Google went down today. The Internet went bananas

We wouldn’t normally write about a mere few minutes in down time, but when it’s Google, it’s notable. Google.com, Google’s search product (you may have heard of) went down between 23:52 and 23:57 BST according to Search Engine Land. Not since 2009 has Google Search experienced any downtime. What’s more, it appears a number of other Google services, namely Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and Google Calendar experienced varying minutes of down time. It didn’t appear to trend on Twitter but a look at Hacker News and the graph below (via Twitter analytics tool Topsy) will tell you it definitely happened. Google has issued a statement saying: “We have received reports of an issue affecting some Google services. The issue is now resolved. Please follow our dashboard...

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Back to the Future With IT

In the movie series Back to the Future, Marty McFly jumps back and forth through time in an awesome time-traveling DeLorean to save his existence and others near him. Throughout the movie series, especially the second which takes place in 2015, we get to see a variety of fun and imaginative guesses as to what our world will be in the future. The movie included things like suspended animation kennels, holographic movie theaters, chiropractic hoverbelts, and more. One of my favorites was the sunglasses that were small, portable personal phones. I'm wondering when I'll be able to buy a pair. The movie reminded me of the evolution of information technology (IT) and how much it's changed over the years. In 1945, a draft report on the EDVAC was written describing the concept of a stored...

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