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DoD's $10 billion 'Jedi' cloud contract goes to Microsoft over Amazon
After a couple years of competition, the US Department of Defense has awarded a lucrative contract for cloud computing services to Microsoft. It beat out Amazon, the only other remaining competitor after others were weeded out or, in the case of Google, dropped out citing "AI principles." Dubbed the Jedi Cloud contract, it could be worth $10 billion over the next ten years as the agency replaces legacy systems. In a statement, DoD Chief information Office Dana Deasy said "The National Defense Strategy dictates that we must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform. The DOD Digital Modernization Strategy was created to support this imperative. This award is an important step in execution of the Digital Modernization Strategy."
NVIDIA's EGX supercomputer tech can crunch 1.6 terabytes a second
Much like Microsoft, NVIDIA is shifting big parts of its tech toward the enterprise space to rely less and less on the messy and competitive world of consumer graphics. To that end, it has unveiled the NVIDIA EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform that marries NVIDIA's CUDA-X software with certified GPU servers. The tech is supported by Microsoft on its Azure and Azure AI apps, and has been adopted by companies like Walmart, Samsung and BMW, as well as the cities of Las Vegas and San Francisco, NVIDIA said in a press release.
You can report traffic snarls in Google Maps for iOS
You no longer need an Android phone to report collisions and other traffic trouble in Google Maps. Google has brought road incident reporting to iOS, letting you flag problems without turning to an app like Waze. Whichever platform you use, Google is also expanding the range of reportable incidents to include construction, disabled cars, lane closures and objects on the road. You'll see both iOS support and the expanded categories roll out this week.
Pixel 4 won't come with free full-resolution photo storage
Ever since Google unveiled the first Pixel, people who bought one of the company's phones could expect free full-resolution photo and video storage, at least for a few years. You won't have that luxury with the Pixel 4, it seems. Google made no mention of full-quality storage at its October 15th event, and a visit to the Pixel 4's product page includes a disclaimer indicating that free storage is limited to "high quality" photos and videos that could be "compressed or resized." You're likely in the same boat as every other Google Photos user, then.
Windows 10 will let you reinstall the OS from the cloud
To date, reinstalling Windows has meant using a local copy -- either something already stored on your PC (and thus at risk of going bad) or something external. Soon, though, it might just be a matter of grabbing it online. On top of changing tablet mode, the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview Build on the Fast ring includes a "download Windows" option when you want to reset your PC. Much like the feature Macs have had for years, you can use your broadband connection to grab a fresh install from the cloud. You don't need a backup partition or a thumb drive to get back in business.
Political committee left 6.2 million email addresses exposed for 9 years
It's all too common for organizations to leave sensitive data exposed on their servers, but the latest incident might leave some scratching their heads. UpGuard discovered that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee left about 6.2 million email addresses exposed in a badly configured Amazon S3 cloud storage bucket since 2010 -- yes, nine years ago. The data file was apparently meant to exclude people from the DSCC's marketing emails during Hillary Clinton's Senate tenure. Most of them were clearly personal addresses, although there were thousands of .gov and .mil addresses as well.
Apple revives the retro Claris name as it expands beyond FileMaker
Apple is going back to its roots, although not necessarily in the way you'd expect. The tech giant is changing the name of FileMaker back to Claris, the company Apple spun out in 1987 to handle apps like FileMaker as well as MacPaint and MacWrite. It's not about to resume making basic productivity apps, though. Rather, as CEO Brad Freitag explained to TechCrunch, it's about expanding beyond the FileMaker product itself. It's launching Claris Connect, a tool to integrate cloud services and automate workflows between them, and it clearly doesn't want to be pigeonholed by its name.
Google Gallery Go is a lightweight, offline Android photo manager
Google Photos is a great way to organize and store your photos, but it's a bit on the beefy side, taking up space and needing constant access to the cloud. So it's not ideal for people with mid-tier phones, or those who don't have a reliable data or internet connection. Enter Gallery Go, a lightweight photo gallery that boasts a lot of the features of Google Photos, and is designed to work offline.
The Xbox app for Windows 10 is now a ‘console companion’
Microsoft is continuing to build on its promise to improve its services for gamers. Last year, it vowed to improve its Microsoft Store and last month unveiled a powerful new take on the Xbox Game Bar. Now its taking stock of its Xbox-branded services on PC. The official Xbox app for Windows, which used to include Xbox Live chat, an activity feed and more, will soon become a slimmer, more lightweight "Console Companion." For now, that just means a name change, though in a previous message Microsoft also teased a new "desktop experience."
Coherence lets any developer create persistent online games
The future of many games is supposedly online, but there's a problem: it can take a massive amount of effort to create and run the infrastructure for a persistent online world. Coherence thinks it can come to the rescue, however. The veteran-backed startup (more on that in a moment) has unveiled an open cloud platform that will let development teams of "any size" create persistent online worlds, regardless of the scale. This would let them focus more on the actual game than on the networking behind the scenes, the company said.
Paid Dropbox users are getting 1TB more storage space today
Dropbox has spent much of the last few years focused on its products for enterprise business, but the company got its start by offering a simple, reasonably priced cloud storage and sync option. With major competition in the space from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Apple iCloud, Dropbox today is making its plans a bit more enticing. The first Dropbox paid tier, called plus, now has 2TB of storage, double what it had before and the same as you'll get with similar $10/month plans from Google and Apple. The catch is that Dropbox Plus only costs $10 per month if you sign up for an annual plan -- otherwise, you'll now be billed $11.99 per month. That's still a bit more expensive than the competition, but it's definitely closer than it was before. And Dropbox was quick to point out that it makes all its revenue through subscriptions, so it's not selling your personal information. Given the intense interest in user privacy these days, it's not surprising to see them taking an Apple-like stance when comparing its service to Google's products.
Beatport's streaming service for DJs sends music directly to decks
DJs are used to lugging their music around on vinyl and less back-breaking external drives, but they soon might not need to bring much of anything for their next gig. Beatport recently introduced its $15 per month Link service that streams tracks directly to DJ hardware and software, including Pioneer's entry-level WeDJ app and now Denon's Prime Series decks. So long as there's an internet connection, you can play Beatport's newest releases without hooking up your laptop or some form of storage. And if there's no reliable broadband at the festival, don't panic: You can store 50-100 tracks offline with the Pro and Pro+ versions, including directly on Denon's gear.
Google stored some business passwords as plain text
Facebook isn't the only big tech company found to be storing passwords in plain text. Google has warned G Suite users that an "error" in a password recovery implementation left some of their passwords unhashed on its internal systems since 2005 until that method was discontinued. Other plain passwords had been temporarily stored since January 2019, Google said. All those systems were encrypted, and there was "no evidence" that someone had misused the info, but it still raised the possibility that an intruder could have direct access to logins if they cracked the encryption.
Sony and Microsoft team up on cloud-based gaming and entertainment
In an unlikely turn of events, Microsoft and Sony announced today that they are to tackle the future of entertainment. The companies are planning to work together to build future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure that will support gaming and content streaming. Sony will also use Microsoft data centers for its existing game and streaming platforms. The agreement could open up the possibility of cross-play in the future, despite previous reluctance between the competing firms.
Dropbox brings its simple mobile search to the desktop
Dropbox has given its search function for desktop a much-needed boost by making it more like its mobile app counterpart. Now, when you tap on the little Dropbox icon sitting on Windows' system tray or Mac's menu bar, you'll find a search bar where you can type in your query. Its results will include not just the files synced and saved on your computer, but everything relevant it can find in your account. If you have a Professional or Business account, it can even search for text within documents.
Google is convinced it can get game streaming right
Phil Harrison won't budge. As a vice president and general manager at Google, he's spent the past 15 minutes explaining why Stadia, the company's freshly announced game-streaming service, will actually work on the existing internet infrastructure across North America and Europe. He's focused on the investments Google has made over the past 20 years in cloud networks, talking up the company's 7,500 server nodes, custom CPUs and partnerships with major internet service providers.
Dropbox limits free accounts to three linked devices
If you're used to linking Dropbox to every device you own, you might want to reach for your credit card. Liliputing has noticed that Dropbox quietly started limiting its free Basic tier to a maximum of three linked devices as of March. If that's too confining, you'll have to shell out for a $10 Plus or $20 Professional subscription. You can keep any links you've already established, but you won't get to add any more until you go below that three-device maximum.
Google's Emma Haruka Iwao breaks the world record for calculating pi
Google has something big to celebrate for Pi Day this year: one of its teams has broken the Guinness World Record for the most accurate value of pi. Emma Haruka Iwao and her colleagues used the power of cloud computing to calculate for 31,415,926,535,897 digits of pi. That's 9 trillion digits more than the previous record and a whole novel longer than the 3.14 value most of us know. To accomplish that task, Iwao had to run a pi-benchmark application called y-cruncher on 25 Google Cloud virtual machines for 121 days.
iHeartMedia will make it easy to create ‘pop-up’ radio stations
Radio giant iHeartMedia, which runs more than 850 stations throughout the US, is expanding into the world of "pop-up" broadcasting following its acquisition of audio tech company Radiojar. The online radio management and streaming solutions platform helps its users create, distribute and monetize podcasts and other broadcasts in real-time, from anywhere. According to iHeartMedia, the deal means that in the "near future" it will be possible to launch a brand new radio service across broadcast and digital "within minutes of the original idea."
Google teases a big gaming announcement for March 19th
Google isn't normally the sort to break news at big video game events, but it's making an exception to that rule this year. The company plans to unveil a mysterious gaming project at a Game Developers Conference presentation on March 19th at 1PM Eastern, with the invitation showing just a light at the end of a hallway followed by the cryptic tagline "gather around." Google didn't provide further clues in a response to Engadget, but rumors have swirled for months of plans to launch a subscription game streaming service, likely using Project Stream.
