Lots of reports that most Google services are down for many.
App Status Dashboard also down as of this writing, so I guess we’ll have to rely on Bing and Twitter to learn more….
Archivo de la categoría: Google
The Future of Tech Companies, the NSA, and Your Information
Guest Post by Lewis Jacobs
Verizon and the NSA
Last week, the technology world was turned upside down when the Guardian broke the news that the National Security Agency had directed telecommunications company Verizon to release customer call records and metadata on an “ongoing daily basis.”
Though the metadata doesn’t include the audio content of calls, it does include the phone numbers on both ends of calls, the devices and location of both parties involved, and the time and duration of calls.
The order was leaked by Edward Snowden, an analyst for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the NSA. The order targets both international and domestic calls, and it does not contain parameters for who can see the data or whether or not the data will be destroyed after NSA use.
Though the White House and the NSA say that the data will only be used for counter-terrorism efforts and other national security measures, the order nonetheless gives the federal government access to data from all of Verizon’s more than 100 million customers.
Since the story broke, there has been significant debate over whether the NSA is working within the regulations of the First and Fourth Amendments or whether it is violating citizens’ rights to free speech and privacy. The White House has defended the order as a necessary measure for national security. But critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and several U.S. lawmakers, disagree.
What it means for the future
The controversy raises the question of whether or not other technology and telecommunications companies will be required to follow suit—or whether they already have. Amy Davidson at the New Yorker speculates that the leaked Verizon order is “simply one of a type—the one that fell off the truck.” Adam Banner at the Huffington Post wonders, “How many other ‘top secret’ court orders are currently in action with countless other information providers?”
The NSA is said to have been monitoring and collecting customer data from some of the world’s largest technology companies with the help of surveillance program PRISM. But many companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and AOL, have denied providing the government direct access to their users’ information. Google, one of the companies to deny any knowledge of PRISM, wrote an open letter to the Attorney General and the FBI requesting to make public any federal requests for data.
In any case, it’s unlikely that the NSA demanded customer information only from Verizon, meaning that the federal government could be (and probably is) accessing information about citizens through their phone providers, their email services, and their search engines. Faced with federal orders, there’s not much that technology companies can do in opposition.
The future of NSA technology surveillance will depend, of course, on its legality, which is yet to be determined. It’s unclear whether or not the NSA’s actions fall under the provisions of the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, the Constitution, and federal government’s system of checks and balances.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently announced their plan to sue the White House Administration for violating the privacy rights of Americans. On the other side, whistleblower Edward Snowden is currently under investigation for the disclosure of classified information, an offense that could result in life in prison.
This article was submitted by Lewis Jacobs, an avid blogger and tech enthusiast. He enjoys fixing computers and writing about internet trends. Currently he is writing about an internet in my area campaign for local internet providers.
Sources:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/the-nsa-verizon-scandal.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-banner/the-nsa-and-verizon
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/technology/security/google-government-data/
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/technology/security/nsa-data-prism/
Infographic: Tech Giants & Their Overflowing Cash Coffers
Is This the Future of Photography?
Thanks to The Daily Grovo Presents, a division of Grovo.com, who produced this video. Grovo is an online education platform featuring 1-minute video lessons on popular social media, online tools, and mobile apps.
Spanning Cloud Apps Launches Reseller Program for Spanning Backup
Spanning Cloud Apps, Inc., creators of Spanning Backup for Google Apps, has launched the Spanning Authorized Resellers Program. Through the program, partners can provide their customers a product for protecting Google Apps data.
Spanning Backup provides backup and recovery of the complete Google Apps suite: Gmail, Drive, Sites, Calendar and Contacts. The solution features a secure cloud-to-cloud environment for protecting Google Apps data and SSAE 16 Type II audited processes that ensure its integrity. Spanning also provides constant monitoring of data backup, allowing administrators to correct issues before they become problems.
“We have designed a program that extends the value of reseller services, and brings together the key support pieces for their ongoing success,” said Jeff Erramouspe, chief revenue officer, Spanning. “We’re excited to already be working with leading VARs and system integrators worldwide and look forward to expanding into new relationships.”
“As enterprises encounter obstacles in moving to the cloud, Spanning Backup provides a unique solution that solves the challenges facing our customers in North America, Europe and Asia,” said Doug Shepard, president of the Google Business Unit for Cloud Sherpas, the world’s largest cloud services brokerage and two-time Google Apps Global Partner of the Year. “We look forward to a successful partnership with Spanning as we integrate their solution into an overall cloud strategy for our clients.”
Key features of the Spanning Authorized Reseller program include:
- A discount structure with strong margins that gives reseller partners complete control over end-user pricing and a higher average revenue per user (ARPU); potential for increased ARPU by 60-80 percent over selling Google Apps alone
- Lead referral and distribution of new business opportunities
- A simple contracting process to get resellers into the market quickly and efficiently
- Customized marketing programs for specific territories, market segments and business practices, including email marketing, webinars and other co-marketing activities
“We have found Spanning Backup to be an excellent platform for delivering value-added services to our clients,” said Rob Morgan, managing director for PIT Group in Wollongong, Australia. “Managing data protection policies isn’t always easy and many of our customers contract with PIT Group to do that for them. The Spanning program gave us the flexibility to bundle our services with Spanning Backup and deliver them both to our clients in one cost-effective package.”
Spanning has partners reselling Spanning Backup around the globe, including in North and South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.
New Features, Bells and Whistles: Google I/O Conference
Guest Post by Paul Williams, a copywriter with InternetProviders.com
The Google I/O 2013 conference started with a bang on May 15th. Developers, tech journalists and venture capitalists crowded the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where CEO Larry Page and VP Amit Singhal delivered masterful keynotes that set the tone for the rest of the event.
Although Google I/O events are mostly for developers, the conference thus far has produced many interesting items for users to dissect and marvel at. In fact, the buzz surrounding the I/O conference has mostly been focused on developments and new features that will soon be ready to enhance the Google user experience. The major announcements are related to maps, music, finances, pictures, education, games, social networking, and search.
Providing Instant Answers with Conversation and Learning
Google is leaning on its Knowledge Graph to deliver a rich search experience that draws from a massive relational database that stores 570 million entries. According to Amit Singhal, Knowledge Graph will progressively learn from the queries entered by hundreds of millions of users. To this end, a film enthusiast searching for information about director Kathryn Bigelow, will instantly see highlights from her filmography, biographical data, reviews for Zero Dark Thirty, discussions about the possible remake of Point Break, and even more nuggets of information right on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).
Google is moving beyond the traditional keyboard-mouse-screen input methods of Internet search. “OK Google” is the new approach to conversational search. In this regard, Google’s plans for voice search have already impressed users and developers alike with an interface that will surely rival Apple’s Siri. The Google Now voice-activated personal assistant is also becoming smarter with reminders, recommendations and alerts that conform to each user’s search history and preferences.
Mapping and Finance
A revamped Google Maps for mobile devices will serve as a full-fledged handheld or in-vehicle navigator while the Maps version for tablets will feature an interface that encourages exploration. Google Wallet does no longer seem to be pursuing a debit-card strategy, although it intends to take on rival PayPal with an electronic funds transfer system powered by Gmail.
Advanced Social Networking
More than a dozen new features have been added to Google Plus (G+), the search giant’s promising social network. One of the most significant upgrades is Babel, a communication tool that integrates G+ Hangouts with other messaging applications such as Voice, Talk, Gmail, and the G+ Messenger.
Google is borrowing a page from Twitter with its own set of hash tags for G+. These smart tags will search across the G+ network for user-generated content that can be analyzed and organized by hash tags that can be clicked and expanded to reveal related content. This is similar to the discontinued Google Sparks feature of G+.
The most visible G+ upgrade can be appreciated in its user interface. Multiple columns that stream updates with animated transitions and photos retouched with Google’s patent “I’m feeling lucky” style of image editing make for a much more visually-pleasing experience on G+.
Streaming Music and Game Services
Google Play is no longer limited to solely serving as a marketplace for Android apps. For less than $10 per month, users can listen to unlimited tracks streamed from Google Play’s vast online music library. Users will be able to listen from their Android mobile devices or from compatible Web browsers.
Gamers will now be able to begin playing a game on their smartphones or tablets and later resume playing on a different device or Web browser. This is similar to the popular Xbox Live online gaming service from Microsoft, although Google plans to let developers come up with third-party gaming apps on Apple iOS and non-Chrome browsers.
Paul Williams is a part-time tech blogger, and full-time copywriter with InternetProviders.com. You can contact him via email.
OK, Google, What Do I Need To Know About I/O Cloud Announcements?
With all the focus on Google Glass, new Maps features and Star Trek-ish conversations coming to Google Search everywhere (“OK Google…”) let’s not forget Google’s cloud computing moves:
Google Compute Engine – now available for everyone
New Compute Engine features:
- Sub-hour billing charges for instances in one-minute increments with a ten-minute minimum, so you don’t pay for compute minutes that you don’t use
- Shared-core instances provide smaller instance shapes for low-intensity workloads
- Advanced Routing features help you create gateways and VPN servers, and enable you to build applications that span your local network and Google’s cloud
- Large persistent disks support up to 10 terabytes per volume, which translates to 10X the industry standard
ISO 27001:2005 international security certification for Compute Engine, Google App Engine, and Google Cloud Storage.
Google App Engine adds PHP runtime
Google Cloud Datastore (AKA NoSQL)
Google Cloud Datastore is a fully managed and schemaless solution for storing non-relational data. Based on the popular App Engine High Replication Datastore, Cloud Datastore is a standalone service that features automatic scalability and high availability while still providing powerful capabilities such as ACID transactions, SQL-like queries, indexes and more.
You can catch today’s live streams for two Google Cloud talks, or watch recordings of yesterdays, here.
This time next year we’ll probably just open up the Google home page, tap the mike, and ask, “OK, Google, what do I need to know about Google Cloud?”
502 Errors, Latency Accessing Gmail
Google reported a problem with Gmail today and not long after said it was resolved:
3:02 AM: We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.
3:43 AM: The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.
Users were experiencing 502 errors and latency when accessing email.
A Cloud Cautionary Tale: “(Your Google) Account has been disabled”
Gotta keep this short, mostly a link to a sick-making, there-but-for-the-grace-of-Google-go-I story. Me, I gotta go back up some stuff…
One recent Thursday morning, I logged into my email and made an alarming discovery. Instead of opening my inbox, Google directed me to a notice:
Account has been disabled . . . . In most cases, accounts are disabled if we believe you have violated either the Google Terms of Service, product-specific Terms of Service . . . . or product-specific policies . . . . it might be possible to regain access to your account.
Read the full story, and then ask not for whom the Google tolls. Just hope it doesn’t toll for you.
Google Details Cause of Wednesday’s Widespread Apps Outage
Google issued an incident report on the Wednesday outage that affected less than one per cent of gmail users, but was significant for other services, including half of Admin Panel and 60% of Sync login requests. As has happened in the past, it was a configuration error for a central system, in this case Google Services Login, where the configuration glitch caused too many requests to be routed to too few servers, causing them to buckle under the load:
From 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. PT, some users received errors when trying to access Gmail, Drive, Talk, Google Sync, the Admin panel, and the Cloud Console, and to a lesser extent Groups, Sites, and Contacts. At the peak of the outage, this issue affected 50% of the Admin panel and 60% of Google Sync login requests. The percentages of affected users for other services were lower such as 0.18% users for Gmail. The root cause was an issue in the system that manages login requests for Google services.
At 5:00 a.m. as login traffic increased, the misconfigured servers were unable to process the load. This began to cause errors for some users logging in to Google services. The request load, exacerbated by retry requests from users and automated systems such as IMAP clients, initially appeared as the cause of the login errors. At 5:48 a.m., the Engineering team determined that the root cause was not excess traffic but insufficient capacity
The full report is less than two pages, and clearly outlines what happened and how they hope to prevent it in the future.
