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China Re-Routed US Internet Traffic for 2.5 Years

Andrew Orr ·

For two and a half years China Telecom re-routed a lot of U.S. internet traffic to China. It’s not clear if it was intentional or a mistake.

As the following traceroute from December 3, 2017 shows, traffic originating in Los Angeles first passed through a China Telecom facility in Hangzhou, China, before reaching its final stop in Washington, DC. The problematic route, which is visualized in the graphic above, was the result of China Telecom inserting itself into the inbound path of Verizon Asian Pacific.

Now, it could be a bug in the internet’s Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Or it could have been malicious (ALLEGEDLY) seeing how Washington D.C.’s traffic was compromised.

TMO Deals

Photolemur 3: $19

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on Photolemur 3, a photo editing app I personally like (as does Dr. Mac). Photolemur uses image recognition and artificial intelligence for automated photo editing, and those results are usually quite good. Our deal is for a license on one device, and you can use it on either Mac or Windows. It’s $19 through us.

TMO Deals

The Complete Mobile App and Game Development Kit: $29

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on the Complete Mobile App and Game Development Kit. This bundle of nine training courses is for AppGakeKit, a developer engine aimed at multi-platform game development. It is designed to make it easy to code, compile and then export your projects to Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android. Below we included the trailer for the AppGameKit introduction. This course is $29 through our deal.

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New MacBook Air - the "Sushi Knife of Laptops"

Charlotte Henry ·

After years of waiting for an upgrade, the announcement of a new MacBook Air last Tuesday was understandably greeted with some excitement. In an 8/10 review of the device, Wired‘s Lauren Goode referred to the slick new model as the “sushi knife of laptops.” She was particularly impressed by the new retina display,  which boasts a 1,440 by 900 pixel resolution, with 128 pixels per inch pixel density. For all the praise, the review does concede that if you’re someone doing high-end graphics work then this is not the machine for you. It also laments the reduced number of ports on the new MacBook Air. Here is a hint of what Ms. Goode has to say:

If you’re someone who builds graphics, edits 4K videos, or processes large photos for a living, the Air isn’t going to cut it. It will, however, handle 15 to 20 browser tabs at once, let you edit photos in Lightroom without any hiccups, and keep ten apps running smoothly at once. I know because I’m doing all of this right now as I type. The memory can also be configured up to 16GB, which gives it twice as much memory capacity as the previous MacBook Air.

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Apple Wins Prestigious Award for Device Accessibility

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple has been given the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award from the Center for Hearing and Communication for its work towards creating accessible products for those living with disabilities. Senior Director of Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives, Sarah Herrlinger, will accept the prestigious award on behalf of the firm. Given the focus that Apple puts on diversity and accessibility, the award is likely to be a source of pride at 1 Infinite Loop. Indeed, in an interview with the CHC’s Director Laurie Hanin, Ms Herrlinger said: “Our products should reduce barriers so you can do just that, regardless of ability. This work is never done. But it’s exactly the kind of design and engineering challenge Apple was built for.”  AppleInsider rightly notes Apple’s long history with accessibility enabling technology:

The company has for years incorporated accessibility assets like VoiceOver screen reader technology and system-level integration with hearing aids in its iOS and Mac devices, and continues to make advancements toward improving the user experience for people living with hearing loss. In 2016, for example, Apple rolled out AirPods-style streaming and Live Listen support for Made For iPhone hearing aids.

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Apple has Good Reasons not to Publish Hardware Sales

Charlotte Henry ·

There has been a lot of discussion about Apple’s decision not to reveal hardware unit sales following its earning’s call on Thursday. Investors certainly did not like it and we saw Apple’s stock price tumble by as much as 7% in the aftermath. There is an interesting—if sometimes snarky—piece of analysis on Yahoo! Finance that discusses Apple’s attempts to project itself as a services company, less reliant on hardware sales than it has ever been.  It concludes that this is a transition phase for Apple. Here’s a snippet:

Apple may want to project itself as a services company and want to direct investor attention to the services story and also, how it is a great place for customer satisfaction and security.

But it’s a little hard to sell that story when the services business contributed just 16% of revenue — yes even if that 16% represents a 27% increase from last year after one-time items, and even if that growth rate was substantially higher than the rest of the business.