Facebook: Internal glitch caused hour-long global outage

SEOUL, South Korea — Facebook said it suffered a self-inflicted outage lasting an hour on Tuesday that made its site inaccessible to users worldwide.

The glitch reported in Asia, the United States, Australia and the U.K. affected access from PCs and Facebook's mobile app. The social media giant's Instagram service was also inaccessible.

A Facebook statement said the disruption was caused by a technical change it made to the site and wasn't a cyberattack. Lizard Squad, a group notorious for attention seeking antics online, claimed responsibility on Twitter for the outages.

"This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems," Facebook said.

The temporary loss of service may be Facebook's biggest outage since Sept. 24, 2010 when it was down for about 2.5 hours.

On its website for developers, Facebook said the "major outage" lasted one hour.

Facebook has about 1.35 billion active users and Instagram has some 300 million.

News of the Facebook outage set rival social network Twitter alight, propelling the hashtag "facebookdown" to top trend on the site. It comes ahead of Facebook reporting its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.

As access to Facebook returned, some users in Asia reported that the site was loading slowly or not offering full functionality.

Lizard Squad on Monday claimed responsibility for defacing the Malaysia Airlines website and has said it will release data from the airline. The group has claimed responsibility for a variety of hacks over the past year, most of them aimed at gaming or media companies.

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New AG may block Partners merger

Attorney General Maura Healey, in a surprise break with her former boss just days after taking office, threatened to terminate ex-Attorney General Martha Coakley's deal with Partners HealthCare over a proposed merger with three other hospitals.

In a filing yesterday, Healey threatened to sue to block the agreement — which allows Partners to merge with South Shore, Lawrence Memorial and Melrose-Wakefield hospitals — if Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders rejects the deal.

"One of the greatest challenges for our Commonwealth is controlling health costs while promoting quality and access, and I evaluated this issue with that goal in mind," said Healey in a statement. "Should the Court decline to enter the settlement, my office will exercise its right to void the agreement with Partners. I anticipate we then would litigate to enjoin Partners' proposed acquisition of South Shore Hospital."

Sanders has expressed skepticism about the agreement in court proceedings, including one last November in which Coakley herself defended the agreement just days after losing the gubernatorial race to Charlie Baker.

Noting the agreement allows Partners to grow but only on the promise of future price restrictions, Healey said she wants Partners to demonstrate an ability to control health care costs first before it strives to become bigger. She also claimed that certain limitations on how fast Partners can grow — including the number of doctors hired and price caps — could lead to even more Partners growth after the restrictions expire. But Healey said she would enforce the agreement if Sanders approves it.

Healey was sworn into office to replace Coakley last Wednesday evening, making this one of her first acts as attorney general.

"We remain deeply committed to working with South Shore Hospital and Hallmark Health to deliver more coordinated care to the patients in those communities at lower costs," said Partners spokesman Rich Copp.

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Facebook suffers outage affecting users worldwide

SEOUL, South Korea — Facebook suffered a widespread outage lasting roughly 40 minutes on Tuesday affecting users in the United States, Asia, the U.K. and Australia.

The social media giant's Instagram service was also briefly inaccessible.

Instagram said on its Twitter account that it was aware of an outage and was working on a fix. There was no immediate statement from Facebook.

Facebook has about 1.25 billion users and Instagram has some 300 million.

News of the Facebook outage set rival social network Twitter alight.

As access to Facebook returned in Asia, some users reported that the site was loading or responding slowly.

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Facebook suffers 45-minute outage, blames own technicians

Facebook went offline across much of the world for 45 minutes late Monday (Tuesday in European and Asian time zones). Some users also found it difficult to access photo-sharing app Instagram. Normal service has now resumed.

Facebook blamed its own technicians for the problem, while others pointed to hacking group Lizard Squad.

"Earlier this evening many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram," a spokeswoman told the BBC.

"This was not the result of a third-party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems.

"We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone."

Lizard Squad, which is thought to have been responsible for attacks in December on Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live, had tweeted about Facebook going offline, which led some to believe they had caused the outage.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Up Move doesn’t look good, but you will

Jawbone Up Move ($49.99, various retailers)

This entry-level fitness tracker by the folks that brought us the popular Jawbone Up tracks steps, activities and light and deep sleep. It's a thumb-size nub that can be placed into a clip that easily attaches to belts and clothes, or a wristband.

The good: For just $50, the price is right. This sensor-laden device syncs wirelessly with excellent companion apps for Android and iOS, reports well on your sleep and helps you quantify your daily activity level.

The bad: This isn't waterproof, so you'll have to remove before showering. And it's not exactly the most attractive when worn on your wrist.

The bottom line: This is a great device for someone who wants to try their hand at fitness tracking and doesn't mind having something that looks weird on their wrist.

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Consumer agency gets an incomplete on mortgage advice

WASHINGTON — When the federal government's consumer protection agency for financial matters tells you how to shop for a good deal on a home mortgage, you should follow the advice, right?

Maybe some of it. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created in the backwash of the worst national mortgage disaster since the Great Depression, went online with a new interactive mortgage tool last week. The CFPB's site (www.consumerfinance.gov) offers helpful tips on shopping and has a guide to loan alternatives, closing costs and a "rate checker" feature.

At first glance, the rate checker appears to be a quick way to research prevailing mortgage interest rates in your area. Here's how it works: You enter the state where you want to apply, a FICO credit score estimate, your desired loan amount and the loan term. The rate checker then displays the local daily rate quotes collected from banks and credit unions by its data vendor, Informa Research Services Inc. of Calabasas, Calif.

Say you live in Virginia or California and want to see what rate you might get on a $400,000 house purchase with a $40,000 down payment. You input your estimated credit score. Say you've got a FICO 680. In Virginia, according to the rate checker readout Jan.16, "most lenders" in the survey would quote you 3.875 percent or less for a 30-year fixed-rate loan. Two lenders offered 3.625 percent and six quoted between 4 percent and 4.375 percent.

In California, most lenders also quoted 3.875 percent or less, one quoted 3.75 percent and five came in between 4 and 4.375 percent. None went as low as 3.625 percent.

But something important is missing here: The various fees and charges that the CFPB itself requires lenders to disclose as part of any mortgage quote to a consumer. As regulator of the Truth in Lending Act, CFPB regulations mandate precise disclosures of loan discount fees or "points" and lender closing charges among others. (A point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.) These are included in the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) — the effective rate applicants will be paying over the life of the loan.

When lenders advertise their rates, they must include the APR along with the base interest rate. There may be other charges that come into the total cost picture as well, such as lender-paid mortgage insurance and investor "overlay" add-ons.

So how big a deal could it be when only the interest rate is provided? In a statement for this column, Quicken Loans, the second largest retail lender in the country, said that quoting a rate alone, with no reference to specific points, fees and the APR, "will deliver a cost estimate that greatly differs from what is accurate." Steve Stamets, senior mortgage banker for Apex Home Loans, Rockville, Md., told me "it's inherently misleading because you're not getting all the potential charges" you're going to have to pay.

For example, said Stamets, a loan officer might violate CFPB rules by quoting a 
3 percent rate on a hypothetical $400,000 loan to pull in customers, but not mention that to obtain that rate they will need to pay 5 points — $20,000. Those points could be paid at settlement or financed and included in the interest rate. In the latter case, using one rule of thumb measure, the effective rate on the loan might jump to 
4.25 percent, not the 3 percent advertised.

David Stevens, CEO and president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in an interview that CFPB's rate checker's failure to disclose full costs "violates everything a lender must do" to quote rates to borrowers in compliance with the agency's own rules. "It's just a bad idea," he said. "It needs to come down."

But the CFPB shows no signs of yielding to critics. In a statement for this column, the agency said the rates quoted "assume" discount points ranging between one half a point to minus one half a point "and a 60-day rate lock," but do not include lender closing charges. Dave Hershman, a nationally known trainer and author who helps mortgage companies comply with the rules, scoffed at the CFPB's defense: "Could you imagine (the bureau) allowing a mortgage company to be that nebulous? And to quote rates without an APR?"

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Microsoft’s nifty HoloLens kicks Glass

Google Glass — may it rest in peace — has nothing on Microsoft's HoloLens, a game-changing pair of goggles with a see-through screen that projects holograms that the user can manipulate and control.

Unlike Google Glass, the HoloLens isn't meant to go with you everywhere, and it's not reliant on a smartphone. It exists on its own, when you need it — like a "Star Trek" holodeck worn on your head, smacking right up against the laws of physics. Another difference between Glass and HoloLens: This isn't a concept, it's existing technology, developed by Microsoft in secret for years. It's expected to come to market within the next year, and developers will receive a kit allowing them to design apps for it in a matter of months, according to the software giant based in Redmond, Wash.

The HoloLens looks like a pair of ski goggles, and it's meant for a work or home setting. You are not supposed to venture outside wearing one. In short, it projects a virtual, interactive experience onto the world around you. You can watch television on a virtual holographic screen, launch and interact with a virtual PC, and much more. Or it can virtually put other people in your world, as needed.

Let's say I need help fixing my car. I put on HoloLens and patch in a mechanic. The mechanic can see what I see on his iPad via a compatible app. He can draw on my visual space, labeling all the puzzling parts of my car under the hood. I can virtually tap a part, triggering the screen to virtually spill out all components that are inside that part so I can see how it works without having to disassemble it.

Any task that requires an on-site expert can now be reimagined via the HoloLens. Besides remote mechanics, electricians and plumbers, the HoloLens could change the face of job training and education. Forget about digital classrooms, which are often isolating in my opinion. Having an instructor who can see with your eyes? That's mind-blowing. Being able to mark up and label that visual space? Well, that actually makes you closer to instructors than if you were sitting right next to them.

We still don't know the price of HoloLens. Anything below the $500 mark guarantees mainstream adoption. It makes Apple's upcoming iWatch seem almost petty by comparison.

An irony of this technology is that all of its underpinnings are projects that Wall Street analysts and talking heads had been urging Microsoft to abandon for years — such as Bing, the search engine that gave way to the artificial intelligence for this device, and Xbox, which spawned the motion-sensing Kinect, a technological backbone for HoloLens.

Another irony: HoloLens, in a sense, is a stepping stone to something universal and portable, like Google Glass was meant to be. If 50 million people have a HoloLens, all of a sudden it doesn't feel as idiotic to be wearing one in public.

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Fidelity increasing in private tech companies

Fidelity Investments is looking into more privately owned tech companies to get a leg up on investments as large, successful companies are staying private longer, according to a top investor with Fidelity.

"There are companies that are exciting, innovative, and of a size that are appropriate for our investment but are staying public," said Andrew Boyd, head of global equity capital markets for Fidelity. "We're finding a lot of attractive investments in private companies, particularly in tech."

Fidelity led a $1.2 billion investment in Uber Technologies last summer, and took part in a $1 billion investment in SpaceX announced last week. Fidelity has also invested in Pinterest, Airbnb and several other private tech companies, according to the company's mutual fund data.

"We come across private companies that we think are very interesting and can be a great investment for our shareholders," Boyd said.

Still, Boyd and Fidelity are not working off of any master plan to invest in more private companies.

"It's not that we are coming down the evolutionary scale or the growth scale of companies. These are companies that we would have invested in had they existed 10 years ago, but they would have gone public 10 years ago," Boyd said.

He said Fidelity has more investments in private companies than 10 years ago, but they are still a very small percentage of Fidelity's investment portfolio.

Matthew Wong, a research analyst at venture capital tracking firm CB Insights, said Fidelity is not the only mutual fund company investing more in private companies.

"A lot of the big funding that went to venture funding in 2014 was not from venture capital, we're definitely seeing that trend more now," Wong said.

According to CB Insights data, mutual fund companies Fidelity, BlackRock, T. Rowe Price and Janus made 29 investments in private tech companies in 2014, after making only 16 in 2013 and nine in 2012.

He said the stock market success of companies such as Facebook has encouraged mutual funds.

"Mutual funds and other firms are seeing that and thinking that a better strategy might be instead of investing in these companies when they're public, get in pre-IPO," Wong said.

Boyd said Fidelity is also able to prepare the companies for the expectations that come with being publicly traded and subject to analysts' scrutiny.

"We treat them like a public company, and they need to answer questions from our analysts, and they're probing questions, and this is what they need to get used to for earnings calls," Boyd said.

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Medical pot only OK for sick kids failed by other drugs: MDs

CHICAGO — With virtually no hard proof that medical marijuana benefits sick children, and evidence that it may harm developing brains, the drug should only be used for severely ill kids who have no other treatment option, the nation's most influential pediatricians group says in a new policy.

Some parents insist that medical marijuana has cured their kids' troublesome seizures or led to other improvements, but the American Academy of Pediatrics' new policy says rigorous research is needed to verify those claims.

To make it easier to study and develop marijuana-based treatments, the group recommends removing marijuana from the government's most restrictive drug category, which includes heroin, LSD and other narcotics with no accepted medical use, and switching it to the category which includes methadone and oxycodone.

The recommended switch "could help make a big difference in promoting more research," said Dr. Seth Ammerman, the policy's lead author and a professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Stanford University.

The academy's qualified support may lead more pediatricians to prescribe medical marijuana, but the group says pediatric use should only be considered "for children with life-limiting or severely debilitating conditions and for whom current therapies are inadequate."

The academy also repeated its previous advice against legalizing marijuana for recreational use by adults, suggesting that may enable easier access for kids. It does not address medical marijuana use in adults.

Studies have linked recreational marijuana use in kids with ill effects on health and brain development, including problems with memory, concentration, attention, judgment and reaction time, the group's policy emphasizes.

The policy was published online Monday in Pediatrics. It updates and expands the group's 2004 policy.

Since then, the marijuana movement has grown substantially. Recreational and medical marijuana use is legal for adults in four states — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Nineteen other states and Washington D.C., have laws allowing medical marijuana use only and most allow children to qualify, according to Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, a national group that advocates marijuana policy reform and tracks state laws.

"The cart is so far ahead of the horse related to this drug," said Dr. Angus Wilfong, of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Marijuana has dozens of chemical components that need to be studied just like any drug to determine safety, proper doses and potential side effects, he said.

Wilfong was involved in a recently completed international study involving 30 children with severe epilepsy. About half got an experimental drug made with a marijuana compound that doesn't make users high; the others received dummy medicine. Study results are being analyzed. Wilfong said five children from his hospital were involved and while he doesn't know if any of them got the marijuana drug, none suffered any serious side effects.

Wilfong said he has a young seizure patient in a different, less rigorous study who has shown dramatic improvement after several months on the marijuana-based treatment, "but that doesn't prove it was due to the" experimental drug," he said.

___

Online: American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org

Medical marijuana: http://tinyurl.com/axxzhrj

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Bow-front duplex is decked out

This stylish duplex condo in the Eight Streets area of the South End has had a recent high-end makeover and includes two private decks as well as an outdoor parking space.

The three-bedroom condo at 38 Upton St. No. 4, on the market for $1,995,000, occupies the top two floors of a 1899-built bow-front brownstone that was redone into four condos in 2012.

Unit 4 has a reverse layout, with the living spaces on the top floor — leading up to a private roof deck —and the bedrooms a floor below. The levels are connected by stylish oak staircases with modern iron railings.

The top floor is a contemporary-style open kitchen/dining/living area with new walnut-stained oak floors and recessed lighting.

The high-end kitchen, with two windows and a skylight, features 16 custom white cabinets, including large pantry ones, honed Absolute black granite counters and a glass-mosaic-style backsplash. There's a separate island that seats three with a prep sink, a U-Line wine cooler and built-in microwave. Stainless-steel Thermador appliances include a double-door refrigerator, gas cooktop and wall oven. There's also a cabinet-faced Bosch dishwasher.

Off the kitchen is a half bathroom with a wall-­mounted sink and there's an adjacent utilities/storage closet.

The living/dining area has a built-in gas fireplace with black-honed granite surround, and there's a dining nook in the bow-front with three windows. The far corner of the room has a full wall of built-in bookcases and a window seat with storage.

Stairs lead up to a skylight door opening onto a 25-by-14-foot private roof deck with panoramic Boston views. The deck has gas, electric and water lines.

The unit's three bedrooms are on the third floor, all with walnut-stained oak floors. The front-facing master bedroom has a bow-front window, as well as a large walk-in closet with built-in storage. The en-suite master bathroom has radiant-heated marble-tiled floors as well as marble walls and surround for a glassed-in steam shower. There's a double-sink vanity topped with white quartz countertops.

The rear-facing second bedrooms are off an oak hallway with two closets, one for storage and the other­ holding a stacked Frigidaire washer and dryer.

The second bedroom, which has a built-in Murphy bed, is on the small side. And the narrow third bedroom, which has a built-in desk and bookcase, is even smaller, better suited to its current use as a home office. But there is a glass door from this bedroom out to a private balcony with views over the South End.

A second full bathroom features slatted marble floor tiles and surround for a deep soaking tub, as well as a floating vanity.

The unit has a new two-zone gas-fired heating system with Nest thermostats and a porthole central air-conditioning system. It has a central humidification system as well as a security system.

Unit 4 also comes with a deeded oversized parking space behind the building with access to an electric charging station.

Home Showcase

• Address: 38 Upton St. No. 4, South End
• Bedrooms: Three
• Bathrooms: Two full, one half
• List price: $1,995,000
• Square feet: 1,784
• Price per square foot: $1,118
• Annual taxes: $16,246
• Monthly condo fee: $286
• Location: Block from restaurants and shops along Tremont Street, the South End's main retail district; one block in other direction to offerings on Washington Street and Silver Line stop
• Built in: 1899; redone in 2012
• Broker: Michael Harper of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage at 617-480-3938

Pros:

• Stylish kitchen with custom cabinets, center island, Thermador, Bosch appliances
• Open living area with gas fireplace, bow-front dining nook and library area
• Private roof deck with panoramic city views and second deck off guest bedroom
• Comes with one outdoor parking space near electric charging station

Cons:

• Lots of stairs to climb
• Guest bedrooms on the small side

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