At 8.45am this morning, I was already lording it over the whole of Westminster on the 29 th floor of the Millbank Tower. Present were the Culture Minister Karen Bradley, many uniformed,be-medalled MoD types, and Amazon Web Services, who were hosting this lovely breakfast shindig.
AWS was launching its «re:Start» skills initiative — a scheme, it said, to supply IT training to many of the UK’s less able IT users to learn, as Bradley added: «basic digital skills to function in society».
UK and Ireland AWS MD Gavin Jackson opened proceedings by inviting us to gaze out of the window at the London vista below, stating that «if the Monopoly board was designed today, its utilities would include cloud computing». He spent the next ten minutes reminding the audience how many UK cloud data centres AWS had opened recently. Each slide came complete with data centre-based «Region Launch» branding, just to hammer home that cloud «message».
MoD CIO Mike Stone followed with a brief mention of the importance of skills, before emphasising — apropos of nothing — that «we need to embrace mobility and the cloud, and the cloud is the force that’s going to allow us to do that. » Buzzword bingo.
Karen Bradley echoed the already-tired Monopoly sentiment — mentioning cloud again, natch — before bringing up how 12.6 per cent of «adults» (not «young people, as featured in this scheme) don’t know how to use computers to the extent they need to in order live a fulfilled life.
What she didn’t mention was how her government have closed 343 of the UK’s libraries since 2010 — a prime source of IT education for older, disabled or other marginalised folk. I know this first hand because I used to be a librarian, and saw the amazing results. Neither did she mention how continuing, stringent cuts to disability benefits are affecting the opportunities of disabled people to live on a basic level , before they even get near a keyboard.
Then we were treated to a spectacular repackaging of Brexit by the CBI’s deputy director-general Josh Hardie — «We decided it wasn’t right that London has 60 per cent greater productivity than Northern Ireland».
Did we? I thought we swallowed a bunch of lies on the side of a bus and stopped ‘trusting experts’.
That aside, by this stage, I’d been at the session well over an hour, and not once had a single person talked about what re: Start is , what re: Start does , and when re: Start will… start. Re: Start, it seems, just exists, and we should all simply be cool with that. Because it’s «helping people».
AWS’ partners will do the rest with work placements, and I’m sure we’ll see a few videos of that trickle out in the next year or so, doubtless with a glut of cloud services branding.
So what’s really going on here?
It’s a competitive cloud market these days, and no mistake. Tellingly, Computing ‘s own research suggests that Microsoft Azure is now looking to be favoured more highly than AWS’ «Ryanair pricing» for increasingly core functions such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Meanwhile, for reasons I’ve stated above, Theresa May’s government is still unable to completely distance itself from Ian Duncan Smith’s loathsome reputation for his extreme measures against disabled and unemployed citizens. Not to mention the fact that Brexit has heads in a spin.
How better for AWS and the government to offer a free pass to one another than organise a posh breakfast up in the sky in a spirit of mutual congratulation over their friendly, caring, sharing inclusivity and love towards the forgotten and downtrodden who are being left behind by progress and automation?
You can stick as many Prince’s Trust beneficiaries on stage as you like (Jake Elgar, a young man who also spoke today, has clearly had his life turned around by both his and the charity’s hard work — but that’s not down to AWS or the government) but that doesn’t equte to AWS offering anything new for the underskilled. That’s not making a difference. Simply acknowledging the existence of sidelined members of society is not going to help those the government arguably compromised, and it’s crass beyond measure to lace such a conversation with constant subliminal advertising for AWS cloud services.
Charity and philanthropy is becoming an increasingly commercialised element of society and the IT industry, and what I saw today is just another example of the social elite being fed melon and croissants while sighing dreamily at the plight of people nobody could even be bothered creating a comprehensive message around.
Stop it, AWS. And stop it, the rest of you. The world’s in enough of a state as it is, so why don’t we make 2017 the year when a technology company genuinely helps people, instead of wrapping humanitarian causes in the cloying film of PR and marketing and launching it as yet another half-baked revenue scheme?
I am, of course, ready and willing to eat my words if this scheme takes off, does something, and generates genuine, unarguable success stories. I’m open to hearing about them. But kicking it off with a huge push on data centres and cloud services isn’t the way to keep noses in joint.
AWS’ official press release on re: Start finishes with this rare gem, by the way, just to underscore the serious skills message of today’s announcements:
«Also today, some people may notice something a little different at Westminster Station. TfL and Exterion Media, working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), have organised a one-day station take-over, to celebrate the recent launch of the new AWS UK Datacenter Region. The take-over includes temporarily changing station roundels from ‘Westminster’ to ‘Webminster’ and displaying advertising posters at the station for a week. »
Webminster. Yeah.
P. S. Incisive Media — a company of only 520 employees globally — raised £280,000 for vulnerable people across several charities last year. I indirectly helped that along myself at some of our events, and was astonished with how much was donated. There’s no agenda on our part, and that’s why I’m still hugely proud to work here.

© Source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/opinion/3002452/aws-presents-another-crass-pr-stunt-exploiting-the-vulnerable-and-forgotten-to-sell-cloud-services
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In some ways, Thunderbolt 3 is opening up a new world of connectivity. Having 40 Gbps of bandwidth to play with, along with a number of key mobile devices turning to it as their only source of connectivity, will in some form or another drive the hub and peripheral market beyond what TB1 and TB2 did. That being said, the market is still a bit slow: products are announced, but are region limited or produced in small quantities while the rest of the market develops the functionality to use it. So when we see a good trinket, it can be exciting if it reaches retail.
So enter a GIGABYTE dock that takes Thunderbolt 3 and splits the PCIe lanes between eight USB 3 ports, four using Type-A and four using Type-C. I must confess that I didn’t confirm if these were USB 3.0 ports at 5 Gbps or USB 3.1 at 10 Gbps, which if it was using the latter I would suspect employs a PLX switch and a set of ASMedia ASM1142 controllers to provide the functionality, but would also mean that a user could not pummel the maximum data rate of each port when all were in use. If I were to be cynical, this could just be a single controller and a hub, which would make the unit very disappointing.
At present this unit did not support power passthrough or daisy chaining, however we did suggest both to GIGABYTE as a feature, especially the latter with the ability to daisy chain storage devices. Given that this unit doesn’t require external power, it is at least taking the power required from the TB3 connector. Something like this would go a long way to helping users that rely on a single port out of their device at least. Now admittedly there are a variety of TB3 docks coming to the market offering all sorts of port sets, and these docks typically start at around $150 to get anything more than a couple of USB ports, an Ethernet port and a card reader. We’ll wait and see how GIGABYTE decides to play in this space.

© Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11026/ces-2017-gigabytes-thunderbolt-3-to-8x-usb-3-dock
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ASUS at CES has introduced its new game console-like PC that weds relatively high performance, compact dimensions and a moderate price tag. The new VivoPC X packs Intel Core i5 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU into a 5-liter chassis.
Traditionally, ASUS has positioned its Vivo-series computers as miniature PCs for mainstream tasks, whereas ROG systems were designed for gamers and multimedia enthusiasts. With the release of the VivoPC X, the computer maker changes that positioning and offers an SFF gaming-grade system under the Vivo brand. The reasons for the decision are simple: sales of small form-factor PCs are growing and so are sales of machines for gamers. ASUS wanted to address both markets with computers at more or less mainstream prices and the VivoPC X is a result of this decision. The mini PC is positioned below the ROG GR8 II and its performance is lower, however, ASUS thinks that the combination of price and performance will satisfy many people looking for a console-like gaming PC.
The ASUS VivoPC X M80 is based on the Intel Core i5-7300HQ (4C/4T, 2.5 GHz/3.5 GHz, 6 MB cache, HD Graphics 630, 45 W) mobile processor, the Intel HM175 PCH as well as NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 graphics processor with G-Sync support. Since many gamers demand to have the performance of an SSD and capacity of a hard drive, the system will be equipped with a 512 GB M.2 SATA SSD as well as a 2 TB HDD with 7200 RPM spindle speed. The PC also comes with 8 GB of DDR4-2133 memory. To cool down the system components, ASUS uses a custom cooling system consisting of a blower for the GPU and a large aluminum heatsink for the CPU.
When it comes to connectivity, the ASUS VivoPC X has four USB 3.0 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 headers, Gigabit Ethernet, an IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi with BT 4.1 module, three display outputs (two HDMI and one DisplayPort), 5.1-channel audio with Sonic Suite software enhancements and so on.
The computer uses mobile PC components in a bid to keep its physical size small and power consumption low: its volume is about five liters and its power consumption is less than 230 W (it uses an external power brick to feed itself). Meanwhile, usage of such components also means that its future upgrades will be rather complicated if possible at all (for example, the GPU is soldered to the motherboard and is thus not upgradeable).
The ASUS VivoPC X will be available in March, 2017, for $799.
Related Reading:

© Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10988/asus-vivopc-x-core-i5-geforce-gtx-1060-512-gb-ssd-5liter-chassis-799
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Earlier today The Guardian reported that WhatsApp has a critical flaw that could potentially enable man-in-the-middle attacks to decrypt encrypted messages. But it’s not exactly cut-and-dry because the encryption software is designed to work that way. That and more in today’s news.

© Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/-aP7MdWqIdk/remains-of-the-day-whatsapp-doesnt-really-have-a-secre-1791175457
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It’s a home console, it’s a tabletop gaming system and it’s a portable games tablet. It’s the Nintendo Switch and after months of waiting, we’ve finally taken it for a spin.
The new Nintendo Switch console is coming to store near you March 3, 2017, for the measly cost of $300, £280 or AU$470 (OK, IMO, it’s not cheap.) And our staff have been busily familiarizing themselves with the console to give you all the insights of what to expect and what they personally think of it. Just check out the coverage thus far.
Now that you’ve been armed with this information of what’s to come from Nintendo, we want to get a pulse check from you.
What do you think of the new Nintendo Switch? Is it a must-have or something you’ll pass on? Take the poll below and see where your vote stand with others.
And just for the fun of it, we’ve even thrown in an additional poll to ask what your favorite Nintendo system of all time is. So what are you waiting for? Hit the poll, tell us why you voted the way you did in comments section, when you’re done, invite your friends to participate.

© Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/are-you-buying-the-nintendo-switch/
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