Miscellaneous Tech News
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Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon chief executive
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is to step down as chief executive of the e-commerce giant that he founded in his garage nearly 30 years ago.
He will become executive chairman, a move he said would give him "time and energy" to focus on his other ventures. Mr Bezos, the world's richest man, will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud computing business. The change will take place in the second half of 2021, the company said. "As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions," he said in an letter to Amazon staff on Tuesday, "I've never had more energy, and this isn't about retiring. I'm super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have." -
He has endured a public divorce, become a target for labour and inequality activists, and got involved in other businesses, such as space exploration firm Blue Origin and the Washington Post newspaper.
He has endured a public divorce, become a target for labour,
andinequality, and free speech activists, and and got involved in other businesses, such as space exploration firm Blue Origin and the Washington Post newspaper.Fixed that for them
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Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes.
And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB
NAS spinner's drives are Toshiba tin with custom firmwareSynology has introduced its first-ever list of validated disks and wonât allow other devices into its enterprise-class NAS devices. And in a colossal coincidence, half of the disks allowed into its devices â and the only ones larger than 4TB â are Synologyâs very own HAT 5300 disks that it launched last week .
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/02/synology_enterprise_nas_drives/
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Greens float publicly owned search engine
The Greens are calling on the government to establish a publicly owned search engine if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from Australia.
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7110893/greens-float-publicly-owned-search-engine/?cs=9676
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@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Greens float publicly owned search engine
The Greens are calling on the government to establish a publicly owned search engine if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from Australia.
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7110893/greens-float-publicly-owned-search-engine/?cs=9676
NOTE - "The Greens" are a political party in Australia
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@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Greens float publicly owned search engine
The Greens are calling on the government to establish a publicly owned search engine if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from Australia.
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7110893/greens-float-publicly-owned-search-engine/?cs=9676
Will the government then shell out the public's tax money to the newspapers? This sounds like a call for a huge scam to forcibly tax the public to fund news outlets that can't produce what people need. That's some serious corruption once the taxpayers are forced to pay the media outlets!
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@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Greens float publicly owned search engine
The Greens are calling on the government to establish a publicly owned search engine if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from Australia.
https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/7110893/greens-float-publicly-owned-search-engine/?cs=9676
NOTE - "The Greens" are a political party in Australia
Where "political party" = "lobbyist for the news media conglomerates" it sounds like.
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@scottalanmiller the taxpayer only pays taxes, very little say on how they are spent :expressionless_face:
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@warren-stanley Interesting decision and one that might be good or bad but man forcing it might be too much.
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@dbeato said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@warren-stanley Interesting decision and one that might be good or bad but man forcing it might be too much.
If the gov't does it, I see only one choice....
The gov't decided what is true or important and changing concepts like freedom of speech and press into "the government says so."
It's similar to countries having only state-run news and media outlets. In this case, there might be competing outlets but if the government doesn't prioritize you, your news doesn't matter because no one can find it. It's definitely on par with the most corrupt things we see from places like North Korea. But at least in NK they don't seem to pretend that they are doing it for the good of the citizens. So in many ways, this could be worse.
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@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes.
And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB
NAS spinner's drives are Toshiba tin with custom firmwareSynology has introduced its first-ever list of validated disks and wonât allow other devices into its enterprise-class NAS devices. And in a colossal coincidence, half of the disks allowed into its devices â and the only ones larger than 4TB â are Synologyâs very own HAT 5300 disks that it launched last week .
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/02/synology_enterprise_nas_drives/
Can't find any media release other than the article you pointed to. Looking at the Synology site, while it's true they have removed a ton of drives from their compatibility list, I'm not yet seeing anything suggesting they would not work without a "compatible" drive. Will have to keep an eye out.
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@NashBrydges I'm also watching this space a little more closely. Not that we need "Enterprise" level NAS but I have some ageing Synology 4 bay units that should really have a succession plan. The convenience is nice and they've been reliable (some Syno-isms), but I've provided clean, consistent power, regularly removed dust (ESD precautions taken), upgraded RAM* and HDDs** etc
* RAM - So far I've avoided needing to pay the inflated price and limited availability for the vendor's labeled RAM
** HDD upgrades are meant to be a no-brainer in these devices..... but I do wonder if pushing the proprietary drive concept into the top end, might have some trickle down before too long. the RAID acronym might not be applicable for these products at that pointJust my 2c
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@scottalanmiller it's pretty scary that GovOzle
(I should trademark this now!) has even been tabled -
@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller it's pretty scary that GovOzle
(I should trademark this now!) has even been tabledIt really is. But it's kind of matching the impression that the news here gives us of Australia. Most of the news is pretty scary stuff - offshore concentration camps and five eyes stuff. I'm sure we get a skewed view, but the way Australia is presented here, this is the least scary thing that they are doing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@warren-stanley said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller it's pretty scary that GovOzle
(I should trademark this now!) has even been tabledIt really is. But it's kind of matching the impression that the news here gives us of Australia. Most of the news is pretty scary stuff - offshore concentration camps and five eyes stuff. I'm sure we get a skewed view, but the way Australia is presented here, this is the least scary thing that they are doing.
There's definitely have some major issues going on and I've no doubt there is skewing in the media (after all, boring news doesn't get views). I'm not certain the broader issues are unique to Australia, which is also alarming.
-- apologies for taking this off the tech topic a little
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@scottalanmiller I replied about the Synology Station Drives nothing else just for clarification.
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Amazon: Meet Jeff Bezos's successor - Andy Jassy
Andy Jassy is not a household name.
He is, though, about to take on one of the biggest jobs in global business - replacing Jeff Bezos as chief executive of Amazon. Accompanying the appointment of a new football manager comes endless speculation. What will the style of play be? Are they the right fit at the club? Can they manage the big stars? Business is no different. Yet with Amazon's new chief executive, we kind of know what to expect. Amazon's business is so big it essentially acts as an umbrella organisation for many different companies. Mr Jassy has been at the company for 23 years, conducted plenty of interviews, and has been pretty open about what makes him tick. He also runs its most lucrative business - Amazon Web Services (AWS). -
Amazon faces spying claims over AI cameras in vans
Amazon has begun using AI-powered cameras in delivery vans that constantly record footage of drivers and upload any mistakes they make.
The firm says it is an investment in safety but privacy campaigners described it as "surveillance". The cameras will be on all the time but will only upload footage for 16 actions, including hard braking, driver distraction and drowsiness. One person told CNBC the system was even triggered by the driver yawning. The Kentucky-based driver said if someone yawns, they will be told to pull over for 15 minutes. In a statement, Amazon told the BBC: "We are investing in safety across our operations and have rolled out a number of resources to provide delivery service partners with information to help them keep drivers safe when they are on the road." -
Microsoft launches Viva, its new take on the old intranet
Microsoft today launched Viva, a new âemployee experience platform,â or, in non-marketing terms, its new take on the intranet sites most large companies tend to offer their employees. This includes standard features like access to internal communications built on integrations with SharePoint, Yammer and other Microsoft tools. In addition, Viva also offers access to team analytics and an integration with LinkedIn Learning and other training content providers (including the likes of SAP SuccessFactors), as well as what Microsoft calls Viva Topics for knowledge sharing within a company.
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Spy planes grounded in US following privacy battle
Lawmakers in Baltimore have voted to end a controversial aerial surveillance program, which had seen spy planes constantly monitoring the city.
The program, set up by private firm Persistent Surveillance Systems, used camera-equipped planes to capture what was happening across a vast urban area. The decision to abandon the scheme followed a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It said the system disproportionately targeted people of colour. "Baltimore's termination of its unconstitutional spy plane program is a hard-fought victory for all Baltimoreans, especially for Black leaders who challenged this and communities of colour who are disproportionately targeted by this surveillance," said Brett Max Kaufman, a senior lawyer for the ACLU. But David Rocah, a senior lawyer with ACLU Maryland, said the legal case still needed to be heard.
