By: Gilbert Falso :: 11:14 AM
In this day of do-it-yourself broadcast media, with the use of social media tools and platforms, the Internet may have reached a new low. Thousands of people are tuning into a Periscope video feed of a puddle.
Yes, you read that right, a puddle – a wide shallow spot of water along a path in Newcastle, England – has attracted, as of this writing, over 20,000 viewers on Periscope.
The puddle’s popularity on social media is also attracting onlookers to the scene, where they are taking photos with the puddle, bathing in the puddle, and starting up their own Periscope streams.
Welcome to 2016 everyone – the year of the puddle.
Watch for yourself on Periscope.
By Gilbert Falso :: 1:31 PM
Country singer Miranda Lambert, who divorced fellow country star Blake Shelton in 2014, is apparently in a relationship again, using Instagram to make her announcement.
The 32-year-old Lambert posted a sweet photo to the image sharing network on Friday, showing her cuddled in the arms of 27-year-old singer Anderson East. East is an R&B singer from Alabama.
“The Snuggle is Real,” Lambert captioned.
Although the couple has reportedly been dating about a month, this is the first “official” announcement by either of them that they are together.
East, who’s real name is Michael Cameron Anderson, is about to begin a tour to promote his new album, Delilah, later this month.
The message above appeared on the Wall Street Journal’s website shortly after the New York Stock Exchange crashed due to technical issues.
By Gilbert Falso :: 11:58 AM
Update: 1:45 PM
Time Magazine is reporting that the NYSE shutdown is due to issues from a failed system upgrade that happened overnight. The system upgrade did not go as planned, and disrupted trading from the beginning of the day, according to a Time source.
Update: 12:42 PM:
The Wall Street Journal’s website now redirects to a modified home page. A header reads, “WSJ.com is having technical difficulties.” No further explanation is provided.
Update, 12:34 PM:
The NYSE has issued a Tweet stating that the problem is a technical issue, and is not the result of a cyber attack:
“The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach.”
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Trading on the New York Stock Exchange has been halted Wednesday morning, due to an unknown technical glitch with the exchange’s computer systems.
In addition to the NYSE outage, the website of the Wall Street Journal has also crashed, presumably under the weight of traffic coming looking for information about NYSE being offline.
This story is developing and will be updated as news comes in. Read this post from the top down for the most recent updates.
By Gilbert Falso :: 1:54 PM
iTunes is down. After a morning of trouble with Apple’s iTunes, iCloud and App Store services, the company has finally addressed the issue in a statement that blames a DNS problem for the outage.
Because of the nature of DNS outages, the problem has manifested in different ways for different users, depending on the ISP they use to access the Internet. The problem has been intermittent for many people around the globe, however.
Apple released the following statement:
We apologize to our customers experiencing problems with iTunes and other services this morning. The cause was an internal DNS error at Apple. We’re working to make all of the services to customers as soon as possible, and we thank everyone for their patience.
The outage comes during a particularly busy week for the company. On Monday, Apple held a press conference unveiling a number of new products and services, including a new lighter MacBook, the much-awaited Apple Watch, and announced a program to make HBO streaming services available to customers without a cable subscription.
As of right now, Apple has not provided a specific estimated time frame for the DNS fix to be made.
By Gilbert Falso :: 11:25 PM
If you’ve searched for a medial or health-related topic on Google over the past few days, you may have noticed some new content popping up along the right-hand side of your search results.
Google is rolling out a new feature on its search site that returns relevant medical details outside of the normal 10-results-per-page listings. These details may include symptoms, treatments, age factor and how contagious the ailment could be.
The search giant worked with medical professionals, including doctors, to identify sources of content for the medical details. Google’s medical team, as well as healthcare professionals at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic have reviewed the details for accuracy.
Google, or more likely, Google’s lawyers, caution that the details returned on health searches should not be considered medical advice.
It isn’t surprising that Google has called this information out in a special fashion – nearly 5% of all Google searches are for medical or health reasons.