Friday Tech Round Up – Episode 95

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Friday Tech Round Up – your weekly dose of the latest and greatest tech news!

This week we dive into Amazon’s new cloud skills centre, Apple suing an Israeli spyware firm and the NASA’s first asteroid deflection mission.

To watch our latest run down of the news, head over to YouTube and watch episode 95 of the Friday Tech Round Up.

 

AWS’s cloud computing training mission

Amazon is opening an in-person cloud skills centre to train workers for other companies.

This is part of AWS’s larger commitment to train 29 million people globally in cloud computing by 2025, and it’s also one of the first major announcements that the new Chief Executive Adam Selipsky has made since taking over from Andy Jassy.

The Skills Centre is going to be a free, accessible space for anybody who wants to learn more about cloud computing, what it is, what the applications are and more.

 

Apple sues spyware

Number two, Apple is suing Israeli spyware firm NSO Group for surveillance of its users. 

The tech giant launched a lawsuit against NSO Group, which was recently blacklisted by the Biden administration for acting against the foreign policy and national security interests of the US.

Apple had previously downplayed the threat posed by the spyware, but now concerns among tech companies are increasing about the proliferation of attacks against its customers.

 

NCSC commits to diversity

The National Cyber Security Centre is committing to new diversity measures and have outlined a total of five commitments including:

• Engaging closely with students from under-represented groups.
• Increasing the number of women who are offered places on their CyberFirst Bursary
• Changing its external recruitment processes.
• Eliminating gender and ethnic minority pay gaps in-house.
• Providing more information and support to employees to help promote a fully inclusive environment.

 

Digital bank adapts to the changing working world

A digital bank has introduced a four-day work week for all staff.

In an effort to pursue its goal of improving staff wellbeing while increasing productivity, Atom Bank has introduced a four-day work week with no salary reduction.

The bank said it is “reshaping the nature of work to take account of longer working lives, the positive impact of technology and flexible working, and the need to live and work more sustainably”.

 

NASA launches its first ever asteroid deflection mission

 A spacecraft was launched earlier this week and the idea is that it will hit the asteroid at speed of roughly 6.6 kilometres per second and, in doing so, this kinetic impact will change an asteroid’s trajectory.

This is seen as a major milestone as even Stephen Hawking himself had described impact events as among the greatest threats facing humanity.

 

ECS shoutouts:

We’d just like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended our container security DevOps training event last night – and thanks to Cameron Harper for running the session. This was our last DevOps Playground before the new year, so keep your eyes peeled for more information about the next!

Also, our third Tech³Podcast celebrating International Men’s Day is now live, where our CEO Mark Farrington talks about his journey and the decisions he made to put family first throughout his career – we hope this series can promote more positive conversations surrounding the challenges men face worldwide. Stay tuned for the fourth and final episode.

And that’s it!

Make sure to come back next week for even more tech news.