Archive for October 11, 2022

Russia Is Afraid Of Meta And Bans Them Under The Guise Of Being “Extremist”

Posted in Commentary with tags , on October 11, 2022 by itnerd

Clearly Meta and the companies under that umbrella has made Russia nervous. I say that because Rosfinmonitoring who is Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, has added Meta who owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to its list of terrorists and extremists. Keep in mind that Russia cut off Facebook in March, but this latest move by Russia is another step forward:

The battle lines between Western technology platforms and Russia were drawn months ago.

Facebook has not been missed as much as it might have been – because of the popular Russian clone, VK.

But Instagram remains huge in Russia – and the widespread use of virtual private networks (VPNs) means the ban on the platform has not actually stopped people accessing it.

This new official “terrorist” designation could change that though.

It might mean it is now a criminal offence to use Instagram, even via a VPN.

It is also unclear whether the designation includes WhatsApp. 

Banning this, the most popular messaging app in Russia, would cut citizens off from the outside world in a truly profound way.

Which is likely what Putin and his cronies want. And it’s also likely retaliation for removing all VK apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

It’s safe to say at this point that this is likely to escalate further and both sides are likely going to dig in for a much longer fight.

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Google Makes A Number Of Announcements At Google Cloud Next ‘22

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 11, 2022 by itnerd

Today at Google Cloud Next ‘22, Google announced several new customers, partners, and product offerings to further demonstrate how Google Cloud is the cloud of the future. 

Here’s the key news: 

  • Google’s mission at Google Cloud is to accelerate the ability of every organization to digitally transform its business. Today, thave have a number of new global customer and partner announcements to demonstrate how they’re helping organizations in every industry accelerate their cloud journeys. 
  • Today, Google is announcing the addition of several new customers including the Australian Securities Exchange, Coinbase, Prudential PLC, Rite Aid, Twiga Foods, and more, in addition to momentum and expanded partnerships with existing customers like Accenture, Ford, HCLTech, Snap, T-Mobile, Toyota, and Wayfair. 
  • Google is also making a number of product announcements across 4 key pillars: 

Data Cloud: Through a series of deepened partnerships with data leaders like MongoDB, Elastic, and Palantir, Google confirms that Google Cloud offers the industry’s most open data cloud. Google is announcing support for major data formats including Apache Iceberg available now with Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi coming soon. Google is also offering a new integrated experience in BigQuery for Apache Spark and support in BigQuery for unstructured data. Additionally, Google is announcing new updates in Cloud BI, including Looker Studio, and brand new offerings from Cloud AI including Vertex AI Vision and Translation Hub. 

Open Infrastructure Cloud: Google is making a number of announcements across open infrastructure to deliver workload-optimized infrastructure, including enhancements to their Google Cloud Skills Boost learning offering for developers, Assured Open Source Software Service, and Open Source AI. To help IT teams build infrastructure for transformation, Google is also announcing a series of infrastructure and migration updates that include: the C3 machine series, and a new mainframe modernization solution called Dual Run, and plans to bring Google Cloud regions to five new countries.

Trusted Cloud: To provide Google’s customers with extensible cybersecurity solutions in the cloud, Google will advance partnerships with 20-plus software companies focused on digital sovereignty and cybersecurity. Google is also announcing Confidential Space, Chronicle Security Operations, Software Delivery Shield for end-to-end software supply chain security, and updates to their trusted cloud partner ecosystem with 20+ partners focused on cybersecurity and data controls. 

Collaboration Cloud: Google is taking the biggest steps yet in making Google Workspace the most open and extensible platform for users with new integrations, partnerships, and developer tools. Google is announcing several updates to Google Workspace, including new features that enable immersive connections, new smart canvas capabilities, and new ways to keep users and data safe across even more apps. Google is also announcing new integrations and developer tools to bring people closer together. 

You can read more from Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian here about what’s next for digital transformation in the cloud, Google Cloud’s recent acquisition of Mandiant, and much more. 

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Armorblox Appoints Illumio Co-founder and CEO Andrew Rubin To Its Board Of Directors

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 11, 2022 by itnerd

Armorblox, a cloud delivered email security platform company, today announced the appointment of Andrew Rubin to its board of directors. Rubin, who currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Illumio, joins Armorblox in its efforts to protect organizations against email-based, sophisticated and targeted cyberthreats.

Rubin brings deep insights that are drawn from a very successful career that spans decades of experience taking new ideas from inception and building them into category-defining companies. Goldman Sachs has named Rubin as one of the “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” each year since 2015 as part of its Builders & Innovators program. Under Rubin’s leadership, Illlumio has  built the industry for zero-trust security segmentation and has raised over $500M in venture capital, achieving unicorn status and servicing more than 15% of Fortune 100 companies — including Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas SA, and Salesforce. 

The Armorblox platform connects over APIs and analyzes thousands of signals to understand who users are, what they do, and how they communicate. With this context, Armorblox protects against advanced email attacks like business email compromise, and also helps organizations stay compliant by preventing sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands. Armorblox protects over 58,000 customers including several Fortune 500 and Cloud 100 organizations.

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Review: Kensington Pro Fit Ergo Vertical Wireless Mouse

Posted in Products with tags on October 11, 2022 by itnerd

Seeing as I am largely working from home, I am always on the lookout for new gear to help me to improve my work from home setup. As part of that setup, I’ve been using this Kensington mouse for the last few months and it’s been fine. But I’ve decided to give another mouse a try to see if it could make things better for me. And that mouse is the Kensington Pro Fit Ergo Vertical Wireless Mouse.

As you can see, this is a pretty unique looking mouse which is clearly aimed at those who are right handed. When I hold the mouse, it really feels like someone took the time and effort to create a mouse that fit my hand. And the angle that the mouse places my wrist is very comfortable. It actually feels that this is the angle that my wrist should be in.

Besides having the usual left and right buttons and scroll wheel, you also get an extra button that increases the DPI of the mouse to up to 1600 DPI which is how I run this mouse.

There are two other buttons on the left side of the mouse that your thumb can use. All the buttons can be programmed using the KensingtonWorks software for PC or Mac. Since I’m a Mac user I have my mouse programmed like this:

I have the middle button set to activate the Launchpad so that I can get quick access to apps.

The two buttons on the side are set to Mission Control and Show Desktop. What this means for me is that I can do a lot of the things that I used to need my trackpad on my MacBook Pro to do from the mouse. If I wanted to, I could also set things up on a per application basis which means that control enthusiasts out there can use this mouse to control everything.

All of this connects to your computer using a 2.4 GHz USB dongle. I wish that this mouse had the option to use Bluetooth instead as I have to burn a USB-A port on my dock to use this mouse. But the flip side to that is that this mouse tracks extremely well and is very responsive because of the fact it uses that dongle. So I am mostly fine with that.

The big question is how does the mouse feel in my hands? Well as I mentioned earlier, the mouse places your wrist in a position where it feels very comfortable. I’ve been using it for the last few days and I have had no issues with it thus far. Though I will note that I am still getting used to it as I find myself trying to hold it like a regular mouse. To enhance the comfort, I am continuing to use my DeltaHub Carpio 2.0 wrist rest with it. Which makes this combo a win for me. I can see this mouse also being a win for those who have issues using a regular mouse because they have wrist problems, or because it doesn’t give them a comfortable position to work in. I’d also recommend it if you want to avoid having issues in the future with your wrist.

The Kensington Pro Fit Ergo Vertical Wireless Mouse goes for about $30 CDN. That’s not a lot of money to get a comfortable mouse that you can use all day. If you’ve had problems with regular mice, I’d recommend that you give this one a shot as I think it can work for you. Plus because of the programmable buttons, it will enhance your productivity as well.

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