Thaindian News

Moscow, Oct 31 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Many Russians appeared an hour late at work as their mobile devices and personal computers automatically switched to the winter time that was scrapped by Russia back in March.

In February, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree abolishing the autumn time switch and leaving Russia in a “permanent summer time”.

His decision was made after studies showed that daylight saving puts an unnecessary strain on public health.

The confusion occurred Sunday when thousands of mobile devices and personal computers automatically updated the time, shifting the clock back one hour.

“All of my colleagues overslept for work,” a user Alyo Alyona in Russian social network, VKontakte said.

“My phone and laptop have automatically updated time. They are probably not familiar with Medvedev,” said one of the Facebook users.

An iPhone-owner from Moscow, who was not affected by the time chaos, said on his Facebook page that his “iPhone did not make any time updates as well as MacBook.”

However, some of the Apple users, who had the old version of the iOS software, also suffered from the rebellion of the gadgets.

A poll conducted in Russia in February showed that some 60 percent of Russians support the decision to scrap the annual shift to winter time.

In November 2009, Medvedev also initiated a reform that reduced the number of time zones in Russia to 9 from 11.

–IANS/RIA Novosti
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