BlackBerry maker admits failures over outages

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has launched an audit into last week's outages. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The UK boss of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has admitted the company was too slow to update customers about last week's outages across Europe, the Middle East and US.

Answering questions from BlackBerry users on the BBC website, Stephen Bates said RIM had launched a full audit of its infrastructure after millions of customers were unable to send email or browse the web for most of last week.

The internal audit will also look at how the Canada-based company struggled to communicate with its customers, Bates said.

"We didn't spend enough time thinking about the communication, so we've since spent more time doing that," he said. "The communication can always be improved and part of the review we're doing is about that, so we can be much quicker in future."

Bates added that it was "too early to say" whether anyone deserved to lose their job over the outage, by far the most severe in RIM's history, which stemmed from the company's Slough network operating centre.

"For us, we designed a very resilient system in our infrastructure that has lots of backups," he said.

"This problem happened with a system that should have backed up in the normal fashion, but it didn't. We test these systems and they work fine – the team have done everything they can and this appears to be an anomaly. It's early days, we're still investigating and we're not going to come to any conclusions on that point."

He confirmed that RIM's chief technology officer, David Yach, has launched a "full audit of our full infrastructure". Bates said: "He's got the authority to do whatever he needs to do to ensure that resiliency is maintained."

Those affected by the outage will be compensated with $100 (£63) worth of apps from the BlackBerry App World, the company said on Monday.

RIM shares opened up 2%, at $22.80, on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Tuesday, but remained almost 3% down on 12 October, at the height of the outage.

View the original article here

Boot up: Apple's projector plans, angry birds maker ' seeks $ 1.2bn valuation ' and more

A quick burst 6 links you to chew over, as picked by the technology team

Nilay Patel: "there is a fundamental problem with patents in the United States.

"It is us.

"I think all of us: the companies and people who directly interact with the patent system, the media reports about interactions, analysts and experts who inform the media, and finally the big, active and vocal readership that we try and service with our reporting. As a group, we have accepted and let be the lazy conventional wisdom that the patent system is broken beyond repair, a relic from an earlier time, which has been replaced by the rapid pace of technical innovation, especially in the software, and that it should perhaps be scrapped entirely. "

Apple has "plans to integrate mini-or pico-projectors in similar future iOS devices at the same time introducing a likely Projector Accessories for led"

"Rovio entertainment Oy, Finnish creator of" Angry birds "mobile phone game, is in negotiations to receive funding, which would value the company at about $ 1.2 billion, two people with knowledge of the discussion said".

Zuckerberg calls a Chill feature "lame". Here is the response: "Chills so what will we do? We have already removed this feature. " Lame.

How Google + hope to beat Facebook: undercutting it. "launch of its Google + social gaming platform, Google has found a way to differentiate itself from Facebook. In the case of transactions in the game will Google only charging a 5 percent Commission for game developers instead of 30 percent to Facebook charges. "

"Today we are adding games to Google +. With Google + project, we want to bring nuance and richness of genuine sharing on the Internet. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experience we have together is just as important for our relations. We want to play games online as fun, and just as meaningful as a player in real life. "

You can follow the guardian technology's linkbucket on delicious

View the original article here

BlackBerry maker agrees to net filters

RIM has agreed that filter web access on its BlackBerry phones in Indonesia

BlackBerry-maker Research in motion is to carry out internet pornography filters in Indonesia after being threatened with a blackout for its 2 million users in the country.

RIM said today, it would apply a internet censor in the country "as soon as possible" after the Indonesian Minister for communications Tifatul Sembiring warned, BlackBerry Internet access would be "close" If it failed to comply with.

This is the first time that the Canadian company has agreed to filter the Internet on its high-security BlackBerry phones.

Indonesia, which is the world's most populous Muslim nation, recently stepped up its internet punishment with requirements on all Telekom companies that block access to adult material.

Sembiring has given RIM a two-week period to block access to porn sites. RIM has also been commissioned to configure a server in the country, which will bring all uploaded user messages during local jurisdictions, in contrast to the current situation where most of the servers based in the West.

"We have repeatedly asked them to do it, and we have given them some time," he told the Jakarta globe on the weekend. "If they keep the delay, we will close their operation because they fail to comply with our love".

Ministry spokesman Gatot Dewa Brata confirmed the news agency AFP that BlackBerry users would not be able to browse the Internet on their device, unless RIM installed its censor.

"Research in the resolution confirms that the share minister Tifatul Sembiring sense of urgency in this case, and it is fully committed to working with Indonesia's air carriers to introduce a prompt, compliant filtering solution for BlackBerry subscribers in Indonesia as soon as possible," said RIM in a statement.

Corresponds to the FÆLGS Declaration of intent, Sembiring told Reuters: "So do it."

Most other Telecom companies in the country is understood to have already deployed Internet filters, block access to adult material for the country's 40 million Internet users.

Detention caused by Indonesia's anti-porn bill, passed in 2008 by conservative Islamic parties to slow down the flow of a perceived increase in immorality in Indonesian society.

The Indonesian ultimatum, selects the latest developments in FÆLGS three years of struggle in Asia and the Middle East, as increased security fear has prompted the Government concerns in several countries through BlackBerry encryption of e-mails and messages.

View the original article here