Miscellaneous Tech News
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Spotify goes down around the globe
Music-streaming service Spotify was offline for users around the world for more than an hour on Wednesday.
Users could play only songs already downloaded to their devices. And in many cases songs cut out after just a few seconds. The issues began at about 13:00 BST on Wednesday, affecting both free and paid users. The company has nearly 300 million users. Spotify has not said what caused the problem. Tweeting from its customer care account, the tech giant only said it was "aware of some issues right now". -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Spotify goes down around the globe
Ah that would explain it
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Microsoft Files Applications With Elk Grove Village For $123 Million Data Center In Tech Park
Microsoft filed applications this month for a $123 million data center in the Elk Grove Technology Park, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act order for public documents.
Three permits were filed by Microsoft with Elk Grove Village: one filed in June for grading and site preparation, along with another two applications both filed Aug. 3, one for a data center and one for ancillary work including parking lots related to the data center. -
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Lyft suspends service in California over employment row
Ride-hailing firm Lyft says it is suspending operations in California after a judge ordered it to treat drivers as employees.
Both Lyft and Uber were told they must classify their drivers as employees and not contractors by Friday. Lyft has now said its services in California will stop at 23:59 local time on Thursday (06:59 GMT on Friday). Uber has warned it will have to do the same if a stay is not granted by an appeals court before the deadline. But Uber has yet to make any formal announcement. "This is not something we wanted to do, as we know millions of Californians depend on Lyft for daily, essential trips," Lyft said in a statement posted online. -
Want Verizon or AT&T 5G? You’ll have to buy an expensive unlimited plan
5G technically doesn't cost extra, but it's only in the pricier unlimited plans.
Verizon is adding some perks to its wireless plans this week, but some things aren't changing: Verizon still restricts 5G service to its most expensive unlimited-data plans. If you want to save money by getting a limited-data plan, you'll have to make do with 4G only—which, admittedly, is not a big problem for most people given how sparse Verizon's 5G network is. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Want Verizon or AT&T 5G? You’ll have to buy an expensive unlimited plan
5G technically doesn't cost extra, but it's only in the pricier unlimited plans.
Verizon is adding some perks to its wireless plans this week, but some things aren't changing: Verizon still restricts 5G service to its most expensive unlimited-data plans. If you want to save money by getting a limited-data plan, you'll have to make do with 4G only—which, admittedly, is not a big problem for most people given how sparse Verizon's 5G network is.Unlimited (Throttling) Plan
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@black3dynamite said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Want Verizon or AT&T 5G? You’ll have to buy an expensive unlimited plan
5G technically doesn't cost extra, but it's only in the pricier unlimited plans.
Verizon is adding some perks to its wireless plans this week, but some things aren't changing: Verizon still restricts 5G service to its most expensive unlimited-data plans. If you want to save money by getting a limited-data plan, you'll have to make do with 4G only—which, admittedly, is not a big problem for most people given how sparse Verizon's 5G network is.Unlimited (Throttling) Plan
Neither truly unlimited, nor truly 5G!
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@black3dynamite said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Want Verizon or AT&T 5G? You’ll have to buy an expensive unlimited plan
5G technically doesn't cost extra, but it's only in the pricier unlimited plans.
Verizon is adding some perks to its wireless plans this week, but some things aren't changing: Verizon still restricts 5G service to its most expensive unlimited-data plans. If you want to save money by getting a limited-data plan, you'll have to make do with 4G only—which, admittedly, is not a big problem for most people given how sparse Verizon's 5G network is.Unlimited (Throttling) Plan
Its like the Limited Lifetime Warranty on many products.
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Glad i invested in zoom and ring central in february. Zoom is up 295.19% and ring central is up 252.05% per share.
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Respawn point: The inevitable reincarnation of the corporate office
Forget the utopian visions—nothing ever happens neatly, or without struggle.
If you told any executive at a major corporation in mid-2019 that close to half of the US workforce would be working from home within the next year, they would have at least raised a skeptical eyebrow (and then probably called security to have you removed). Yet, here we are. Major technology companies, including Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, have closed their physical offices until well into 2021. Twitter has told many employees that they can work from home permanently. And now that we have nearly six months of involuntary widespread work-from-home behind us, many other organizations are also reconsidering the value of office space. -
Chinese phones with built-in malware sold in Africa
Malware which signed users up to subscription services without their permission has been found on thousands of mobiles sold in Africa.
Anti-fraud firm Upstream found the malicious code on 53,000 Tecno handsets, sold in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana and South Africa. Manufacturer Transsion told Buzzfeed it was installed in the supply chain without its knowledge. Upstream said it was taking advantage of the "most vulnerable". "The fact that the malware arrives pre-installed on handsets that are bought in their millions by typically low-income households tells you everything you need to know about what the industry is currently up against," said Geoffrey Cleaves, head of Upstream's Secure-D platform. -
Napster is still a thing?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/25/napster-sold-british-startup-melodyvr-surprise-deal -
@Texkonc said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Napster is still a thing?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/25/napster-sold-british-startup-melodyvr-surprise-dealEasy answer is... no.
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YouTube video removals doubled during lockdown
YouTube removed more videos than ever during the lockdown period, the company says.
The second quarter of the year saw more than 11 million videos taken down, up from six million at the start of the year. YouTube said that it had opted for "over-enforcement" in its automatic systems when it was short-staffed during lockdown. But that also meant that more videos were taken down in error. Normally, "harmful content" would be sent to human reviewers, it said, but due to Covid-19 there were fewer reviewers working. "One option was to dial back our technology and limit our enforcement to only what could be handled with our diminished review capacity," the company said in a blog post. -
5G in US averages 51Mbps while other countries hit hundreds of megabits
It's an upgrade over 4G but not a huge one due to reliance on low-band spectrum.
Average 5G download speeds in the US are 50.9Mbps, a nice step up from average 4G speeds but far behind several countries where 5G speeds are in the 200Mbps to 400Mbps range. These statistics were reported today by OpenSignal, which presented average 5G speeds in 12 countries based on user-initiated speed tests conducted between May 16 and August 14. The US came in last of the 12 countries in 5G speeds, with 10 of the 11 other countries posting 5G speeds that at least doubled those of the US. -
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
5G in US averages 51Mbps while other countries hit hundreds of megabits
It's an upgrade over 4G but not a huge one due to reliance on low-band spectrum.
Average 5G download speeds in the US are 50.9Mbps, a nice step up from average 4G speeds but far behind several countries where 5G speeds are in the 200Mbps to 400Mbps range. These statistics were reported today by OpenSignal, which presented average 5G speeds in 12 countries based on user-initiated speed tests conducted between May 16 and August 14. The US came in last of the 12 countries in 5G speeds, with 10 of the 11 other countries posting 5G speeds that at least doubled those of the US.That's because we don't have 5G in the US. We mostly didn't get actual 4G. They got permission to rebrand 3G as 4G under some conditions to avoid having to roll out actual 4G using LTE instead (LTE is a 3G tech with permission to be called 4G even though it didn't meet the requirements as it was an older generation tech.) There is no working 5G equipment allowed to be sold in the US, so they've allowed them to call some 3G and pretty much any 4G tech 5G to make it sound like we are rolling out 5G - at maximum speeds that are slower than 4G in the former USSR was doing in 2016!!
