Wayne Williams

Problems at Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused a major Netflix service failure on Christmas Eve that affected a large portion of US and Canadian subscribers. "Terrible timing" Netflix tweeted as the scale of the problem became apparent. The outage in this case, Amazon said afterwards, was caused by human error -- a developer accidentally deleted some Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) data.

This wasn’t the first high-profile web outage, and it certainly won’t be the last either, but as Randy Clark, UC4 Chief Marketing Officer explains, solutions like DevOps, WebOps and ITPA can all help to limit the problem.

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When all the hype about the new Ubuntu for phones OS dies down, we’ll be left with a void. Canonical admits it doesn’t currently have a manufacturer or an operator signed up, and it’ll be next year before the first device running the OS natively hits the market. And that’s a long time to wait.

By then, we’ll have seen new versions of Android and iOS, and Windows Phone 8 will likely be firmly entrenched in third place. If the market seems tough for Canonical to break into now, it’ll be far harder in 2014. But that doesn’t mean Ubuntu for phones can’t succeed. It will never make number one, but it doesn’t need to. It can carve out a pretty desirable niche in fourth or even fifth place, appealing to the Linux/Open Source crowd, and the users who don’t want the same phones as their parents and sheep-like peers.

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Canonical’s popular Linux distro Ubuntu has been adapted to run on smartphones, replacing Android. The new OS has a distilled interface, and uses the screen edges in place of buttons. According to Canonical the controls only appear when required and "thumb gestures from all four edges of the screen enable users to find content and switch between apps faster than other phones".

Swiping from the left will display Ubuntu's launcher, while swiping from the top will show system indicators, such as Networks, Date and Time, Sound, and Battery. Swiping from the right will take you back, and the bottom edge will give you access to options inside an app.

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According to UK credit score agency Experian, Apple topped online searches for "returns policy" on Christmas Day, suggesting that the tech firm was responsible for the most unwanted gifts this past holiday season.

James Murray, digital insight manager for Experian Marketing Services, said that the clamor to return the technology giant's products was likely down to buying confusion: "This is probably a case of parents and grandparents confusing the various models of iPads and iPods available, as although an iPad Mini and an iPod Nano might sound similar, they are clearly very different products," he said.

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Some years I make resolutions, others I don’t. The ones I make are usually the same -- lose weight and get fitter (something I finally achieved this year thanks to the Zombies, Run app), get that novel finished and land a book deal (another tick in the 2012 "done" box), and cut back on the amount of caffeine I consume (well, you can’t win them all).

For 2013 I thought I’d make a short list of tech-related resolutions, things I genuinely plan to do or achieve, and share them with you. So, in no particular order, here they are:

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To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "Technology moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Smartphones and tablets are being updated, iterated and replaced so quickly these days. Take the iPad. Apple rolled out a new version in March, and then replaced it with a faster model in November. You’re never at the cutting edge for long, so you need to enjoy that moment while you can (not that it really matters if your tech devices are a generation or two behind, of course -- so long as they work and do what you need them to).

My colleague Alan Buckingham wrote the first of the BetaNews team’s personal tech retrospectives yesterday. Now it’s my turn.

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If you received an iPad or an iPad mini for Christmas, the chances are you’ve already downloaded a fair few apps and are enjoying playing around with your new tablet. To help get you started, Apple’s created a "New to the App Store?" section which offers a curated selection of the best apps. There’s an "Essentials App Collections" area too, and you can also explore the "App Store Best of 2012".

Even with all this help from Apple you’ll still be faced with a somewhat bewildering array of choices, so to simplify things further, here’s a list of ten apps (paid and free) that I think are essential.

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It’s a good thing Santa Claus doesn’t rely on Apple Maps to plan his route, or there would be a very unhappy bunch of children this Christmas. As it turns out, the bearded beneficent one uses Google Maps to make sure all of the presents he’s bringing to good little boys and girls get to the correct destination on time. He's not daft you know.

If you’re not already tracking the progress of the big fat man with the long white beard using the Google Santa Tracker for Android or NORAD’s website, mobile or Windows 8 apps, there’s a new Santa’s Dashboard site from Google which will provide up to the minute details of where he is at the moment. This shows Santa’s previous location, his next location, when he’s likely to arrive there, the number of presents delivered, the distance travelled, and his status. There’s also a compass, and a list of names of deserving children.

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Arriving far too late to influence any gift buying for Christmas, here’s my review of Surface with Windows RT. The tardiness of the review isn’t really my fault. Microsoft only put its device in proper shops in the UK last Friday, and I wanted to include the shopping experience as part of the article (even though I didn’t actually spend my own money -- a friend purchased the tablet I’m reviewing).

Before we get into the review, I need to preface it by saying the following: I love Apple’s iPad. I bought an iPad 2 as soon as it was released and replaced it with the new 4th gen model a month or so ago. And even though I use Windows 8 daily, I really don’t like the new OS all that much. So, inevitably, I’m going to hate Surface, right? Absolutely loath it. Well, that’s what I thought. But surprisingly I like it. I like it a lot.

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CMOs and CIOs frequently deal with outdated, legacy intranets that lack the interaction and functionality characteristic of Web 2.0 platforms. It’s no wonder that the intranet has frequently been pronounced dead by industry experts and reporters alike.

But according to IBM, the intranet isn’t dead, only evolving into what the firm calls Intranet 2.0, a new platform that combines social capabilities, data collection and a dynamic infrastructure to help business leaders create a smarter, more effective workforce. I discussed this transition with Larry Bowden, IBM’s Vice President of Portals and Web Experience.

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SlimWare Utilities, makers of SlimCleaner, is hosting a special-access beta for its newest software product, SlimImage, and BetaNews readers are invited to be among the first to try it out.

SlimImage integrates directly with Windows 8 to preserve and safeguard a computer’s operating system, applications, files and documents independently. SlimImage is like a time machine for Windows 8 devices, incrementally backing up personal documents and files through versioning, while simultaneously, but separately, imaging the Windows 8 operating system and installed applications. In this way, SlimImage solves the problem of users losing data and personal documents when reinstalling their operating system in order to correct a system malfunction or crash.

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CloudMagic is a superb search tool that sadly doesn’t get the attention it fully deserves. If you’ve ever complained about how long it takes Google to find a certain message in Gmail, or have wasted far too much time trying to track down a particular tweet or Facebook status update, this is the solution you need (full disclosure: I’m a massive fan and couldn’t imagine life without it).

I spoke to co-founder Rohit Nadhani about his product, how it began, and the company’s plans for the future.

BN: For the benefit of readers who may not be familiar with CloudMagic, can you tell us a bit about it?

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I'll be honest, if I'm ever faced with an emergency such as my house catching alight, my first thought won't be to tweet about it. Neither will I be sending emails or texting anyone. I’ll be phoning the emergency services and speaking to someone. At least that way I’ll know the message has got through. But times change, and maybe using social media will soon become another accepted way to alert the authorities to non-life threatening situations.

The London Fire Brigade currently warns users not to rely on social media when reporting emergencies, as it doesn’t monitor its Twitter feed round the clock. However, that could soon change as the service is looking into new, smartphone-friendly ways for the public to communicate with it.

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In a ruling that will surprise precisely no one -- not even anyone inside Apple’s camp -- U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction against the Samsung products which were found to have infringed the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation's patents, saying there was not enough evidence that the infringement had hurt Apple's North American sales.

In equally unsurprising news judge Koh also rejected Samsung’s request for retrial. The Korean firm had called into question the jury foreman’s impartiality after he failed to disclose he had been sued by his former employer Seagate Technology, a firm Samsung holds a stake in.

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Google’s new mapping app for iPhone was always going to be a hit. People trust Google to get them where they want to go and it’s a great product. The fact the app stormed to the top of the App Store charts less than a day after its release provided a pretty clear clue as to its popularity.

And now Google has revealed just how big a success Google Maps is on iOS, announcing via a Google+ post that the app was downloaded more than 10 million times in less than 48 hours. A staggering number. Google doesn’t usually reveal download figures for its apps, but clearly this is something of a special case. As good as that news is for Google, it’s another slice of bad news for Apple which was probably hoping people’s dislike of its mapping tool had been exaggerated by the media.

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