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Tumblr goes dark with massive outage

Tumblr has been hit with another sweeping outage. The blogging platform has been completely inaccessible to all users, as of the last couple of hours.

Tumblr confirmed its outage via a tweet from its official Twitter account earlier this afternoon that said, "We're experiencing slow loading or intermittent errors on certain pages and are working quickly to restore performance."

Since then, the company tweeted that it took down the entire site "in order to resolve a network issue."

The blogging platform has had a rough go the past couple of months. In October, it was … Read more

News Corp. cans The Daily

News Corp. axes The Daily.

The Daily, which was an ambitious tablet-only news publication backed by News Corp., is shutting its doors December 15. Launched back in February 2011, The Daily was an interactive newspaper stylized for consumption on the iPad. Best of all, a year's subscription went for only $40 and offered a wide variety of sections. While there will be no more issues of The Daily, its brand will live on other channels within News Corp.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the first text message. On December 3, 1992, SMS pioneer Matti Makkonen successfully sent … Read more

Massive worm hits Tumblr, spams big blogs like USA Today

A massive bug swept Tumblr today and infected some of the biggest blogs -- including USA Today, Reuters, The Verge, and CNET -- until Tumblr resolved the issue shortly before 10:30 a.m. PT.

GNAA, a hacker group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group's Twitter profile earlier today said 8,600 unique Tumblr users were affected.

Tumblr didn't explain what happened but said in a blog post that no accounts were compromised, and users didn't need to take any further action.

"Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience," the company said. "As always, … Read more

GIF wins Oxford's 'Word of the Year'

To GIF or not to GIF. That is the question for many Internet denizens these days, especially if they frequent Tumblr or Reddit. At the moment, it's the easiest way to share a quick animation, thanks in part to its compatibility with nearly every Internet browser ever made.

As the GIF (graphic interchange format) turns 25 this year, what better way to celebrate -- aside from GIFing it -- than Oxford American Dictionaries announcing that the acronym has been named 2012's "Word of the Year. … Read more

Pay for sexy Instagram pics, help Sandy victims

Photographer Clayton Cubitt is using some of his recent, slightly naughtier work to entice donations for Hurricane Sandy victims, but with a unique Instagram- and Twitter-based twist.

For every $200 donated to Occupy Sandy Recovery, the photographer based in New York and New Orleans releases one of his sexy #babesofsandy photos on Instagram.

So far we've only seen two storm babe shots, including one that's complete with the requisite DOLCat (drooling on laptop) and another that would would win the approval of Sir Mix-A-Lot. With a little more attention to the cause, hopefully Cubitt will need to fill a few memory cards with some more sexiness soon.… Read more

Outages hit Google App Engine, Dropbox, Tumblr, and more

A mysterious rash of outages struck the Internet today, crippling major services for hours at a time. It isn't clear whether they're related.

Among those hit:

Google Apps Engine. Google said that at about 7:30 a.m., an unnamed component of App Engine "began experiencing slow performance and dropped connections." Users began seeing slow response times and had trouble connecting to services. At the moment, most App Engine users and services are being affected. "Google engineering teams are investigating a number of options for restoring service as quickly as possible, and we will provide … Read more

Square's Jack Dorsey reconsiders the term 'user'

One of George Orwell's famous rules of writing is "Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent."

It seems Square's founder and CEO Jack Dorsey was channeling the famous "Animal Farm" writer in a Tumblr blog he penned today. Known for ruminating on concepts and ideas, Dorsey called into question the tech world's use of the word "user."

"It's time for our industry and discipline to reconsider the word 'user,'" he wrote. "We speak … Read more

eBay gives the world another Groupon

Thursday's CNET Update wants to make a deal:

eBay made headlines Wednesday with a dramatic redesign, but it's not out of the spotlight yet. Today's tech news roundup looks at eBay's Lifestyle Deals, a service similar to Groupon. It's being tested now in a few markets, including New York. Can you handle (or want) another Groupon clone? Is there room in this space for eBay? Share your daily deal experiences and thoughts with us via e-mail or in a 15-second Tout video.

This holiday, Fab expects you to flock to its mobile shopping app. The … Read more

Is the Xperia TL worthy of James Bond?

Friday's CNET Update is highly classified:

In today's tech news roundup, we're trying to not feel overwhelmed with the number of smartphone choices at AT&T this holiday season. AT&T showcased its upcoming gadgets at a New York event Thursday night, which included Sony's Xperia TL. You'll find the Xperia on the big screen this November in "Skyfall." Other high-end phones to keep an eye on include the HTC One X+, the LG Optimus G, and the Nokia Lumia 920. If you're looking for something with trendy features (like … Read more