Netflix’s international offerings include some entertaining Norwegian fare, such as the series Ragnarok (2020–2023), a surprisingly engaging reworking of Norse mythology brought into the 21st century that ran for three seasons. Another enjoyable offering was a 2022 monster movie called Troll, essentially a Norwegian take on the classic Godzilla formula. Netflix just dropped a trailer for the sequel, Troll 2, which looks to be very much in the same vein as its predecessor.

(Spoilers for the first Troll movie below.)

Don’t confuse the Netflix franchise with 2010’s Trollhunter, shot in the style of a found footage mockumentary. A group of college students sets off into the wilds of the fjordland to make a documentary about a suspected bear poacher named Hans. They discover that Hans is actually hunting down trolls and decide to document those endeavors instead, but soon realize they are very much out of their depth.

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The clock just ticked past noon here in Houston, Texas, so it’s acceptable to have a drink, right?

Because after another turbulent morning of closely following the rough-and-tumble contest to become the next NASA administrator, I sure could use one.

What has happened now? Why, it was only SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who is NASA’s most important contractor, referring to the interim head of the space agency, Sean Duffy, as “Sean Dummy,” and suggesting he was trying to kill NASA. Musk later added, “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.”

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For many of us, Monday was a workday defined by the AWS outage. Amazon Web Services experienced intermittent issues, throwing a huge fraction of the internet into chaos, as the sites and services built on it faltered or stopped working altogether.

It was a sobering reminder that a lot of the world relies on AWS for networking, computing, and data storage. Truth be told, I was surprised to learn just how owned we really are, especially after a number of my work apps experienced issues. In fact, over four million business with a physical address use AWS for cloud-computing needs. It is the largest cloud infrastructure servicer in the world, with a whopping 30% of the market share. That’s why when a global outage like this occurs, it’s impossible to ignore: So many companies and products are affected, from streaming platforms like Prime Video, to social media sites like Facebook, that almost everyone who goes online will experience the disruption.

But 30% is not 100%. AWS might be the market leader, but it is not the entire market. There are plenty of other cloud infrastructure companies out there offering similar services—and posing similar risks should they experience outages.

Why use a cloud infrastructure company?

It’s not necessarily a bad thing for companies turn to an AWS for their computing needs. It’s simply much more cost efficient to outsource the resources necessary for running programs, storing data, and hosting traffic, especially as businesses rapidly grow and change. Rather than spend the time and money constantly purchasing and upgrading on-site hardware, companies can pay for servers as they go. Companies like AWS will scale up or down as needed, without interruption to service—until, of course, there is an interruption to services.

These companies can offer a host of cloud-based services and tools, including compute, databases, machine learning, networking, security, and storage. AWS just so happens to be the biggest of the bunch, but plenty of companies choose other cloud infrastructure options for their needs.

AWS alternatives

There are many other companies offering the same services as AWS, but for our purposes, I’m going to list seven of the most popular, starting with AWS’ main competitors:

• Microsoft Azure: Microsoft’s cloud computing services is only second to AWS in terms of global market share. Microsoft obviously uses its own cloud infrastructure, but plenty of other companies do too, including Ralph Laruen, Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola, Abercrombie & Fitch, and even local, state, and federal governments.

• Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the third largest player in this space, with companies like Lowe’s, Wendy’s, EA, Fox Sports, Bayer, and McLaren all using its services.

• Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba Cloud has a large cloud computing market share, and is used by companies like Air Asia, Zara, Lenovo Group, and JNE Express.

• Oracle Cloud: Oracle Cloud includes customers like Quest Diagnostics, Baylor University, Smeg, Northwell Health, DHL, and MEO.

• Salesforce: Companies like Pacers Sports, Indeed, F1, and The Adecco Group use Salesforce’s data cloud services.

• IBM Cloud: Deloitte, Pfizer, Harvard, Vodafone, and even the US Open purchase cloud products from IBM Cloud.

• Tencent Cloud: You might know Tencent particularly from its massive games division, but its cloud services are also wide reaching. They include services for companies like L’Oréal Paris, Tim Hortons, and Dell, as well as its own subsidiaries like Supercell and DouYu.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that there are more than just two or three companies powering sites and services around the globe, and we’re not quite at the point where every company connected to the internet relies on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. That level of centralization would pose even larger risks than the ones we’re currently living with.

Still, present circumstance are, still pretty risky. AWS has 30% of the market share, Azure has 20%, and Google Cloud has 12%. Taken together, these three companies make up 62% of all cloud infrastructure companies around the globe. Yes, it’s good the other 38% is spread out amongst a collection of other players, but the risk of another AWS-like outage is high. Hopefully, following Monday’s debacle, there is work currently being done to prevent such a thing from happening again, but that’s being optimistic.

Apple’s new Liquid Glass user interface design was one of the most noticeable and divisive features of its major software updates this year. It added additional fluidity and translucency throughout iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Apple’s other operating systems, and as we noted in our reviews, the default settings weren’t always great for readability.

The upcoming 26.1 update for all of those OSes is taking a step toward addressing some of the complaints, though not by changing things about the default look of Liquid Glass. Rather, the update is adding a new toggle that will let users choose between a Clear and Tinted look for Liquid Glass, with Clear representing the default look and Tinted cranking up the opacity and contrast.

The new toggle adds a half-step in between the default visual settings and the “reduce transparency” setting, which aside from changing a bunch of other things about the look and feel of the operating system is buried further down inside the Accessibility options. The Tinted toggle does make colors and vague shapes visible beneath the glass panes, preserving the general look of Liquid Glass while also erring on the side of contrast and visibility, where the “reduce transparency” setting is more of an all-or-nothing blunt instrument.

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Back in 2008, Google launched the Chrome browser to help better integrate its industry-leading search engine into the web-browsing experience. Today, OpenAI announced the Atlas browser that it hopes will do something similar for its ChatGPT Large Language Model, answering the question “What if I could chat with a browser?” as the OpenAI team put it.

OpenAI Founder and CEO Sam Altman said in a livestreamed announcement that Atlas will let users “chat with a page,” helping ChatGPT become a core way that users interact with the place where “a ton of work and life happens” online. “The way that we hope people will use the Internet in the future… is that the chat experience and a web browser can be a great analogue,” he said.

The new browser is available for download now on MacOS, and Altman promised Windows and mobile versions would be rolled out “as quick as we can.”

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AI content has proliferated across the Internet over the past few years, but those early confabulations with mutated hands have evolved into synthetic images and videos that can be hard to differentiate from reality. Having helped to create this problem, Google has some responsibility to keep AI video in check on YouTube. To that end, the company has started rolling out its promised likeness detection system for creators.

Google’s powerful and freely available AI models have helped fuel the rise of AI content, some of which is aimed at spreading misinformation and harassing individuals. Creators and influencers fear their brands could be tainted by a flood of AI videos that show them saying and doing things that never happened—even lawmakers are fretting about this. Google has placed a large bet on the value of AI content, so banning AI from YouTube, as many want, simply isn’t happening.

Earlier this year, YouTube promised tools that would flag face-stealing AI content on the platform. The likeness detection tool, which is similar to the site’s copyright detection system, has now expanded beyond the initial small group of testers. YouTube says the first batch of eligible creators have been notified they can use likeness detection, but interested parties will need to hand Google even more personal information to get protection from AI fakes.

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GM is ending production of the Chevy Brightdrop electric van, according to portions of a transcript of a recent earnings report published by The Verge. The decision was made due to slowing demand in the EV market, as hundreds of Brightdrop vans have begun piling up in dealer lots.

“This is not a decision we made lightly because of the impact on our employees,” CEO Mary Barra said in the earnings call. “However the commercial electric van market has been developing much slower than expected, and changes to the regulatory framework and fleet incentives has made the business even more challenging.”

Those changes to the regulatory framework she mentions likely refer to the recent disappearance of the federal EV tax credit. The policy offered prospective buyers a $7,500 tax credit and was supposed to wind down in 2032, but the Trump administration killed it back in September as part of the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill. Brightdrop vans were also eligible for a $7,500 rebate for commercial EVs under 18,000 lbs, which went away along with the tax credit.

In other words, Brightdrop electric vans are simply too expensive for most consumers. They started at $74,000. The double discount brought the starting price down to $59,000, but that’s gone now. Additionally, rival Ford’s E-Transit van starts at $51,600.

GM first launched the Brightdrop vans back in 2021, and this seemed to be a serious attempt to capture the commercial EV market. The company made its own fleet management software and inked deals with Walmart, FedEx and others. Money is money, however, and not too many commercial customers have an extra $15,000 laying around to make up for those lapsed credits and rebates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/gm-to-end-production-of-its-chevy-brightdrop-electric-vans-183622673.html?src=rss

A little over a year ago, one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft flew a team of four private astronauts to orbit on a mission that made history with the first fully commercial spacewalk.

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis briefly floated out the door of the Dragon capsule, wearing SpaceX-built pressure suits to protect them against the hostile environment of space. It was the first time anyone ventured outside of their spacecraft without the involvement of a government space agency.

The mission, named Polaris Dawn, made an important contribution in another area. It was the first space mission to connect with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network, using laser links between the Dragon spacecraft and Starlink satellites to communicate with the Earth.

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