AWS suffers third outage of the month

Failure in northern Virginia data center affects Slack, Epic Games among others.

3D Amazon logo hangs from a convention center ceiling.

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 month Wednesday, affecting Slack, the Epic Games Store, and several other services. 

The AWS Service Health Dashboard shows the problem lies within a data center in northern Virginia and affects customers in the US-EAST-1 Availability Zone. The first outage was reported at 7:35 am EST. 

Slack users began seeing problems shortly after the outage, and the Epic Games Store noted that the AWS outage was causing problems "affecting logins, library, purchases, etc."

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A fossil site reveals an ancient sinkhole and its enormous occupant

A road project in Tennessee revealed an enigmatic fossil of an enormous mastodon.

Rebuilding the lower jaw of the Gray mastodon.

Enlarge / Rebuilding the lower jaw of the Gray mastodon. (credit: ETSU Gray Fossil Site & Museum)

Something has been discovered in Tennessee—something that only exists in one museum. It’s something enormous, slightly puzzling, and possibly the first of its kind discovered. Five years after its excavation, it remains incomplete.

The mastodon skeleton slowly taking shape in Tennessee is no secret. Pictures and descriptions of its progress have been posted on social media from the beginning, and while those who are aware of it are intrigued, it hasn’t made many headlines. Yet.

Out of the gray

The Gray Fossil Site near Gray, Tennessee, was found by accident during road construction in 2000. Thanks to the efforts of local people and the state government who recognized the importance of the site, construction halted. A museum was erected several years later. Bits of bones and one shattered tusk were all that had been found when the site was preserved, but the area is proving to be voluminous in its fossil content.

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Tesla will shut off center console gaming while car is in motion [Updated]

Software updates shutting off the feature are in the process of being sent out.

<em>Sky Force Reloaded</em> running on a Tesla's central screen while the car is driving down the road.

Enlarge / Sky Force Reloaded running on a Tesla's central screen while the car is driving down the road. (credit: YouTube / Cf Tesla)

Update (December 24): Tesla will issue a software update that will prevent games from being played on the infotainment display. The carmaker moved quickly to issue a software update that will roll out to the affected vehicles by Christmas.

“Following the opening of a preliminary evaluation of Tesla’s ‘Passenger Play,’ Tesla informed the agency that it is changing the functionality of this feature,” the safety agency said in a statement. “In a new software update, ‘Passenger Play’ will now be locked and unusable when the vehicle is in motion.”

Original story (December 22): Earlier this month, we covered a software update issued by Tesla that allowed games to be played on the infotainment display while the car was in motion. We pointed out at the time that this new capability would likely draw the attention of state and federal regulators. To no one's surprise, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday announced a formal safety investigation over the update.

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LG’s DualUp monitor is a a 27.6 inch 16:18 display

After years of 16:9 displays dominating the laptop and desktop monitor space, we’re starting to see a growing number of other options including displays with 16:10 and 3:2 aspect ratios for folks who prefer extra vertical screen space. The LG DualUp monitor is something a little different. It’s a 27.6 inch, 2560 x 2880 pixel […]

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After years of 16:9 displays dominating the laptop and desktop monitor space, we’re starting to see a growing number of other options including displays with 16:10 and 3:2 aspect ratios for folks who prefer extra vertical screen space.

The LG DualUp monitor is something a little different. It’s a 27.6 inch, 2560 x 2880 pixel display with an unusual 16:18 aspect ratio. In other words, it’s taller than it is wide, and LG says it gives you the same kind of screen space you’d get if you stacked two 21.5 inch displays with one on top of the other.

LG says the DualUp 28MQ780 display has a “vertical split view function” that makes it easy to divide content across the top and bottom of the display as if you were using two screens, but without any gap between the displays and without the need for two power adapters.

The company says “the double height screen… helps reduce side-to-side head movements, the main cause of neck pain.” I imagine it will result in more up and down next movement, but that’s a more natural motion for your neck to make.

The monitor features an IPS LCD display with 98% DCI-P color gamut, support for HDR10, and up to 300-nits of brightness. It has a 5ms response time, built-in 7W stereo speakers, two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and three USB-C ports (one for input and two for output if you want to use the monitor like a hub, with support for delivering 96W of power, which means you may be able to power the display and a laptop using a single power cable).

LG hasn’t revealed pricing or availability yet, but the company says it will announce more details during its CES event on January 4, 2022.

press release

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Far North Fiber: Seekabel durch die Nordwestpassage von Europa nach Asien

Ein neues Seekabel soll Japan mit Skandinavien verbinden. Die Direktverbindung verläuft durch einen Seeweg, nach dem lange vergeblich gesucht wurde. (Seekabel, Telekommunikation)

Ein neues Seekabel soll Japan mit Skandinavien verbinden. Die Direktverbindung verläuft durch einen Seeweg, nach dem lange vergeblich gesucht wurde. (Seekabel, Telekommunikation)

Warten, bis die Immo-Blase platzt

Die Preise für Wohneigentum sind sprunghaft gestiegen, die Zahl der Haushalte, die es finanzieren können, nimmt ab. Zumindest regional könnte der Boom bald vorbei sein

Die Preise für Wohneigentum sind sprunghaft gestiegen, die Zahl der Haushalte, die es finanzieren können, nimmt ab. Zumindest regional könnte der Boom bald vorbei sein