This Week I Learned - Week #131

This Week I Learned -

* Rather than list all VM instances at one place, AWS separates the an optimized list of Amazon EC2 Instances from the Previous Generation Instances which are still fully supported.

* The whitepaper AWS Well-Architected Framework offers best practices and core strategies for architecting systems in the cloud

* “Cloud is the new normal” - Werner Vogels, Amazon’s chief technology officer

* An analysis of the mobile home pages of the top 50 news websites reveals that more than half of all data came from ads

* OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is an open source computer vision and machine learning software library.

* The first international cloud privacy standard, ISO/IEC 27018, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is  to establish a uniform, international approach to protecting privacy for personal data stored in the cloud. The British Standards Institute (BSI) has now independently verified that in addition to Microsoft Azure, both Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online are aligned with the standard’s code of practice for the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the public cloud. And similarly, Bureau Veritas has done the same for Microsoft Intune

* Microsoft by the Numbers -
- Forty percent of Azure revenue comes from startups and independent software vendors.
- More than 20 percent of Azure virtual machines are Linux.
- Microsoft aims to reach $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2018, CEO Satya Nadella announced recently.
- Microsoft employees in Redmond, Washington, eat about 984,000 orders of French fries each year in campus cafeterias. (not really a great fact to advertise)

* Bort keeps your website bookmarks in sync on all your devices regardless of which browser you use by creating a folder in your Dropbox and using that to sync your bookmarks.

* The European Court of Justice, the highest legal authority in the European Union, has ruled that the broad-based data-sharing agreement — known as Safe Harbor — was flawed because it allowed American government authorities to gain routine access to Europeans’ online information and that such access infringes on Europeans’ rights to privacy established under the region’s tough data protection rules

* For years, router makers like Netgear, Linksys and Cisco focused on making Wi-Fi technology transmit data at higher speeds and over longer distances. New routers often include smarter antennas that do a better job of assembling signals and beaming energy toward devices that are moving around. Many also support the latest Wi-Fi standard — 802.11ac — which has top speeds that are nearly three times faster than the previous standard, 802.11n, for the fastest wireless devices you can buy today. Some features inside newer routers also help reduce signal interference. Newer routers typically can transmit data over two radio frequencies — 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz — and give you the option to split them up into two separate Wi-Fi networks. In general, the 2.4 GHz band transmits data farther and is more crowded because many types of devices, like cordless phones and microwaves, use that frequency. The 5 GHz band is less congested but typically travels a shorter distance - NY Times

* Routers that Internet service providers lent years ago often double as modems - they are often slow and short-ranged.

* A dual-band 802.11ac router can run both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, and it supports the fastest Wi-Fi speeds of every wireless device you can buy (many smartphones, tablets and laptops released since 2013 support 802.11ac)

* Leafsnap is a tree identifier app. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.

* The Wirecutter is a list of the best gadgets and gear for people who quickly want to know what to get.

* Dr. Tu Youyou, 84, on Monday became the first citizen of the People’s Republic of China to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences, for discovering artemisinin, a drug that is now part of standard antimalarial regimens. She found the cure for drug resistant malaria in traditional Chinese healing After the successful animal tests, Dr. Tu volunteered to be the first human subject, along with two colleagues cured drug-resistant malaria

* Claims that Shakespeare’s language is unintelligible go back to his own day. His great rival, Ben Jonson, reportedly complained about “some bombast speeches of ‘Macbeth,’ which are not to be understood.” 

* Europe’s 28 countries have roughly 500 million citizens

* Jobs was a minimalist and a control freak, a proponent of closed systems, streamlined construction and conceptual simplicity