Yahoo, Bing search crash caused due to bad code: Report

Yahoo, Bing search crash caused due to bad code: Report

Yahoo and Microsoft Corp search engines temporarily went dark on Friday after Microsoft pushed out a bad code update and then struggled to roll it back, a person briefed on the outages told Reuters.The outages were not caused by an outside attack, the person said, declining to be named because the discussion concerned internal Yahoo matters.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine powers Yahoo search under a 10-year deal announced in 2009. Yahoo was not immediately available for comment. Microsoft confirmed the outage, but declined to comment on the cause.

On Friday afternoon, users who typed search.yahoo.com got an error message saying that Yahoo engineers were working to resolve the issue. The search engine appeared to be working again later in the day.

After the crash, Microsoft’s roll-back procedure failed, forcing it to shut down its groups of linked servers to get back the point where everything worked smoothly, the person said.

Once the problem was resolved, Yahoo had trouble handling the backlog of search requests, the person added.

“This morning, some of our customers experienced a brief, isolated services interruption which has now been resolved,” a Microsoft spokesman said in a brief statement Friday.  

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Unknown 09:52  No comment

Yu Yureka Review: Yes, Yu Can!

Seldom has a phone arrived in the Indian market with so much controversy. When Micromax announced its exclusive tie-up with Cyanogen (a company known for making a highly customized version of Android) and the launch of a new brand, YU, to represent it, the market had been buzzing in anticipation about what the devices under the new brand would be like. Then towards the end of the year, the Yureka was unveiled, complete with CyanogenMod, decent specs, and a surprisingly low price of Rs 8,999 (about USD 150). It goes on sale, exclusively online on Amazon India, from January 13. The big question of course, is: is it worth investing in?

Looks smart enough

We had covered the appearance of the Yureka in our first impressions of the device, but to summarise once again, it is a phone that looks smart rather than spectacular. It is definitely not a head turner but is not an eyesore by any means either. We certainly cannot see people turning their noses up at it. It is slim enough at 8.8 mmand at around 150 grammes, relatively lightweight too. The front is jet black barring a small sphere for the home button, which gets flanked by the back and theme setting buttons when you power on the display. Design is largely minimalistic – volume rocker on the left, power/display button on the right, 3.5 mm audio jack on top, and micro USB port on the base. The back has the camera with a flash on the top and a speaker grille on the lower part.

We said it in our first impressions and we repeat the point – we really think Micromax missed out on a chance to cash in on the YU branding on the back of the device. The light blue YU logo on the greyish (moonstone grey is the official name) back does not really grab attention. In sum, the Yureka is not an ambassador of smartphone style by any means, but it is certainly a decent looking device. Yes, we have heard that it is in fact a rebranded version of another Chinese device, but honestly, we do not see how it retracts from its appearance.

Packs in the hardware

In terms of hardware, the Yureka is very well stocked for a device at its price point. That 5.5-inch display is a 1280 x 720p affair, giving it a reasonable pixel density of267 ppi and has an oleophobic coating as well as Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to stave off smudges and scratches. Powering it is a 64-bit octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor clocked at 1.5 Ghz, with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage, which is expandable using a memory card. There are twin cameras on the phone – a 5.0-megapixel front facing camera and a 13.0-megapixel one which has Sony’s IMX 135 CMOS sensor. The phone also supports dual SIM connectivity (both slots support micro SIM cards), and ticks off all the connectivity options that you would need: 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Making sure all this keeps working for a while is a 2500 mAh battery, which does seem a bit on the lower side, given the display size, but probably accounts for the relative slimness of the device. There have been a few complaints that the phonelacks a magnetometer compass (something we are confirming from YU at the time of writing) which could have aided it in navigation, but at this price point, we would not call it a deal breaker – the device handled navigation and geo-tagging well enough for us even without it. All in all, the hardware on the Yureka is very good for its price and a close match to that seen on the much more expensive HTC Desire 820. The closest thing to it in terms of spec-price ratio is perhaps the recently released Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, which costs Rs 1,000 more, packs in a display of a similar size and resolution, and has a similar dual camera set up. And while that worthy is powered by a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, it compensates with a larger battery (3100 mAh). But even then, the Yureka scores in being a dual SIM device (the Redmi Note 4G is a single SIM one) and in having 16 GB storage as opposed to the 8GB onboard storage on the Note 4G (the Note 4G can support upto 64 GB of expandable memory though, as against 32 GB on the Yureka). Any way you look at it, the Yureka is offering some very decent hardware bang for not too many bucks. (Note: before you ask, we are working on a comparison between the Redmi Note 4G and the Yureka. Stay tuned!)”

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Unknown 09:51  No comment

Sports car for your kids

Now, a $1000 electric sports car for your kids

Kids can now drive a luxury sports car and parents only have to shell out US dollar 1,000 for it as a South Korean company has developed a high-performance 4-feet-long electric car Henes Broon F870 for kids.

The Henes Broon F870 is a miniature version of a luxury sports car meant for kids five and under and can touch speeds of 16 kph.

The car comes with an Android tablet that doubles as a dashboard and infotainment deck.

“Every aspect of Broon perfectly displays the identity of a real car. Not just a car, it is a supercar for your kids,” its manufacturer Henes said.

Unlike the toy wheels used on most kids’ vehicles, Broon’s wheel structure is similar to that on an actual motor vehicle. Internally, large bearings are used on each wheel, allowing it to rotate smoothly.

In addition, a dense urethane foam tire is used, minimising vibration and noise from the road while vastly improving traction and over all performance, Henes said.

The car has working headlights, brake lights, hazard lights and turn signals.

The car has a long battery life and recharging the car also recharges the 7-inch Android touchscreen tablet on the dash, ‘Wired’ reported.

It displays the car’s speed, lets parents adjust various settings, and streams music to the car’s speakers. The tablet also lets you tweak safety features, like maximum speed and its driving mode.

The car is quipped with sensors that detect its electric current, voltage, direction and internal temparature.

Broon uses the data collected from the sensors to actively detect unusual activities of the vehicle and respond with adequate measures.

The cases of unusual activities are when the vehicle is running in stiff hills, when over-current or over-voltage is detected, or when the vehicle detects over-weight.

In response to the unusual activities, Broon decides whether to activate emergency stop or shut down of the system, and give voice instruction to take appropriate actions such as rest the vehicle for some time or move the vehicle to a safer place.

The car can also be controlled with a Bluetooth remote control.

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Unknown 09:49  No comment