What turned out the lights in the Superdome last night? Actually, we still don’t know! But Entergy—the company responsible for keeping the lights on at the Super Bowl—has released a statement that amounts to a blown fuse, origin unknown. More »
History has a way of repeating itself, and the turmoil in Syria is proving no exception — though potentially for the better. Following a communications blackout that began Thursday, reports have surfaced from Renesys, the AP, the BBC and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that internet and phone access has resumed across major swaths of the country as of Saturday. President al-Assad’s office and rebels accuse each other of severing the links, although the US State Department doesn’t see there being much debate: it believes the near-simultaneous cut was an attempt by Assad to disrupt opposition that has been using the internet as one of its coordinating tools. It’s difficult to know if links will remain intact when battles inside the country are as fierce as ever. While there’s some comfort to be had in knowing that technologies like satellite internet access are available if the lines go dark once again, we just hope that peace comes to the country instead.
[Image credit: Aziz1005, Wikimedia Commons]
Filed under: Networking, Internet
Source: Renesys, BBC, Associated Press
The civil war-torn nation of Syria has seemingly disappeared from the internet. In a sign that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is trying to limit the flow of information and possibly increase its violent crackdown on opposition forces, all 84 blocks of IP addresses used by the nation have gone offline. The blackout was first reported by Renesys this morning at around 5:26am ET and the #SyriaBlackout hashtag has started picking up steam on Twitter as others have noticed. While it’s unclear exactly what has happened and investigations are on going, and a nationwide outage is highly suspicious. The Associated Press is reporting that rebels are laying blame for the blackout at the feet of the government and that cellphone service has also been severed. We’ll update as more information rolls in, but we wouldn’t expect good news.
Update: Akamai has provided more confirmation of the outage. As you can see in the image above, at some point this morning the amount of data coming out of Syria simply dropped to zero.
Filed under: Internet
Via: AllThingsD
Source: Associated Press, Renesys
IBM is no stranger to energy concerns, and now its founded the Smarter Energy Research Institute in partnership with Canada’s Hydro-Québec, the Netherlands’ Alliander, and the US’ DTE Energy to help build a better grid. The partnership will leverage Big Blue’s computing and analytic oomph to help the utility companies predict and detect anomalies within infrastructure, identify areas of the grid that need to be developed, integrate new energy sources and increase efficiency among other improvements. What’s this mean for you? For one, power outages should be less frequent and shorter lived when they do occur. Thanks to the distributed nature of the project, research will be spread throughout IBM’s worldwide network of research labs. If you’d like to hear more details straight from the folks involved, hit the jump for a video and the full press release.
IBM announces Smarter Energy Research Institute, aims to improve energy grids (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You’re not the only one who sweats during a heat wave. The power company feels the burn too—in the form of skyrocketing demand from those air conditioners, fans, and stressed out refrigerators. Not to mention all the TVs clicking on as we cower in front of our media stacks to escape the cruel, cruel sun. More »
Even in the offseason we’re still football crazy, and some news has leaked out that will adjust how we watch the NFL. Most recently, the Wall Street Journal reports the league has officially relaxed local blackout requirements, which reduces the chance broadcasts are turned off in a team’s home area if they don’t sell enough tickets. The new rules passed by team owners allow for local broadcasts even with ticket sales at just 85 percent, and while each team can set its own minimum, if it sells more tickets it will have to share more of the revenue with other clubs. Plans to get more fans in the stadium include free WiFi, plus mobile apps (those may cost) with game highlights and the ability to listen in on the sound from field level.
Another change affects doubleheaders, as Fox and CBS will now start their second game ten minutes later than last year at 4:25 PM ET, hopefully avoiding interference with the end of earlier games. Finally, the league has revealed its NFL Game Rewind online replay package (available on Android and iOS tablets for the first time this year) will expand to offer previously restricted angles with its coaches Film feature. Now fans can see the game tape coaches use to evaluate their teams with the “eye in the sky” All-22 view that shows all of the players and end zone cameras. We’ll see if a different viewpoint makes callers into sports talk radio any more knowledgeable about the game, but that seems doubtful.
[Thanks, @RobZuber]
Next season NFL will release All-22 game tape, relax blackout rules and start doubleheaders later originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 08:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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