Contemporary IT News

The BlackBerry Outage

BlackBerry logo

This outage hit us BlackBerry users in October 10^th 2011, literally a week ago.  It started off with people complaining about their BlackBerry’s not being able to send messages and their internet being really slow if not that not working at all... people then started getting angry and expressing their issues on social network sites such as Twitter. However RIM, said that all the services were operating normally, not for long though... on the 11^th, people all over EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) started complaining about the same thing! 

RIM then posted on Twitter that they were experiencing problems with the main server and that the problem would be resolved soon... for a day it was fixed but then fell back down again! And this time even America had issues with the server experiencing all the same problems as EMEA.

Apples 'iPhone' with BlackBerrys 'Bold' taken form Google images

By October 13/14^th BlackBerry were now working again! Overall, this situation had left millions of users annoyed and statistics showed that 1 in 5 BlackBerry users went and got an iPhone... amazing! This shows that one little network breakdown can cost you so much!  And from what’s happened it’s obviously hit BlackBerry hard. The cause was believed to be due to sever problems within RIM’s slough data centre.

RIM & BlackBerry received some very harsh criticism though this was that many of the ‘Corporate’ customers had not lost any signal at all. Obviously this caused a massive up roar and may have been the reason why people left for Apple, as they thought they would get treated better as a customer.

I actually own a BlackBerry so I have a personal experience within this dilemma, at first I thought it was my phone playing up, not noticing other people complaining. However, when I queried it with some friends they said the same thing, that’s when we realised it was BlackBerry themselves! Although I had stable connection for a few days, I was able to complete a lot more school work without my phone buzzing every minute! And it has been heard that all BlackBerry users are getting a free £60 to spend in the BlackBerry app store, so not a bad result.

BlackBerry App World logo

London Riots 2011

Mark Duggan fatally shot by MET police

This was a world wide event, making headline news for days on end, as well as reaching international news. It started on the 6th August as a peaceful march for the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan throughout the Tottenham district. This then lead to rioting that was the catalyst of what had happened to Mark... the rioting then spread to several other districts including Merseyside/Birmingham/Bristol/Greater Manchester/West Midlands. 



These riots had taken place throughout the 6th till the 10th August. Through these tough times 5 people had died, 16+ members of the public were injured (including, muggings, assault, arson) and a further 186 police injuries were endured... A whole nation was but to a stand still for 4 days and 4 nights, the damage was incredible adding up to an estimated £200 million pounds worth of damage was created! Family's home were burnt to nothing, businesses were robbed and trashed, even cars were stolen.

Bus as a result of arson in the London 2011 riots

In an overview, 3,100 people were arrested of which 1,000 had been charged, a total of 3,443 crimes were committed and unfortunately there were 5 people who had died in a result of this result...


People now ask who was to blame? A lot of people blamed it on the 'younger generation' however statistics show that those who have been arrested are all ages and combine a staggering 41 different nationalities. Even school helpers were charged. The thing is we all know how they communicated, and BlackBerry Messenger is the answer to this. A very smart move of those gang leaders, as for 'BBM' connections cannot be traced so they had a 'safe' way to communicate to their youngsters to hit certain places at certain times. People also believe that 'Twitter' was used as well in a similar process.

Jamie Waylett one of many to be charged

It just goes to show that everyone one of all 'classes' were involved. Jamie Waylett otherwise know as a bully in the 'Harry Potter' chronicles has been charged for arson involving petrol bombs to cars, although you didn't think matters could get worse, he was also charged with planting/growing Cannabis in his bedroom, a total of 15 plants were taken from his bedroom. Jamie's actions have left him with next to nothing with disgusted friends and family surrounding him. How did the police catch offenders like Jamie? Well, CCTV played the biggest role, as the riots progressed well so did CCTV cameras... They were planted all over London to catch offenders like Jamie.

All we know is that the debates are endless and those who are getting charged are increasing slowly showing the public that these actions are simply not allowed and that these ruthless acts have left those who did act inappropriately have been left with such a guilty/sickening conscience.