Month: March 2011

Apple Insider is reporting that Apple may reach the 1 MILLION mark in iPad 2’s sales by this weekend! DEWD!

Don’t be surprised if Apple sells 1M of iPad 2 this weekend, analyst says

“With expanded availability, two colors and a buzzworthy magnetic case, the iPad 2 could more than triple last year’s sales debut and reach a million units over the weekend, one analyst believes.

Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities said in a note to investors on Friday that he “would not be surprised” if sales of the iPad 2 reach 1 million over the weekend. That would easily best last year’s sales of 1 million in just 28 days.

White said the sales pace will also likely continue into the coming weeks, as Apple plans to launch the iPad 2 in 26 more countries on March 25. Friday’s 5 p.m. sales start applies to the U.S. only.”

I knew there were a lot more reasons to love Google Chrome, my favorite browser! At “Pwn2Own” at the CanSecWest security conference participating hackers attempted to hack the major browsers in the field: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. The idea being that the first team of hackers to be able to do it woudl win a $15,000 prize AND the new computer that they were using at the conference to do the hacking!

Sounds cool! BUT… Chrome was not hackable! Dewd! THAT rocks! Why couldn’t they do it? Because the Chrome browser has a “sandbox” that things run in… which creates an isolated area of memory to run in. Cool stuff!

We have a new venture here at Dr. Bill Bailey.NET! It is called “VirtZine” and it is “The On-Line Magazine of Virtualization and Cloud Computing!” Check out the link below:

VirtZine – The On-Line Magazine of Virtualization and Cloud Computing!

I know, I know, ONE more thing! I am already too busy! But hey! You gotta go with your interests, what motivates and excites you! Watch for what we will be doing, AND be sure to subscribe to the Newsletter! (Over on the right column of the VirZine web site…) We will keep you updated on plans there!

Yep, it is back. Google blamed a software upgrade on losing some of it’s “Cloud based” data stores. While only 2% of users were hit, it is still a cautionary tale! Things CAN go wrong in computing! I kinda feel for them, actually! But, service, and data, have been restored, so my guess is, that, with time, this too shall pass! Hang in there Google!

I’m not sure that I want to be concerned over, “Am I offending my PC?” Yeeesh! One reason I am a geek is that computers DON’T get all emotional over things. Now, they want to change that? Give me a break, guys! (OK, just kidding!)

Computers Are Starting To Get Emotional

“Researchers and startups have begun to focus on the final frontier for our silicon-based buddies — teaching computers to read and respond to human emotions.

They haven’t quite designed a real life Andrew from the Bicentennial Man, but they have lead computers to grasp the basics. At Cambridge University in England, they are trying to teach computers to measure stress, detect how it effects facial expressions and then to interact using a persona that mimics a proper emotional response. Basically, they are building an emotionally sensitive computer. Researchers at Cambridge are building Andrew’s precursor.

They aren’t the only ones. Kay Stanney, owner of Design Interactive says that people give off measurable indications of their mental/emotional state, from heart rate to eye tracking to electroencephalography (EEG), the measurement of brain waves. EEG is for real — there are controllers and apps on the market right now that let you control a computer game using an EEG-based headset.”

As you know, we “ran out” of “normal” (IPv4) addresses at the end of last month, so we need to start getting familiar with IPv6. So, in that spirit, here’s your “Factoid of the Day!”

With IPv4 there are a possible 4.3 billion addresses… and yes, the last ones were officially assigned last month. (Obviously, this means “public facing IPs,” not “NAT’ed ones.”)

With IPv6 there are 340 undecillion addresses, or 64 billion IPs for every square centimeter on earth!

Wow!

Some Google users have lost their address books, and other data, but it SHOULD be restored soon.

Gmail outage locks some users out of e-mail

“Google was still working to restore access to its Gmail e-mail service to a handful of customers on Monday, a day after an outage prevented a few users from accessing their e-mails. A message posted to the Google Apps status page at 10:40pm Eastern Sunday said engineers were ‘working to restore full access,’ and full access would be restored in the ‘near future.’

No update had been provided as to if the issue had been fully resolved, although the company noted the issue affected only .08% of the total Gmail user base.

Those struck by the outage noted that messages, chat histories, and contacts appeared to be missing. In some cases, the accounts appeared as if they had been wiped. The problem first appeared around 3:09pm Sunday afternoon according to Google.

Google’s Gmail is used by about 170 million users worldwide. Based on the numbers given about 136,000 users are thought to be affected, although that number has not been officially confirmed. It is unclear as to how many may still be experiencing issues, if any.”