BlackBerry Service Dies for Millions Around the World (Updated) [BlackBerry]

By Sam Biddle Oct 10, 2011 9:30 AM 15,319 36

If you're RIM, the best way to endear yourself with customers of your lousy phones is to screw up their service around the world. So it's done just that, nuking BBM, email, and web access throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Carriers are all blaming a glitch on RIM's side, The Telegraph reports, possibly a data center collapse in Slough, UK. One Kuwaiti telecom tweeted the following: "BlackBerry Fans, the BlackBerry Server is temporarily down. It'll be up & running soon. We apologize on behalf of RIM for any inconvenience." How will we check the BlackBerry App World now? [Telegraph]

Update: RIM UK has finally acknowledged the outage, tweeting that they're "investigating" the blackout.

Update 2: English Giz reader Govi just emailed in the following:

BB has been down since around 10:15 am on my side. This morning at 9am I sent a friend a message I'm switching to an iphone, to which he replied ‘why would you do that'. I think RIM just answered his question.

Update 3: South African Gizmodo pal Alexis chimes in: "Yep South Africa has been out since this morning. Email is still working strangely enough, but no IM, or browsing."

Update 4: From London:

Yes my business partner and I both have Blackberry phones.
We run a small plumbing and heating company in South East London and are definitely affected!
I've got screaming customers trying to get hold of us and urgent jobs to attend to but without the service of our blackberry we are unable to get hold of each other. This is really frustrating and a nuisance to our business.

Are you a BlackBerry user affected by the outage? Send me an email!

Photo: DESmith Photography/Shutterstock

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NYC Will Have 10,000 Shared Bikes Rolling Around the Streets Next Summer [Video]

After much gnashing of teeth from city residents, NYC's transportation department has the go ahead to launch their planned bike sharing system, comprising 10,000 bikes and 600 stations that will cover much of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The original plan was first proposed last year, and since then, the city has been working to gather support for the project. Now that they have it, they've shared more details. According to the New York Observer, here are some of the key bits of info:

• Bikes will be available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week.

• Stations will span across the city from the Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan out to Brooklyn neighborhoods like Greenpoint and Crown Heights.

• Portland-based Alta Bike Share is the company responsible for installing and managing the bike sharing infrastrucure.

• The first 30 minutes of any ride are expected to be free, with fees for additional time.

• An annual membership is expected to cost less than a MetroCard (which normally costs ~$100/month).

If this works out, it would be a godsend for getting between neighborhoods that aren't connected by train lines and require excessive amounts of trainhopping. I'm already excited for next summer. [Observer]

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Dell Reaches Around and Wants HP's Sloppy Seconds [Computers]

Dell's Partner Portal is addressing a vital business development: PC industry changes. And by "PC Industry Changes" it means, "OMG, HP is totes WTFBBQ so you'd better buy a Dell, dude." Or at least, that was my takeaway.

Michael Dell tweeted that his company is to "woo" sales partners. But follow the link, and instead of wooing, I see a lot of scaring.

The landing page starts off not by extolling Dell, but by noting that HP is (charitably) in flux. It reminds you that HP is ditching WebOS hardware business and getting out of the PC business to boot and, oh yeah, that "there has never been a better time to Partner with Dell." The page finishes off with a bunch of links to stories in the press about what a state of disarray HP is in, and a prominent analyst quote that questions whether or not HP will service and support anything tomorrow that it sells today.

Dell is very explicitly preying on fears that HP could leave its current and potential customers high and dry. It's a great tactic, and a really smart play. Despite HPs assurances to the contrary, the company's actions over the past year have been amounted to one long series of unpredictable bad moves. Dell wants to remind you of that.

Sure, it may be a little unseemly, but who cares. It's also effective and to the point. Selling against once-mighty HP's future is now officially a great business strategy.

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A TV That Knows When The Gun You're Waving Around Is Causing a Panic [Surveillance]

The London Riots caused so much havoc that they continue to spook British officials. So much so that they're thinking of implementing so-called "Smart CCTV" that can track potential subjects and their behavior. Cue the requisite 1984/V for Vendetta comparisons.

The way it works is it can recognize certain behavior and pinpoint where it originates. Called "trigger events," it can be something like a person breaking into a shopfront window or brandishing a pistol in public. Based on how people react—running toward or away from the action—the system can pick it up and the authorities can respond.

Surveillance technology like this sounds cool, but you can understand how it can make people nervous about how it can undermine their privacy. The system allows for video feeds to be combined across CCTVs, locked onto a specific "event," while all extraneous details would be detailed. But its still up to the authorities to determine what kind of event warrants a response. And that can get muddy really quick. [BBC]

Image Credit: yuyangc/Shutterstock

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