Blackout

Minutes after the College of Cardinals imposed a formal media blackout in reaction to a leak of its private pope-picking deliberations, the short and stocky reporter who broke the story stepped out of the Holy See's press office wearing a wool hat pulled over his ears, a hooded raincoat and orange-framed glasses. "I'm a little journalist," Andrea Tornielli said, earnestly. "I have no power. " This is not, in fact, true. Tornielli, who writes for La Stampa and its church Web site, Vatican Insider ,...

Internet access has been restored in Syria after an outage across the country that lasted about 20 hours, writes Hayley Tsukayama : Firms that track Web traffic, including Renesys and Akamai, showed a major spike Wednesday morning after essentially no activity from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. At WorldViews, Max Fisher writes that the outage resembled a similar outage in November, and that both probably occurred on the orders of the Syrian government : When the November...

Web users woke up this morning to find that, as promised, several prominent Web sites had gone dark or put up messages asking visitors to contact their members of Congress to vote against two online piracy measures: the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. Most notably, Wikipedia has gone dark. Any visitor to that site sees a shadowy "W" and a message saying, "Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge. " The blackout makes an impact, that's for sure. But if you just have to access Wikipedia today, there are a few ways you can...

Web traffic in Syria has returned after an approximately 20-hour period during which the entire country appeared to be cut off from the Internet, according to Web analysis firms. Firms that track Web traffic, including Renesys and Akamai , showed a major spike Wednesday morning after essentially no activity from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. According to a report from the BBC , Syrian state-run media said the outage was due to a "fault" in optical fiber cables that connect the country to the World Wide...

NEW DELHI — The worst blackout in India's history spread to more than half the country Tuesday, reinforcing concerns that the nation's horribly inefficient power sector could undermine its long-term economic ambitions. For the second day in a row, India's electrical grid collapsed. Tuesday's mystifying blackout, the largest in global history in terms of the number of people affected, deprived more than 600 million people of power — nearly one in 10 people in the world. ( Video: Indian leaders...

TEMPE, Ariz. -- The NFL has given the Arizona Cardinals a 24-hour extension to the television blackout deadline for Sunday's game in Glendale against the Houston Texans. In order to air live on local television, league rules require games to be sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff. Arizona's blackout deadline has now been extended until 11:15 a.m. EDT Friday. As of Thursday afternoon, the Cardinals say they have just under 1,000 tickets remaining to be sold. The Cardinals have sold...

It looks like the  SOPA blackout day  has encouraged many citizens to get out and email their senators to voice their disapproval. If you head over to the US Senate's home page and reach this  list of senators , many (if not all) of the "contact" links are currently returning a "technical difficulties" message. There's no evidence of foul play here (Anonymous is even currently under a blackout), and while it could be unrelated to SOPA, there's definitely a lot of major web properties...

This post has been updated. The hearts of students across the country sank when they logged on to their computers Wednesday morning to find that Wikipedia had gone dark. The online encyclopedia was one of many to pull its content from the Web Tuesday, protesting the House Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate Protect IP Act. The movement against these bills — meant to combat online piracy — has been taking the Web by storm, but not everyone knew about the strike.

Web traffic in Syria has returned after an approximately 20-hour period during which the entire country appeared to be cut off from the Internet, according to Web analysis firms. Firms that track Web traffic, including Renesys and Akamai , showed a major spike Wednesday morning after essentially no activity from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. According to a report from the BBC , Syrian state-run media said the outage was due to a "fault" in optical fiber cables that connect the country to...

Was the 1972 NFC champion­ship game broadcast in the D.C. area? Washington's 26-3 win over Dallas at RFK Stadium is one of the greatest wins in Redskins history, and I know many Redskins fans who swear it was — or was not — broadcast in the D.C. area. At that time, the NFL had a TV blackout rule that prevented home games from being shown on local TV. This happened even if the game was sold out. Also, does anybody have a copy of this game? — Mark A. Britto, ...

Minutes after the College of Cardinals imposed a formal media blackout in reaction to a leak of its private pope-picking deliberations, the short and stocky reporter who broke the story stepped out of the Holy See's press office wearing a wool hat pulled over his ears, a hooded raincoat and orange-framed glasses. "I'm a little journalist," Andrea Tornielli said, earnestly. "I have no power. " This is not, in fact, true. Tornielli, who writes for La Stampa and its church Web site, Vatican Insider ,...

VATICAN CITY — The College of Cardinals that will elect the next pope cut off formal communications with the news media on Wednesday after its private deliberations emerged in the Italian press, raising the specter of another leaking scandal similar to the one that shadowed the last year in office of Pope Benedict XVI . "Concern was expressed in the General Congregation about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers," said...

The instant-advertising era may not have been born Sunday night, but it took its first assured steps during the 34-minute power outage at the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Oreo (of all products) was the runaway winner, with a now legendary tweet-cum-ad that tied the 100-year-old cookie to the zero-dark-34 minutes at the Superdome. As players milled on the half-lit field , Oreo created the ad and pointed its thousands of followers to it: "You can still dunk in the dark, " read the headline on an...

A power outage that plunged half the Superdome into darkness and stopped game play for 34 minutes put a damper on Sunday's Super Bowl ratings, which came in behind the 2012 and 2011 games — making it the third most-watched broadcast in TV history. An average of 108.4 million people watched Sunday's game, which morphed from a pre-blackout walkover into a post-blackout squeaker, as the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31. An estimated 111.4 million people watched the New York Giants defeat...

BEIRUT — Internet and telephone lines were largely restored across Syria on Saturday after a two-day blackout , according to activists, as fighting raged around Damascus International Airport between rebels and government forces. "Mobile coverage and Internet are back to work in most of the Syrian cities," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, and residents of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs confirmed that Internet, cellphones and land-line phones were all functioning in...

BEIRUT — Heavy fighting resumed near Damascus International Airport on Friday, as telephone and Internet lines remained out of service in Syria's capital and other cities for a second day. The Syrian opposition has made significant gains on the battlefield in recent weeks, taking over a number of military bases and downing government helicopters and jets. Some activists said the fighting near the airport could signal a rebel push to take the strategic post....

Though the Stop Online Piracy Act has the support from the likes of Hollywood, the music industry, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, many Silicon Valley firms say it effectively amounts to censorship. To show their opposition to the bill, some sites are planning a service blackout on Jan. 18. Hayley Tsukayama reports : Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing are planning to black out their services Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act by showing users the bill's effect on Web...

NEW DELHI — Like China two decades ago and the United States in 1950, India stands on the cusp of transformational economic and social change, a jumping-off point at which the demand for electricity is about to explode. Its economy and population are among the fastest growing in the world, and it has ambitious and energy-intensive plans to develop its infrastructure and industrial base. But business leaders are crying out for uninterrupted power supplies, and a third of India's population is...

AS CHINA'S prime minister over the past decade, Wen Jiabao was often described as a populist and reformer, sometimes nicknamed "Grandpa Wen" because of his folksy willingness to meet ordinary people. One of Mr. Wen's refrains was that Chinese officials at all levels should declare their personal assets, and those of family members, in an effort to fight corruption. Mr. Wen suggested that the information should be published for all to see. On Friday, the New York Times took Mr. Wen at his word and published an eye-opening exposé ...

NEW DELHI — Like China two decades ago and the United States in 1950, India stands on the cusp of transformational economic and social change, a jumping-off point at which the demand for electricity is about to explode. Its economy and population are among the fastest growing in the world, and it has ambitious and energy-intensive plans to develop its infrastructure and industrial base. But business leaders are crying out for uninterrupted power supplies, and a third of India's...