy and bought the same LG headset on Amazon as I was standing with the box in my hand; $20 cheaper and same day delivery!

  8. People who swear are more intelligent, so science says
    2016-11-26_10h04_10You know how it goes, you drop the off ‘fuck’ and people think it’s a lack of vocabulary (though Billy Connolly famously said, he knows lots of words, but still prefers fuck).  Apparently researchers have found, that those that swear often actually have a higher number of words overall.  There you go!

    And if you need some help to add some colour into your language then let me help you with the excellent online FOAAS Fuck Off As A Service.  You’ll be firing them out in no time.

 

… and this week’s soundtrack is brought to you from the gentleman of American country, Tim McGraw.

Last Week’s Top 8 Tech Stories – 14th Nov

The week that was gave us another 8 interesting stories, including this year’s biggest software hack, how you can easily hack with your laptop, VW embroiled in another emission software scandal, Amazon gets into the car business, Tesla into the sun business and how users can no longer hide from Skype calls!

The week that was gave us another 8 interesting stories, including this year’s biggest software hack, how you can easily hack with your laptop, VW embroiled in another emission software scandal, Amazon gets into the car business, Tesla into the sun business and how users can no longer hide from Skype calls!

Enjoy.

  1. AdultFriendFinder is the winner of the years biggest hack with 412M users
    chrome_2016-11-20_19-21-06Barely a week goes by when we don’t learn of a hack of some sort, but this one takes the prize for the largest number of users affected in 2016 at 412M users.   This haul included passwords, in both clear and (weak) hashed format.  The issue here is of course that the vast majority of people repeat their email/passwords combinations, opening them up for not only blackmail, but identify theft.

    Interesting tidbit; LeakedSource did an analysis on the passwords and found nearly a 1M people still use the classic 123456 as their password – no sympathy for those people anymore.

  2. Give a man one laptop; and he can bring down major pieces of the Internet
    chrome_2016-11-20_19-27-32When we hear of Denial of Server attacks, we picture 1000’s of independent machines infected with a piece of malware that saturate a servers infrastructure.  Well that may not be the case anymore if researchers from TDC Security are to believed.

    Armed with a single laptop, that has access to a fast network, you can use BlackNurse, a new technique that bombards network equipment with malformed ICMP packets.  So forget the foreign nationals trying to hack us – all it takes is a pissed off employee!

  3. VW are still caught in the emission cheating scandal with Audi
    chrome_2016-11-20_19-34-19.pngWith all the news this week about fake news stories on Google and Facebook you would think you can take solace that something as mechanical as a car won’t betray you.  Think again – those pesky German VW software engineers have been caught with their compilers down again – this time with the Audi brand.

    The US EPA are investigating Audi about discrepancies in their reports with particular attention being applied to the software.  This whole scandal is just ridiculous and I hope a single developer is not fired over this; management had to know, their heads need to roll.

  4. Do you want to Amazon Prime that new Fiat car?
    chrome_2016-09-24_05-16-50Yes, Amazon are getting into the automotive business, by offering 3 Fiat models on their Italian website.  If you recall they announced a few months ago, Amazon Vehicles that was more like a Wikipedia for cars, so this is a logical step to start selling cars direct online.

    This will be an interesting to watch and see how customers react to this model.  Personally, I think it will be a big hit, as the likes of CarMax (and Tesla) demonstrate, as people hate haggling and dealing with car salesmen.

  5. Tesla and SolarCity are now a single entity after 85% shareholder approval
    chrome_2016-11-20_19-49-48With Amazon getting into the car selling business, Tesla is now in the solar business after shareholders overwhelming approved the acquisition.  All gone crazy!  At first blush, a car company buying a solar panel maker makes absolutely no sense.  However, to understand this you need to buy-in to Elon Musk’s vertical transport energy company (car + battery + solar).

    This is a bold move and their stock took a bit of a beating on the official confirmation.  If Tesla can produce the Model 3 in the numbers this will be just a bump in the road as this journey is just starting out.

  6. Russia bans LinkedIn
    chrome_2016-11-20_19-56-57.pngWhat is a Russian recruiter to do now?!?   Russia has added LinkedIn to the list of foreign sites that are no longer accessible to the average Russian user.  LinkedIn has  succumb to that law that dictates that any company storing personal Russian citizen data need to have those servers hosted within Russia.  LinkedIn does not.

    LinkedIn are not the only sites to fall foul of this – YouPorn and PornHub are also in this list.  WikiPedia was also banned for a few days, and Facebook/Twitter are also on the cusp of being banned after repeated warnings.

  7. Skype no longer requires a username to call someone
    chrome_2016-11-20_20-03-06File this under, #finally.  Skype is a great service, but requires both parties to have a Skype account to really benefit.   Not any longer.  Microsoft have finally relented and can offer Skype call sessions via a web browser, single unique link experience.

    There are some limitations, but at least you can now call your Linux friends who have been holding out on you.

  8. Sssh … can you hear that?  Is that an electric car approaching?
    chrome_2016-11-20_20-08-02.pngDang naggit the US DoT has gone ruined one of the best bits of fun you can have in an electric car – that is sneaking up on runners in your neighborhood, dogs also fall into that category.   They now want all cars that can run silent to emit a sound while they are under 19 mph.

    Now details are a little sketchy here as to what type of sound we are talking.  I really hope Tesla allow me to upload my own MP3 – maybe the fun hasn’t been ruined after all.

 

… and this week’s soundtrack was brought to you by Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice.  Christopher Walken dancing I could watch all day – every time I press the elevator button this is what goes through my head!

Last Week’s Top 8 Tech Stories – 7th Nov

Welcome to this week’s, election free, roundup of the news that caught my attention this week, ranging from self-testing USB sticks, security attacks on Tesco, how Facebook buys passwords from hackers, NFL losing viewers, cramped airlines, Yahoo still dancing with Verizon, to a warning about pervy teenagers in sunglasses.

Welcome to this week’s, election free, roundup of the news that caught my attention this week, ranging from self-testing USB sticks, security attacks on Tesco, how Facebook buys passwords from hackers, NFL losing viewers, cramped airlines, Yahoo still dancing with Verizon, to a warning about pervy teenagers in sunglasses.

Enjoy.

  1. USB stick for detecting the HIV virus in blood
    explorer_2016-11-13_10-28-48A company in the UK has developed a USB stick that can detect the amount of HIV in the blood within 20 minutes, with 88% accuracy.  This is a huge improvement on the ‘try-at-home’ mouth swab self testing kits that are currently available.  No hint of availability or cost.

    This is a very controversial space since Elizabeth Holmes, of Theranos fame, somewhat shit in the blood test nest for everyone else.  If it does bear out, it will have huge implications for testing in 3rd world countries where access to medical equipment is scant at best.

  2. Tesco Bank, the UK’s largest supermarket, runs foul of cyber thieves as they do a ‘Superman III’ attack
    chrome_2016-11-13_10-42-07Last weekend, cyber thieves managed to successfully siphon off £2.5M from 9000 online accounts.  There is no official how so far, but experts have stepped forward noting their mobile apps had some possible problems, coupled with a potential insider who was apparently selling access in the dark web.

    No amount of security will protect us from the disgruntled employee; every company has that person that knows that little too much.  Apparently they have been sucking off small amounts for months now, but someone got greedy/impatient I imagine, resulting in everything being shut down.

  3. Verizon and Yahoo continue to tease us, with threats Verizon may step away
    chrome_2016-11-13_10-56-35.pngThis one is turning out to be the tech equivalent of will they or won’t they Mulder and Scully love affair.  After discovering a huge data breach (500M accounts) was lost and some inside Yahoo knew this before the deal was signed, Verizon are being very coy and stroking their chins deciding on whether to continue with the $4.8B deal.

    Of course they aren’t walking away, they are just going to lob off a couple of billion and get one of the oldest Internet properties at a steal (ironic eh?).

  4.  Facebook buys stolen passwords on black market to help protect the stupid
    chrome_2016-11-13_11-05-49.pngThis week, head of security at Facebook gave a talk on security noting that the biggest problem facing security today, is that users are still using the same password across all their online properties.  To help them fight this, they have bought password lists from hackers in the dark web to run them against their database to flag such people and have them update accordingly.

    This one has me on the ethical fence; like a movie where the company buys back the painting from the cat burglar to save some bad publicity.  There is no excuse for reusing the same password, we just need to educate people –  LastPass went free for everyone the other week.

  5. NFL ratings tank; who knew that 70 ads per game was too much?
    chrome_2016-11-13_11-16-05.pngOne of America’s most loved sports is in chaos as ratings plunge.  NFL Commissioner has come out and said the game needs to change because people are just not willing to wait anymore.  Continual timeouts, stoppages, ads (70 per game!!) are all adding up to a frustration that are turning people off the game.   The Netflix ‘ad-free uninterrupted experience‘ culture is being blamed.

    Though, if non-stop action is what you are looking for, then take a look at soccer or even rugby (which is NFL without padding) – it may surprise you.

  6. New York to London in 3hrs and for only $2500? Sonic jets are back
    chrome_2016-11-13_11-27-02Ever since Concorde got grounded 13 years ago, we’ve had no way to get around the planet at any faster than 575 mph commercially speaking.  However a new company, Boom Super Sonic has emerged stating they could begin flying us back and forth as early as 2020, for as little as $2500.

    Their technology is promising even faster speeds than Concorde, using less fuel and less noise.  Though we will still have that wonderful boom as the sound barrier is broken.  About time air travel had some real innovation.

  7. BA planes to add 52 seats to existing planes for more capacity
    chrome_2016-11-13_11-36-51.pngTo know love, we first must suffer pain and BA is going to help us with that after reading about supersonic jets.  They plan to add an extra seat to every row, increasing the number of seats in a standard 777 to 332 from 280.

    Assuming the laws of physics are still being adhered to, if the total volume inside the plane isn’t increasing, then we can only assume the already thin seats are about to get smaller.  Where the hell you going to put an extra 52 people and all their carry-on in a 777!?!?

  8. Beware of grinning teenagers wearing cheap looking plastic shades
    chrome_2016-09-24_05-46-33As I’ve noted before, Snapchat is getting into the wearables market with a pair of sunglasses that can record 10 seconds of video for only $140 a pair (compared to the $1500 of the Google Glass experiment).  This week they tested the market with a stealth pop-up kiosk selling the first run of units.

    What makes the Snap glasses different is that they don’t look like glasses with a video camera installed in them; so infinitely more stealthy.  You’ve been warned.

 

… and this week’s soundtrack is a bittersweet one, with 2016 claiming another victim, as Leonard Cohen was taken from the world at 82 years of age.  So I give you one of my favourite video’s from the gentlemen of music.

Last Weeks Top 8 Tech Stories – 31st Oct

It was the week that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, Facebook and GoPro released their quarterly earnings and Samsung find themselves with some more consumer problems.

It was the week that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series (and I had the honor of seeing the team parade the trophy through the streets of Chicago), Facebook and GoPro released their quarterly earnings and Samsung find themselves with some more consumer problems.

  1. FaceBook stocks plunges even though they exceeded all expectations
    chrome_2016-11-06_13-08-48.pngThere seems to be no logic to the stock market at times.  It was Amazon’s last week, now this week it was the turn of FacePaint.  Even with announcing it had blew past last quarters earning numbers by 56%, the investors heard something that made them extremely nervous – they had run out of room to deliver ads – sending the stock down from 130 to 120.

    Though, from the users perspective this could be great news – what you are looking at now, the ads can’t get any worse.   Every cloud eh?

  2. Samsung recalls 2.8 million washing machines as bits start to fly off
    chrome_2016-11-06_13-14-10.pngJust as it is sweeping up the literal ashes of its fire starter Note 7, another safety scandal has beset the South Korean company – its washing machines may have  a tendency to have bits come flying off.  Machines from 2011 and 2016 are being recalled as the number of people to report injury from laundry mounts.

    This couldn’t have come at a worse time.  Quality Assurance seems to be a byword at Samsung.  My concern is that Samsung are also one of the worlds largest ship makers!

  3. NASA completes its Hubble successor, the James Webb telescope
    chrome_2016-11-06_13-28-44.pngCan you believe the Hubble telescope is 26 years old?  So it comes as no surprise that NASA has been spending time (and $8.7B) on creating an update to it, called the James Webb telescope.   This 18 carat gold plated beauty is extremely powerful and makes the current Hubble look like a 1st generation Kodak compared to today’s high end smartphone cameras.

    Though don’t expect to be seeing water on far off planets just yet, they are just going into testing and if all goes well, it will be launched in 2018.

  4. Oracle will close the NetSuite deal this coming Monday
    chrome_2016-11-06_13-44-41.pngIt has taken a while to get this one over the line, but Oracle’s big push into the accountancy SaaS world will be complete this Monday, when it completes the $9.3B purchase of NetSuite.

    It hit a speed bump when it first made the offer back in July when a prominent NetSuite investor thought the share price was under valued.  This is a big piece on the corporate chess board that Oracle has bought.

  5. Trendy camera company, GoPro, has a bad week, shares drop 20%
    chrome_2016-11-06_13-50-22.pngIn another quarterly earnings report, GoPro had a rough week with its investors, as it announced that it is not as bullish on the number of units it expects to sell.  GoPro point towards production problems that are not allowing them to make the volume they want to.

    Investors are not buying that reason though.  It would appear there is only so many sports/active people that want to strap a square camera onto their body.   This is a big upset in the industry of wearables, especially as FitBit faced the same problem a couple of weeks ago.

  6. NetFlix will introduce offline viewing; but not for American’s
    chrome_2016-10-16_11-16-04NetFlix have been talking around the much wanted feature of being able to offline content for viewing in poor-networked areas, on the road and up in the air.  However, before you go running to purchase extra large SSD cards to start downloading, it won’t be for those of us in North America.

    Netflix wants to keep the feature back for those counties that have severe connectivity issues.  Bugger.  Oh well – The Crown will just have to wait until I am grounded.

  7. We finally see Amazon’s Alexa in the flesh; Billy the Fish
    chrome_2016-11-06_14-05-04.pngIs the genius in the physical pairing of the classic Billy Bass talking fish with a Raspberry PI and Amazon’s Alexa?  Or is the genius simply coming up with the idea in the first place?

    If anyone ever doubted the power of the API, then doubt no more.  You will never look at Alexa in the same light again after watching this video of Billy answering Alexa queries.

  8. The future has arrived; bicycle tires that never go flat
    chrome_2016-11-06_14-13-45.pngThere are certain problems you would have thought that should have been solved by now.  The light bulb we never have to change or bicycle tires that never go flat.  Oh wait a minute, scratch that last one, this week we can put a check box against that.

    Nexo Tires have innovated a tire that has the feel of rubber with air, without the air. Therefore it will take thorns, nails and anything else you want to throw at it.  As someone that just last week purchased two new sets of tubes for his mountain bike this couldn’t have been more timely.

 

… and this weeks soundtrack was courtesy of Twenty One Pilots and one of their earlier albums, Vessel, that features the excellent House of Gold track.

Weekly Top 8 Tech Stories – 24th October

A big week in the world of tech where Google, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft had big product announcements and Amazon had its quarterly earnings report.

A big week in the world of tech where Google, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft had big product announcements and Amazon had its quarterly earnings report.

  1. Google redefines the whiteboard at $6,000
    Googlechrome_2016-10-29_18-33-16.png announced the Jamboard, a very rich interactive whiteboard that integrates deeply with their recently rebranded Google Suite (formerly Google Apps).  This puts it in direction competition with Microsoft’s Surface Hub 55″/80″ line.

    On this 55″ whiteboard, you can have ‘jams’ with your fellow colleagues, with a huge amount of interactivity bringing in content from all over.   Gone are the days of whiteboard inked hands and taking photos of creations.

  2. Microsoft announces its first ever desktop PC
    chrome_2016-10-29_18-39-39For a company that shaped the PC industry it is a little baffling they are only getting into creating their own desktop PC nearly 30 years since the desktop revolution began.  But the wait was worth it.

    In addition to their Surface laptops getting major updates, they introduced the Surface Studio, a $4,000 desktop that is not like anything we’ve ever seen, including a very cool input device, called the Surface Dial.  Move over Apple, there is a new cool kid in town now.

  3. Apple announces the new MacBook with the touch bar
    chrome_2016-10-29_18-45-37While Microsoft was putting its vision of the non-tablet world forward, Apple is trying to redefine the laptop with its latest MacBook, with the new interactive touch bar.

    Instead of the usual row of function keys, they have replaced it with a OLED touch bar, that will change context depending on the application you are in.  Function keys have become ingrained in our brains for various things.  First it was the 3.5mm audio jack, now the function keys – is nothing sacred?  Qwerty layout next?

  4. Tesla announces near on invisible solar roofs and a large power pack
    chrome_2016-10-29_18-52-55Ahead of the shareholder vote later in November about the Solar City deal, Elon Musk took to the stage to announce a new revolutionary solar panel for residential homes that is near on invisible to the naked eye – no more unsightly big silver boxes on the roof.

    In addition, he announced that Tesla have doubled the capacity of its Powerwall product while keeping the price at $5,000 and throwing in an inverter at the same time.  Running your house off-the-grid just got way more affordable and real.

  5. Twitter kills off the 6.5 second video service Vine; 300 people lose jobs
    chrome_2016-10-16_10-37-48Twitter is desperately trying to make money, but while it figures that out, it is killing off the Vine service it launched under 3 years ago.  As part of this cost restructuring 300 people will be losing their jobs.  With all the free media publicity Twitter gets, especially with this years US elections, they still can’t make money or find a buyer (though rumor has it that Disney maybe sniffing around again).

    Though not all may be lost, never wanting to miss an opportunity, the popular adult site, PornHub, has said they are willing to buy it from Twitter, because as they said it, “6 seconds is more than enough” – and they have the data to prove it!

  6. Slack may be in for some serious competition, with Microsoft Teams
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-56-16Microsoft is expected to release next week it’s version of Slack, called Microsoft Teams.  There was a desire internally to buy Slack for $8B but Bill and Satya weren’t for having it.

    Microsoft have been here before, when they bought Yammer in 2012 – the Facebook for business as it was billed.  The leaked photos of Team looks suspiciously close to an updated Yammer. Slack has found a lot of love with its users, so it will be interesting to see if teams are willing to move away.  Pricing could be the key.

  7. Amazon releases weaker profits, stock takes a dive
    chrome_2016-09-24_05-16-50As part of its quarterly report, Amazon announced its profits weren’t as strong as they had hoped, but still profitable, 6 quarters in a row.  However that isn’t enough to appease the stock market who punished the stock by taking nearly $70 off its share price.

    Amazon for so long operated at a loss and now it is profitable it doesn’t seem to be enough for some, who had pegged the stock to break the infamous $1,000 stock price.  AWS was up 55% year-on-year, showing that their grip on the cloud market is showing no signs of letting it up.

  8. Need some sleep on the move?  The OstrichPillow may be what you need
    chrome_2016-10-29_19-17-23.pngWe’ve all been there, schedules get pushed around and before you know it, you are grasping for some sleep whenever you can.   Except you can’t just get comfortable.  Anyone of my fellow air warriors will know the pain of trying to sleep on a cramped plane.

    One company, Studio Banana Creations, may have the solution for us, with their new flexible pillow that transforms from a discrete scarf into something that is well, not discrete.

 

… and this week’s soundtrack was brought courtesy of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.  I particularly love his ‘I need never get old’ track.  Excellent album check it out.

Weekly Top 8 Tech Stories – 17th October

This weeks top tech stories for the week of the 17th Oct. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, IoT and Indiana Jones.

For those that missed out this week, here are the stories in the tech world that was making the headlines in the week of the 17th October.

  1. Apple iCar isn’t going to happen
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-11-56It was a long standing rumor for many years that Apple was getting into the electric car business, competing head on with Tesla.  Bloomberg announced this week that the project that headed up this initiative has been dismantled with many lay-offs coming.

    One wonders if Tesla/Ford/Mercedes will welcome back those that defected.  Oops.

  2. Tesla announces cars rolling off their production line can self-drive
    chrome_2016-09-24_05-21-25While we are on the subject of electric cars, Elon Musk teased the internet for a week about a big announcement and this Wednesday he held a press conference and demonstrated a Model X driving by itself from home to the office.  The video is extremely impressive and worth the watch, complete with Rolling Stones theme.

    This in the same week that Germany have asked Tesla to stop using the term Auto Pilot as it is confusing the poor Germans drivers.

  3. First it was Samsung’s Note 7; now Apple’s iPhone 7 bursts into flames
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-25-13While Samsung are figuring out how to rebuild its reputation Apple’s latest flagship handset, the iPhone 7, has had a couple of reports of it bursting into the flames.   They haven’t officially commented on this, only to say they are investigating this thoroughly.

    This could seriously rock the high end handset market if both market leaders turn out to have handsets that can light a campfire quicker than Bear Grylls!

  4. Nintendo announce its new handset, the Switch
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-31-16The king of gamers for the masses have set the standard again with its latest Switch device. Just as the Wii appealed to everyone, Nintendo are hoping to capture that same family appeal with the Switch.  Think of the Wii and the 3DS and then put that in a portable, multi-player handset and you have something that could catch on.

    Nintendo are entering a very competitive space now, with smartphones accounting for a large amount of mobile gaming (assuming they don’t catch fire!).  They are missing the Christmas buying period by launching it March 2017.

  5. Internet for North America goes offline this Friday, due to IoT devices
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-42-35The previous week, we had DNS provider, hover.com, go offline due to a massive DoS attack on its servers.  This week it was the turn of Dyn who were the target of the same attack that knocked out many of the big players, including Twitter, Amazon and Spotify.

    Insecure IoT devices such as routers, printers, cameras, etc were at fault again.  These devices are very easy to take over due to default username/passwords that most people don’t even know to change, though some can’t be changed anyway.  This problem is not going away anytime soon.  The ISP’s may have to step up and start firewalling these devices.

  6. Amazon looking to provide you with Internet
    chrome_2016-09-24_05-16-50Amazon is looking to become an ISP, in Europe initially, and start to offer that as part of its Prime service.  This may not be as big a leap considering how big and expansive their AWS cloud computing is.

    Amazon have repeatedly said that their Prime membership is where they make their money as members are more likely to buy from Amazon.com instead of going elsewhere.

  7. Microsoft’s SalesForce competitor, Dynamics is selling very well
    chrome_2016-10-22_10-56-16This week Microsoft’s stock was at its highest after a very good earnings call this week detailing that all its subscription services are way above expectations, with the enterprise suite Dynamics getting most of that attention.

    Microsoft have successfully redefined itself away from relying on just Office and Windows revenue as it looks to things like Azure, Dynamics and Office 365 (an online subscription service).

  8. Indiana Jones, Ark of the Covenant, now on display
    chrome_2016-10-22_11-00-51The real big news of the week, was that a real piece of movie history, the Ark of the Covenant, went on display at Walt Disney World Hollywood in Orlando.   You can view this legendary prop while you are queuing for the Great Hollywood Movie Ride, though you will be forgiven for just queuing and not making it to the ride.

    Hurry before Disney decide to put it back into the huge warehouse!

 

… and this week’s soundtrack was provided by Norah Jones new album Day Break released this month.  Good to see her back to releasing under her name.