Tech Brief
On Tech Brief today: the London Underground live data service is knocked out by demand from live map and similar services, Apple comes under more pressure over its new iPhone, and Internet Explorer climbs back up the popularity charts.
• Visitors to the , which should show the location of all London trains in real time, and which we mentioned on Tech Brief last week are being greeted with a message that the Transport for London feed is not currently working, so the map does not have any trains to show. The London DataStore blog :
"Owing to overwhelming demand by apps that use the service, the London Underground feed has had to be temporarily suspended. We hope to restore the service as soon as possible but this may take some days. We will keep everyone informed of progress..."
Depending on your perspective, it's either a massive sign of success for open data, or a signal that the London data store has not got powerful enough computers.
• Another day, another dig at Apple over its iPhone that can sometimes lose reception when you hold it a certain way. After Nokia published a blog entry earlier this week with suggestions on how to hold its phones (all of which, it said, do not deteriorate your phone signal), The Register points out that :
"In the advert -- underneath a photo of Motorola's upcoming Droid X, complete with the obligatory comely lass -- is a paragraph of advertising copy extolling the Android phone's features. One part of that exaltation is this sentence: 'And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls.'"
• More seriously for Apple perhaps, though, is the news that :
"The lawsuit accuses Apple of Defect in Design, Manufacture and Assembly, as well as Breach of Express Warranty. It also makes several claims against both Apple and AT&T, including General Negligence, Deceptive Trade Practices, Intentional Misrepresentation, Negligent Misrepresentation and Fraud by Concealment."
Stan Schroeder reckons it's difficult to predict which way any such case might go:
"Due to the complexity of the issue, and the fact that some other phones exhibit a similar behavior, it's hard to guess what the outcome of this lawsuit will be. However, it might spur Apple to start working on this problem quickly -- before it escalates into something far more serious."
• Microsoft had begun to get used to the fact that its Internet Explorer browser, whilst still the world's favourite, was steadily falling down the popularity charts. That was until last month, when as CNet points out, according to analytics company Net Applications, :
"The change in fortunes was significant enough that Microsoft couldn't resist crowing about IE's progress in a blog post Thursday. 'We certainly don't judge our business on just two months of data, but the direction here is encouraging,' said Ryan Gavin, senior director of business and marketing for Internet Explorer ... Some of IE8's gains probably can be ascribed to the growing use of Windows 7, which ships with that browser and is showing some signs of finally being a successor to Windows XP that people actually are embracing."
• To round things off for today, a brief mention of bringing together, we hope, the best that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Tech team has to offer, with 's Clark Boyd. It's not a ´óÏó´«Ã½ programme, but we at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ are taking part. Hope that's clear.
"For a while now, I've wanted to start a monthly round-up of interesting tech stories. I finally managed to strong-arm ´óÏó´«Ã½ Technology Reporter Jonathan Fildes into helping me out. He went the extra mile by giving me the perfect podcast opening: 'Crikey, have we rambled enough now, Clark?'"
So, have I rambled on enough yet? I think so.
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