UPDATE - Glitches Of The Week, Newsbytes

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Feature - Glitches Of The Week

By Leonard Lee, Newsbytes

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, U.S.A., 24 Jul 2000, 1:29 PM CST

This is a weekly column from Newsbytes featuring the latest in the weird, bizarre, and unfortunate when it comes to technology.

PA Phone Book Missing Listings

Bell Atlantic's new telephone books for Williamsport, Pennsylvania are missing some government listings due to a computer glitch. According to Stephanie Hobbs, Verizon Information Services spokesperson, a column and a half of listings, roughly 75 entries, all of which belonged to the blue pages, were omitted from the phone books. Verizon is the company formed by a merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. "The data concerning the listings are fed into a conversion table," said Hobbs. "When the computer went to read that code, it interpreted the information as not being there, even though the information was present." Verizon is in the process of reprinting the listings. "Within the next two to three weeks, Williamsport-area residents will receive a letter in the mail, including all of the missing listings, that they can simply tuck into their 2000 phone books," said Hobbs. Until the new listings are received, residents are encouraged to keep their old government listings for reference. The seven affected communities have a total of about 45,000 homes and businesses.

Customer Info Exposed

Personal information regarding up to 7,000 PowerGen customers who pay their bills online was found to be accessible to non-authorized people earlier this month, as reported by London's The Daily Telegraph. A computer problem on the British gas and electric company's Web site allowed at least one outsider to view sensitive customer data including names, addresses and banking information. John Chamberlain, a PowerGen customer, went to the site to pay his bill and came across the information inadvertently. PowerGen shut down the Web site to repair the breach in privacy and set about contacting customers who could have been affected by it. In addition, the company has urged all online customers to change their credit card numbers and has agreed to pay inconvenienced customers 50 pounds for compensation.

Carnival Cruises Canceled

A total of four scheduled cruises for the cruise ship Paradise operated by Carnival Corp. have been canceled due to technical problems which required repairs. "The Paradise departed the Port of Miami July 16 and returned to the same port later that evening with a technical malfunction in one of its Azipod propulsion units," reported Carnival Corp. Since the malfunction, the company has canceled its cruises scheduled between July 16 and August 6. "As technical experts have provided a more detailed assessment of the problem, we unfortunately have determined that the required repair time necessitates the cancellation of these cruises," said Bob Dickinson, president of Carnival Cruise Lines, a unit of Carnival Corp. Customers of the July 16 cancellation, will receive a free seven-day future cruise, while those scheduled on the later canceled voyages will receive a discounted rate as compensation. The Paradise is scheduled to be back in service on August 13. As a result of the canceled voyages, Carnival Corp. estimates the third quarter earnings of 2000 will be down.

Reported by Newsbytes News Network, http://www.newsbytes.com

13:29 CST

http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/152607.html

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), July 25, 2000


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