Saturday, August 17, 2013

Software : Twitter celebrates not breaking during record tweets-per-second surge

Software : Twitter celebrates not breaking during record tweets-per-second surge

Twitter celebrates not breaking during record tweets-per-second surge

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Twitter celebrates not breaking during record tweets-per-second surge

The TV show Castle in the Sky is, apparently, very big in Japan. During a recent episode viewers stormed Twitter resulting in a record 143,199 tweets per second, something the social network is very pleased about.

Not just because of the new record, you understand, but because it was able to withstand such a barrage without falling over, as it has tended to do in recent years when the site becomes "over capacity."

Despite the new one-second peak, which was more than 20 times the 5,7000 average, there was no sign of the infamous "fail whale" who has often appeared at Twitter.com when the service is down.

In a blog post on Friday, Twitter said the new-found robustness is a result of diligent work on the site's architecture, enabling it to respond quickly to cope with dramatic surges in traffic during global events.

World Cup woes

In the post, the site pointed to the World Cup of 2010, when the excitement of football fans around the globe spilled over onto Twitter, causing the site to fall over regularly.

Raffi Krikorian, Twitter's VP of Platform Engineering wrote: "After that experience, we determined we needed to step back. We then determined we needed to re-architect the site to support the continued growth of Twitter and to keep it running smoothly. Since then we've worked hard to make sure that the service is resilient to the world's impulses. We're now able to withstand events like Castle in the Sky viewings, the Super Bowl, and the global New Year's Eve celebration.

"This re-architecture has not only made the service more resilient when traffic spikes to record highs, but also provides a more flexible platform on which to build more features faster, including synchronizing direct messages across devices, Twitter cards that allow Tweets to become richer and contain more content, and a rich search experience that includes stories and users. And more features are coming."

The social network explains its methodology in exhaustive detail in the blog post, so feel free to dive in if you're short of something to do this Saturday evening.

BT Sport app off to a shaky start as many users miss Premier League opener

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BT Sport app off to a shaky start as many users miss Premier League opener

Today was a huge day for BT's new sports channel, as the telecoms giant broadcast its first Premier League game at Liverpool took on Stoke City in the season's curtain raiser.

However, for some users of the BT Sport mobile app for iOS and Android, those curtains remained firmly closed as technical issues prevented some viewers from enjoying the game.

Some users complained the coverage kept cutting out, while others were perturbed that the broadcast only worked over Wi-Fi, when BT promised 3G and 4G coverage.

As hundreds of unhappy users took to Twitter, the company posted: "Sorry, some customers have seen an intermittent issue with the BT Sport App. We are working to resolve this, apologies to everyone affected."

'Responded quickly'

The issue is believed to have affected those who attempted to log in after game had kicked off, with BT claiming the problem had been resolved in time for most viewers to tune into the second half.

It wasn't the best start for BT Sport, who's televised coverage of the game impressed on Saturday morning. Perhaps a few teething problems were to be expected for the newcomers?

A BT spokesperson said: "Those customers who logged in before the game have experienced no issues but a minority of customers who tried to login once the game had started may have seen an intermittent issue and an error message.

"Our team responded quickly and were able to make a difference so most of the customers who were experiencing problems were able to enjoy the remainder of the second half."

BT has forked out £738 to broadcast 38 Premier League games a season, over the next three seasons.

Apple details guidelines for new Kids section in iOS 7 App Store

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Apple details guidelines for new Kids section in iOS 7 App Store

Back in June at WWDC, Apple announced it'd be adding a dedicated Kids section to the App Store in iOS 7 and now the company is informing developers how the child-friendly category will work.

The Kids section will allow parents to select age appropriate games, entertainment and educational tools for children aimed 11 and under.

According to emails sent to the developer community, those apps can be separated into specific age ranges; 5 and under, 6-8 and 9-11.

Apps will continue to appear in the main listings, but the Kids section will be ring-fenced off in the App Store. Meanwhile, the Kids sub-category in the Games section will disappear.

Think of the children

The company is also introducing new guidelines for children aged 13 and under. Advertisers will not be able to target young app users based on their behaviour within the app, while the ads that are served must be appropriate for kids.

The new guidelines also mandate that, for apps aimed at pre-teens, a "parental gate" be put in place to prevent unsupervised in-app purchases or links outside of the app.

Apple has come under scrutiny in recent months following reports of children racking up massive bills on their parents' iTunes accounts which have usually resulted in Apple refunding the amount.

The company is also under investigation from the UK Office of Fair Trading. The regulator is worried that parents are coming under pressure from kids to purchase add on's for 'free' games.

Metro-style Firefox for Windows 8 slated to arrive Dec. 10

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Metro-style Firefox for Windows 8 slated to arrive Dec. 10

The notes from a recent Mozilla meeting reveal that a touch-friendly, Metro-style version of Firefox for Windows 8 will arrive alongside Firefox 26 in December.

The notes, published online by Mozilla, called the special Windows 8-friendly version of the Firefox browser the "Metro Preview Release build" and promise that it will "'ride the trains' for Firefox 26."

Firefox 26 for Windows 8 is penciled for a Dec. 10 release, and it sounds like the "Modern UI" version will arrive at the same time.

Mozilla plans to continue working on the Modern/Metro Firefox, killing bugs and streamlining the browser, right up until its release.

Long time coming

A Metro-friendly version of Firefox has been in the works at Mozilla for a while, with previews appearing as far back as last year.

Clearly it's taken longer than anticipated to get the Windows 8-specific version of Firefox working, however - PC World claimed that it was originally scheduled to be released as early as January 2013.

The physical Windows landscape hasn't changed too dramatically since Windows 8 was released, though Windows RT is looking less and less relevant and we'll have Windows 8.1 to contend with in mid-October.

Nevertheless, a version of Firefox designed with touch in mind will benefit plenty of Windows 8 users.

Meanwhile Mozilla has plenty else going on, with an "aggressive" release schedule planned for Firefox Mobile.
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