Hurrican Irma takes down wireless services
Due to Hurricane Irma, over eight million subscribers to cable and wireline services have lost access last Wednesday. The subscribers (residents of Alabama, Florida and Georgia) lost either internet, television or cellular services.
24.6 percent of cell sites in Florida lost service. Five Florida counties lost up to 50 percent of their wireless service.
This Sunday, the Federal Communications Commission’s Commissions Status Report for Areas Impacted by Hurricane Irma determined 1.1 million cable systems and wireline subscribers were out of service.
New iPhone X released
This Tuesday marked the iPhone’s 10th anniversary. The new iPhone X features a 1125 by 2436 Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display, the first iPhone to use OLED. In contrast to traditional displays which illuminate every pixel, OLED provides pixels that have their own illumination, thereby producing better contrast and richer colors. The iPhone X also features an edge to edge display.
The new phone includes a new “power” or “side” button that is also used for Siri and Apple Pay. The home button is removed entirely. The function of the home button is retained by swiping up from the bottom.
Face recognition is used in place of Touch ID to unlock the device. According to Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, the face recognition is so secure that there exists only one in a million chance that someone can unlock your phone compared to the one in 50,000 chance using Touch ID.
The iPhone X is equipped with an A11 processor and 3GB of RAM. The battery life of the iPhone was increased by two hours.
The phone’s overall specs weren’t the only thing that increased. The price of the phone is set at $999 and is available for pre-order on Oct. 27.
Government bans Russian cyber security products
On Wednesday, the U.S. federal government chose to ban all products made by the Russian cyber security company, Kaspersky Lab. The Department of Homeland Security issued the ban after concerns of cyber espionage involving the cybersecurity firm and Russian intelligence.
“Kaspersky Lab has always acknowledged that it provides appropriate products and services to governments around the world to protect those organizations from cyberthreats, but it does not have unethical ties or affiliations with any government, including Russia,” a Kaspersky Lab spokesperson said during a press release.
The ban is limited to civilian government and thus does not affect the military. The Kaspersky products are expected to be removed within 90 days.
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