Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Microsoft has escaped the recent backlash against the power and wealth of the biggest US tech companies. Despite a stock market value that has soared to more than $2 trillion on its dominance of various parts of the business software market, it has avoided a repeat of the […]
Enlarge (credit: Chesnot | Getty Images ) December has been a rough month for Amazon—at least for Amazon Web Services. The massively popular cloud computing platform suffered its third outage of the particular month Wednesday, affecting Slack, typically the Epic Games Store, and several other services. The AWS Service Health Dashboard shows the problem lies […]
While the disruption certainly caused inconvenience, it was hardly a major calamity. Read More
Enlarge / An aerial view of the NSA. (credit: nsa.gov) Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been named the winner of a $10 billion cloud computing contract, called “WildandStormy,” for the National Security Agency. But Microsoft, no doubt still salty about Amazon’s successful challenge of Redmond’s $10 billion JEDI contract with the Pentagon, filed a formal […]
Enlarge We’ve spent the past few weeks burning copious amounts of AWS compute time trying to invent an algorithm to parse Ars’ front-page story headlines to predict which ones will win an A/B test—and we learned a lot. One of the lessons is that we—and by “we, ” I mainly mean “me, ” since this […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) We may have bitten off more than we could chew, folks. An Amazon engineer told me that when he heard what I was trying to do with Ars headlines, the first thing he thought was that we had chosen a deceptively hard problem. He warned that I needed […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) We’re in phase three of our machine-learning project now—that is, we’ve gotten past denial and anger, and we’re now sliding into bargaining and depression. I’ve been tasked with using Ars Technica’s trove of data from five years of headline tests, which pair two ideas against each other in […]
Formula 1 has new technical regulations for 2022, the most sweeping changes to the sport in many years. This is what the new cars will look like. [credit: Formula 1 ] On Thursday in Silverstone, England ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix, Formula 1 revealed next year’s car to the public. 2022 will see […]
Enlarge / Turning the lens on ourselves, as it were. There’s a moment in any foray into new technological territory that you realize you may have embarked on a Sisyphean task. Staring at the multitude of options available to take on the project, you research your options, read the documentation, and start to work—only to […]
Enlarge (credit: US Department of Defense) Following years of controversy and intrigue, the Pentagon canceled its JEDI cloud computing contract with Microsoft today. Microsoft was awarded the contract in October 2019, but work stalled as Amazon, the other finalist, mounted a legal challenge. Now, the Department of Defense has scrapped the entire project, saying that […]