Amazon has made Mac Minis running macOS available to rent via AWS. The mac1.metal instances are available via EC2 and run on dedicated Intel-based Mac Minis (i7-8700B with 32GB RAM) starting at US$1.083 per hour (with a minimum 24-hour period) in a few regions, including Singapore (no Sydney). Apparently this recent development is due to a change in the software license agreement for macOS Big Sur specifically allowing "Leasing for Permitted Developer Services". Amazon plans to get in the M1/Apple Silicon Mac Mini soon. If you're wondering why you'd want a Mac mini via AWS - it's all about software development and testing environments.
Slack has officially announced that it will be acquired by Salesforce for US$27.7b. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that "this is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes". Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said "personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can't wait to get going". The most strategic combo in the history of software, wow! It's probably not a co-incidence that Microsoft let loose on a bunch of upcoming updates to the Calls feature in Teams like CarPlay support, saving recordings to OneDrive and transferring calls between mobile & desktop.
Facebook is launching its curated News tab/feature in the UK next year, agreeing to pay British media outlets like "the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, the Independent, all the UK’s major regional news publishers, and magazines such as the Economist", "substantial cash sums". Facebook hasn't said how much it'll pay, but according to The Guardian, "some publishers are privately expecting to make millions of pounds a year from the multi-year deals they have signed with the social network". Interesting that UK news outlets managed to come to an agreement with Facebook, but Australian media had to get the ACCC to make a mandatory code of conduct.
errbufferoverfl has an excellent article about cultural threats and risks when it comes to IT security. Normally infosec people look at patching software, setting up firewalls, restricting access and all that technical stuff for keeping a computer or network secure, but there's way more to keeping stuff secure than the physical stuff. The article looks at something called the "Political, Emotional, Psychological, Logistical (PEPL) threat model" for mapping out various things that can expose you. It's a totally different way of thinking about infosec risks than I would ever think of, and it makes a lot of sense. People and processes are just as easy (if not easier) to exploit than 1s and 0s.
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