Latest Tech News

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a significant expansion to its global cloud network as it looks to maintain supremacy in the technology arms race.

At its AWS re:Invent 2021 conference in Las Vegas, the company revealed it would be launching 30 new AWS Local Zones in major cities around the world - the first such launch outside the US.

Announced by Amazon.com CTO Dr. Werner Vogels during his keynote, the news will mean companies around the world will benefit from a greater choice of AWS services and solutions.

AWS Local Zones

An AWS Local Zone provides customers better regional access to the company's services, meaning they should encounter faster and more reliable connectivity. This includes tools such as compute, storage and other cloud offerings at lower latency and more effective uptime.

The company revealed that the new AWS Local Zones are launching in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Kenya, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal and South Africa.

They will be available "starting in 2022", joining 16 Local Zones that have already been launched in the US in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia and Portland.

AWS' parent company Amazon recently revealed it is now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world, with 18 new projects bringing its capacity to more than 12 GW and 33,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) - enough to power more than three million US homes for a year.

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Latest Tech News

Amazon has revealed a significant investment in renewable energy projects around the world as it looks to make AWS the greenest cloud option for customers.

At its AWS re:Invent 2021 conference in Las Vegas, the company announced 18 new utility-scale wind and solar energy projects across the US, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.

The news, which makes Amazon the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world, means AWS's renewable energy capacity will now total more than 12 GW and 33,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) when the current projects are fully realized - enough to power more than three million US homes for a year.

Going green

The announcement also means Amazon now operates 274 renewable energy projects globally, and is well on track to its goal of being able to power 100% of its business operations with renewable energy by 2025 - which itself is five years earlier than its original aim of 2030.

“We are moving quickly and deliberately to reduce our carbon emissions and address the climate crisis,” said Kara Hurst, vice president of worldwide sustainability at Amazon. “Significant investments in renewable energy globally are an important step in delivering on The Climate Pledge, our commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Renewable energy projects also bring new investment, green jobs, and advance the decarbonization of the electricity systems in communities around the world.”

The new projects, which includes a third solar project in Italy, alongside a new wind project in Northern Ireland and four new solar projects in Spain, means Amazon has added 5.6 gigawatts (GW) of procured capacity to date in 2021.

In its home country of the US, Amazon has added eight new projects, including its first solar projects in Arizona and Georgia, and additional projects in Ohio, Texas, and Virginia.

The company's 274 global projects now include 105 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 169 solar rooftops on facilities and stores.

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The Google Pixel Watch, a long-rumored smartwatch that will show off the absolute best of the Wear OS platform, might finally debut in 2022.

A new report from Insider,  which quotes a source familiar with the project, claims that the Pixel Watch will arrive in 2022. The report doesn't offer details on when in the year.

Despite using its Pixel line of smartphones to showcase the latest version of its Android software, Google has never made a smartwatch to highlight its various wearable operating systems. The new report says this new smartwatch will demonstrate the absolute best features of Wear OS.

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The smartwatch, the report adds, is being worked on in Google's Pixel hardware group, and isn't connected to Fitbit, which the company bought earlier this year.

Another source speaking to The Verge said the device is expected to cost more than Fitbit's line of products and could compete with the Apple Watch line of devices.

We don't know much about what features we should expect, but these new reports claim that it will feature a heart rate monitor and basic step tracking. It'll need more than that, though, to compete with the Apple Watch.

Google hasn't commented publicly on the report. If and when they do, it's unlikely to happen before Google IO 2022 in May.

• What we know about the Google Pixel Watch

Via The Verge

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Microsoft is adding a video editor to its mobile app for Office that will allow users to create more than just documents using its office software.

According to a new post in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, a simple video editor will begin rolling out to the Office mobile app for Android beginning this month.

Microsoft's new video editor in Office will enable users to create short video clips and of course edit them before sharing them with the people in their network.

While there are already plenty of video editing apps for Android such as KineMaster and PowerDirector, the company's new update for Office will make it possible for its customers to create short video clips using an app they already have installed on their Android smartphones without the need to download additional software.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Premium creative content

If you're looking to add a bit of visual flair to your projects in Excel, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint, last year Microsoft announced the addition of premium creative content to Office. With this feature, Microsoft 365 uses can easily add high quality, curated images, stickers and icons to both their personal and professional flies. 

To get started, simply select Insert, scroll down to Pictures and click on the Stock Images option. From here, you'll be able to pick from a wide variety of content in addition to stock images including Cutout People, Icons and Stickers.

Microsoft also recently added Cartoon People in Office to allow users to create artwork and tell stories using a diverse set of characters and scenery. Cartoon People can be found in the premium content library under Icons and they can easily add a bit more to your documents and presentations.

While Microsoft Office is nowhere close to Adobe's Creative Cloud, the addition of a video editor and premium creative content in the software giant's office software makes it possible for users to channel their inner visual creativity in a place where they wouldn't normally expect to be able to do so.

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Google cybersecurity researchers have helped patch a critical memory corruption vulnerability affecting Mozilla’s cross-platform Network Security Services (NSS) set of cryptography libraries.

“I've discovered a critical vulnerability in Network Security Services (NSS). NSS is the Mozilla project's cross-platform cryptography library. In 2021, all good bugs need a catchy name, so I'm calling this one "BigSig",” writes Google Project Zero’s Tavis Ormandy

According to Ormandy, the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-43527, and rated as critical, could have led to a heap-based buffer overflow while verifying DER-encoded DSA or RSA-PSS signatures in several email clients and PDF viewers that use the buggy NSS versions.

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Rated critical

Reporting on the development BleepingComputer explains that NSS is used in the development of several security-enabled client and server apps and supports SSL v3, TLS, PKCS #5, PKCS #7, PKCS #11, PKCS #12, S/MIME, X.509 v3 certificates, and various other security standards.

In his explanation, Ormandy adds that the bug probably affects all versions of NSS since 3.14, which was released almost a decade ago in October 2012. If exploited, the bug could cause the application to crash, or even enable attackers to execute arbitrary code.

Mozilla has fixed the bug in NSS 3.68.1 and NSS 3.73, and in its advisory has clarified that it doesn’t affect Firefox, Mozilla’s popular web browser. Instead it believes that open source apps that use NSS for verifying signatures such as Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Evolution email client, and Evince PDF reader could all be vulnerable.

If you are concerned about online security, use these best password managers to securely lock your accounts, and perhaps even use one of these best security keys to add another layer of protection

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The banking giant is the first of its size to eliminate the often criticized practice.

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Apple VR, AR headset rumors: Possible 2022 release date, price and more - CNET

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