Amazon Redshift has launched support for the VARBYTE data type. VARBYTE is a variable size data type for storing and representing variable-length binary strings. With this announcement, Amazon Redshift can now support variable length binary data for use with core Amazon Redshift features, SQL UDFs and SQL DDL for creating VARBYTE columns in tables. VARBYTE(n) syntax gives you the flexibility to specify the size (‘n’). The default for n is 64KB and max is 1MB. VARBYTE values are displayed/printed as Hex values to ensure all binary bytes are printable.

Amazon Fraud Detector is now in scope for AWS SOC 1 , SOC 2, and SOC 3 reports. You can now use Amazon Fraud Detector in applications requiring audited evidence of the controls in our System and Organization Controls (SOC) reporting. For example, if you use AWS to detect fraud and abuse, you can use the SOC reports to help meet your compliance requirements for those use cases. AWS SOC reports are independent third-party examination reports that demonstrate how AWS achieves key compliance controls and objectives.

AWS Lambda now logs the Hyperplane Elastic Network Interface (ENI) ID in AWS CloudTrail data events, for functions running in an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Customers can use the ENI ID in AWS CloudTrail data events to audit the security of their applications, and verify that only authorized functions are accessing their VPC resources through a shared Hyperplane ENI.

Amazon Redshift simplifies organizing, documenting, and sharing of multiple SQL queries with support for SQL Notebooks (preview) in Amazon Redshift Query Editor V2. The new Notebook interface enables users such as data analysts and data scientists to author queries more easily, organizing multiple SQL queries and annotations on a single document. They can also collaborate with their team members by sharing Notebooks.

SageMaker Model Registry, a purpose-built service which enables customers to catalog their ML models, now provides endpoint visibility from Studio UI, ability to store custom metadata and view/store broad array of metrics for a given model.

Having made a few guitar effects in my time, but not being musical, I am always interested in what makes different effects tick. So imagine my delight when I came across ElectroSmash, a website devoted to such things. Classic circuit are reverese-engineered and described, and the people behind the website have  also designed and published …

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69 years ago a semiconductor company set up with a factory in an old bakery. Later it added a former knitting mill. It had one product: a point contact germanium diode with a welded gold whisker. It was a device which the military favoured because it could handle higher voltages than other diodes. It was …

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Out of the 13 world leaders included in a release by Morning Consult, only four can claim that more of their citizens approve of them than disapprove. The exceptions are Narendra Modi, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Angela Merkel and Mario Draghi. In the past six months, sinking ratings turned net approval negative for Joe …

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Stanford University engineers have created a robot bird that can use its feet to perch and carry things. “It’s not easy to mimic how birds fly and perch,” said Stanford engineer William Roderick. “After millions of years of evolution, they make take-off and landing look so easy, even among all of the complexity and variability …

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Ron Black (pictured) former CEO of Imagination and executive chairman of Codasip since March, is to become Codasip’s CEO taking over from Codasip’s founding CEO Karel Masařík who is to become Codasip’s president taking responsibility for advanced research The company will now look to appoint a new chairman who will be non-executive. Black resigned from Imagination …

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