We’re living in strange times. Many countries are under stay-at-home orders, including most states in the U.S. and in the U.K. Employees are “flattening the curve” by working at home.

That has presented several challenges for employees who have never worked at home or had to do remote work of any kind. It has also created challenges for employers. Questions about how to make sure employees work in a safe and healthy environment, have the tools they need, can stay productive and communicate with one another, and have a good work ethic even with frequent distractions are all rising to the surface.

Fortunately, employers can encourage certain behaviors, switch to specific apps and services, and help employees stay productive during these dark times. These tips are divided into three sections related to health and safety, tools and services, and staying productive. They apply to most business functions, although they are geared for the typical home office worker.

Health and safety

One thing is clear about this new work environment: It took many of us by surprise. Employers who have allowed some telecommuting here and there are now faced with the idea of having an entire workforce that’s remote. That’s a bit easier if you run a company where everyone is on the web all day, not as workable if you make a product, run a service-oriented company, or normally meet in person with customers. While there will be major adjustments in every area for an employer and the employees, the best place to start is with health and safety.

That’s because employers might not know what kind of work environment the employee has arranged. It might be in the basement of a house or a side room of an apartment. From a worker’s compensation standpoint, even if an employee works at home, the employer still has to make sure there is a safe and healthy place to work. An employer may also need to supply certain office products such as a business laptop, new business monitor to work with their desktop computer, or even a desk.

The recommendation here is to communicate clearly what the company expects, whether that is in a written contract or other materials such as a website meant for workplace safety guidelines. It should be an urgent priority. If you do offer a health and safety website, even a basic portal, it’s also a good idea to have a place where an employee fills out a short form that ensures he or she has reviewed the guidelines set in place and checks a box to consent to the guidelines. At the very least, the website or contract should spell out what happens if the employee is hurt during office hours, who is responsible for equipment repairs, and how to create a safe place to work. Having employees submit photos of their home office is not a bad idea.

Tools and services

Standardizing on the tools, apps, software for laptops, services, and other logistics for work-at-home employees will help with communication. The pandemic snuck up on all of us and no one could have predicted this situation. For those in the U.K. and the U.S. who are on lockdown orders, it took a matter of only a week or two to realize it was necessary.

Companies can now start addressing the work at home situation more diligently. Time is still compressed and there is an urgency about work in general, especially for employers who are concerned about long-term revenue opportunities. It’s still smart to communicate with employees about a standard set of business apps and tools, to set best practices, and to communicate about future plans. This might involve letting everyone know which collaborative software to use (such as Slack versus Microsoft Teams) and which video conferencing platform is preferred.

This might evolve over time. Many companies are using Zoom for video chats, but there are now concerns about privacy and security with that app. The important point here is that employees will need to know which tools are “mission-critical” and approved.

Helping employees stay productive

You might say the two most important steps in developing a work-from-home strategy for employees are more direct -- it’s important to establish the guidelines and stick closely to them. Employee health and safety is paramount, as are the tools they use.

In terms of helping with productivity, this is an ongoing endeavor. You might start with basic communication about what is expected, along with guidance and instruction. It is not about rule-keeping or enforcing regular hours, especially since that likely won’t work.

What will work is regular communication that includes tips, helpful articles sent as links by email, a blog that informs rather than instructs, and daily or weekly check-ins by video with each and every employee. Staying productive is not a rigid and scientific activity; employees won’t suddenly snap into a more productive mode simply because there are new dictums from on high. Instead, what works is encouragement, guidance, tips, and assistance.

This is also where apps and software can help. Using an app like Trello or Asana can help employers manage projects remotely. Both apps use a colorful, appealing interface that can help in times of stress. If an employer has normally used a more elaborate app during non-stressful times, it might be worth considering switching to a far easier app.

Another example: Because there are so many digital distractions now, simplicity in communication will help. Employers could encourage everyone to communicate on Slack about work issues only, instead of text messages or even phone calls. This helps with productivity because employees won’t have to keep checking every possible communication channel and keep tabs on all of them. It means they can focus on actual action steps.

Also remember that if you're using Microsoft 365, previously branded as Office 365, this is a SaaS-based cloud platform built for collaborative working that allows more than just the shared editing of files, but also comes with communications built in via Microsoft Teams, and other apps.

In the end, communication is always at the center. Being clear about health and safety, the approved apps, and encouraging productivity will help relieve at least some of the confusion.

• We've also featured the best document management software.

We’re living in a whole new world. As many employees have shifted to a home office and are under stay-at-home orders, there are legal questions about who is responsible for employee health and safety. In many ways, now that most of us are stuck at home working remotely due to the corona virus pandemic, the concept of personal health and safety for employees has come into focus. Some of the answers to the legal questions may surprise you. Employers may even need to explore a new paradigm shift -- there are many new legal ramifications.

The legal issues surrounding work-from-home can be thorny, in fact. As attorney Louis Chodoff from the law firm Ballard Spahr explained to TechRadar.com, employers may now need to have employees send photos of their home office or even send someone out to do an inspection. In the U.S., OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) does not require these inspections, but the employer is still ultimately responsible for their workers.

If the employee does not make an effort to create a safe and healthy home office environment, the employers may not be liable -- but this varies by country and by business category.

“Employers are still responsible for the health and safety of their remote employees,” says Chodoff. “It’s just more challenging for the employer because obviously the employee’s home is not a controlled workplace like the office would be. OSHA still holds employers responsible for safe working conditions regardless of the work location."

Legal issues for a home office

That said, employees do share the burden in ensuring their own health and safety. They need to make sure they are working in a safe environment. While an employer might provide healthcare benefits, the employee is really the one who has to arrange their health insurance coverage if not already done so through the employer's HR services.

That was always true even when employees were at the office, at least when it comes to health insurance. As an employer, you do assume certain liabilities for the events that occur at the corporate office, and you may offer discounts on health insurance. From a legal standpoint, employees also have to pay for their own medical billing, find ways to stay healthy (say, walking each day or working out), and promote their own personal safety.

Employers should know that, from a legal standpoint, there is some liability for the actual home office where someone works, although there might be a few sticking points. “The employee may not be able to recover workers’ compensation if the employee created the hazard that caused the injury or the injury was caused by the employee’s own misconduct,” says Chodoff.

Even then, it’s still thorny. What is considered a home office? If an employee is on a laptop in the kitchen and they use a knife to open a FedEx box and make a mistake, it might not be something that’s covered by worker’s comp. The employee was not in the home office.

Another issue is related to homeowner’s insurance. A home office is considered part of the home. Whatever happens -- flooding when a pipe bursts or tripping over a toy and breaking a leg -- would likely be covered by the homeowner and their insurance, not by the company itself.

“Employers can try to protect themselves by requiring the remote employees to show that their homeowner's insurance covers any damage to a company-issued laptop, printer or any other equipment,” says Chodoff. Then there are issues related to family members. If an employee drops a company-owned laptop, the employer would need to arrange for the repair. It’s unclear what happens if a spouse drops the laptop, or if the employee uses an old power strip that is outdated (and causes a fire because the employee was negligent).

How to address the concerns

Attorney and legal expert Charley Moore, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lawyer, tells TechRadar.com that employees may be more liable in some cases, due to their own negligence. “Employees are typically responsible for maintaining any equipment, like desks or printers, that they provide for themselves and are not owned by the company,” he says.

What will ultimately help, he says, is a contract with employees that spells out every detail -- what is covered, what is not covered, and who is responsible for what in the home. “Employees are covered under relevant state laws concerning workers compensation for any injury incurred while performing official work duties at home,” he says. “Employers should include in any telecommuting agreement the expected work hours of its employees, which are typically in line with the expected work hours for employees at their primary business location.”

As with any legal issue, clarity with employees is critical. Both legal experts tell TechRadar.com that it is important to discuss all of these topics with employees and that it should be clear what is expected while employees are “at work,” even in a home office. And, having a signed contract will help with any disputes that arise, detailing who is responsible for company-owned equipment, what happens if the employee is injured, and how the employee is responsible.

One example of how employers could spell this out has to do with where the employee works. Similar to how independent contractors need to specify in their taxes where they actually work by square footage area, an employee might need to show where they work. This could include one area of the house that is meant only for work, meets all safety standards, and is covered by worker’s compensation insurance if anything bad happens there.

However, it should all provide clarity on what is covered and not covered outside of that space. An employer might require, for example, that a company-issued laptop should not leave the workspace during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. If the employee uses it on the sofa at night to watch Netflix, that would not be covered because it wasn’t a work scenario.

“An employer can require that the employee set up a dedicated work area in their home and require that only work can be done in that dedicated work area,” says Chodoff.

• We've featured the best alternatives to Microsoft Office.

No one quite knows what the future holds. In light of the coronavirus outbreak, climate change, and fears about stock market plunges and economic downturns, there are serious questions about the power grid, whether gas prices can remain stable, and the global economy.

I happen to think many of these claims are overblown. The flu season – both the common flu and a serious contagion like coronavirus – tends to dissipate around March and April as people start breathing fresh air and opening up their windows. Markets tend to stabilize over time, even if the current dips seem shocking and unpredictable.

In terms of automotive technology, all signs point to new innovations that will help us break free from the economic cycles that we’ve known for decades. While the threats are real and should be taken seriously, there is also a view that innovative new technologies can at least help mitigate against what is happening in global economies and with fuel prices.

One recent example of this is the upcoming Fisker Ocean all-electric luxury sport-utility vehicle. A brilliantly-styled and sporty full-sized transport, the Ocean lasts about 300 miles on a charge – which is quite impressive considering you can pack in the entire family.

What impressed me most about the vehicle has to do with the roof. Fisker recently announced that the solar roof is capable of generating about 1,000 extra miles per year, all without having to connect to any power source other than the sun. While a few companies like Toyota have experimented with solar charging using the roof, it’s been underwhelming. Their efforts were only capable of providing a little extra cooling and isn’t related to adding range.

With the Ocean, the solar roof extends from the front all the way to the back (instead of only a small section for solar cells). And, it directly provides power to the electric motor. It’s true that 1,000 miles added per year only adds 83 miles per month, but it’s still impressive – from my calculations, it means adding perhaps 10-15 miles per charge. (This depends on how often you charge, how you drive, and the total range you obtain from the battery.)

Cleaner miles

I can only imagine how this might work in the future. The Fisker Ocean uses recycled materials and is one of the most environmentally-friendly vehicles around – it debuted recently and there is now video footage that shows the car on the open road.

My eyes caught a glimpse of the solar roof as well, which is optional on the Ocean (how much it adds to the cost is not clear). As you drive, the solar panels collect energy that is relayed to the battery.

Modern cars have been dependent on fossil fuels for decades. When you do purchase an electric car, there’s still a trade-off because your EV charger at home or at a public place still has to generate the power somehow. With solar, the energy collection is slow, but at least there is some carbon offset. When you collect energy from the solar roof, there is a more 'pure' transfer of power, not just an offset in how the power is collected and distributed.

That’s the real future of driving -- being able to collect energy and use it on the vehicle you’re driving simultaneously. Fisker has also claimed that hardware will evolve over time, stating in the car’s press release: “As the technology evolves, Fisker will feature integrated hardware solutions for better energy yields and more free, clean miles per year.” We can’t wait.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

As the advent of autonomous driving inches forward year by year, there’s an incredible opportunity to cede control over to the machines. AI can help look for dangers on the road and adjust our speed long before problems occur. It’s an exciting time because machine learning in cars is almost magical.

The first time, a car like the Subaru Legacy Outback tells you not to look down at your phone, or a Ford Explorer applies the brakes suddenly when you fail to notice the semi-truck that just pulled out in front of you is when you realize how far we’ve come.

Curiously, these new advancements could also present an opportunity for hackers. While the AI tech in cars never needs to sleep and is always vigilant, it is not that hard to trick the machine learning routines, even with a piece of tape.

Over the limit

Recently, researchers at McAfee announced an 18-month project where they attempted to alter the cruise control abilities in two 2016 Tesla Model S cars. They applied tape to a speed limit sign and then drove the Model S, watching as the vehicle jumped up in speed by 80 miles-per-hour. It only took one extension of the number three on a speed limit sign that said 35, changing it to read 85 instead.

The companies that developed some of the autonomous driving tech in the Tesla S refuted the claims by saying a human driver would also read the speed limit sign inaccurately, and that’s exactly when I started wondering what this all means.

I agree that human drivers are likely not that perceptive. On a highway recently, I noticed how a departure lane I took off the main highway was posted at only 35 miles-per-hour (coincidentally enough).

I slowed down to 35, but I wondered why the city lowered the speed so quickly from 75 miles per hour. It was accurate, but it didn’t make sense to me. The road was nowhere near a residential area.

However, the fact that I was wondering is the important factor.

Autonomous tech in cars might not do this. Experts who responded to Mcafee did say the Model S also uses crowd-sourced data and likely also uses GPS data, which is much harder to spoof. That said, it made me wonder.

Autonomous cars will need to do more than read speed limit signs. They will also need to interpret the conditions and the setting — it would not make sense to suddenly go from 35 MPH to 85 MPH. If it is a simple calculation from one number to another, it won’t work.

New tricks

In the future, I wondered how hackers might trick cars in other ways. We’re on the verge of cars connecting to the roadway and to other cars. Recently, an artist demonstrated how hauling a wagon full of smartphones could trick Google Maps into thinking there was traffic congestion. What else could they do?

I can envision someone creating a stir by sending out fake signals about other cars on the road, sending notices about road closures, or even worse — tapping into car systems from the side of the road and telling them to brake suddenly.

At the same time, it is a lot of fuss over something minor. Fewer and fewer cars are reading roadway signs and are determining speed based on GPS data instead. No research has ever shown that hackers could cause cars to brake suddenly, and when there are examples they are usually in controlled environments. 

I think it is mostly a curiosity. We like to be able to fool the machines, and that’s a good thing. As long as they don’t ever start fooling with us.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

With apologies to Audi and several other automakers, the best car nav display in any car is in the 2020 Jaguar XE. I was blown away by the crisp and clear directional aid, which shows up in the dashboard view above the steering wheel. The lines are clear, the colors subdued, and the fact that it's so functional – helping you arrive at your destination – is a major bonus.

Driving cars these days is an exercise in interface overindulgence. Because car companies can provide tiny little icons everywhere and use a wide palette of colors, they do. I’ve often felt as though I was driving in a car with every widget enabled. On the XE, it’s more streamlined.

The Connected Navigation Pro feature shows a navigation map with easy to identify grays and blacks, green for grass and blue for lakes. I’ve tested the Audi A4 and other cars many times, and they use Google Earth. It’s nice, but can be a little disorienting and too detailed.

I drove the XE all over town and watched the display in front of me, using the voice-controlled feature to suggest destinations. I liked how functional it was. If you need to get to a library or a restaurant, the car provides visual and auditory guidance. Many cars use extra frills, but they do not really help when you are late for a meeting or really hungry.

The display is also functional for many other reasons. With just a few taps, I was able to configure the display to show me the speed indicator and the map (off to the left). I could see two dials, one showing the speed and one showing my RPMs. I was able to completely disable all of the files and nav and only see the collision avoidance features.

That last setting is almost sanguine. You only see the hood of the car and then indicators of problems. I like to keep things simple at times, especially when I am driving for many hours on a highway. I don’t even need to see my speed – I have set it using the adaptive cruise control function, and the car can adapt to traffic levels automatically. Plus, you can see the speed in the virtual Heads-Up Display (HUD) that appears above the hood.

Cut the clutter

Back to the nav screen, though. Here’s the most important factor when driving these days. I like to reduce clutter. The main display between the seats on the dash can show points of interest, the nearest gas stations (Jaguar uses the word petrol), and even subtleties like the speed limit. That’s all fine – maybe a passenger is with you who can inspect those details. There's a time and a place for more interface options in cars. However, they can also be distracting.

The XE display above the steering wheel is trim enough that I didn’t find myself glancing at it to find objects near me. The focus is on the destination only.

In future cars, we will see much more of this. Adaptable interfaces will know when we are tired or have been driving for a long time, and they will turn off extra interface features.

You just need to drive (or let the car drive), and you may not even need any media functions. Honestly, the goal is to help you reach your destination at that point. I never drove tired or hungry, but I could see how the subtle blacks and grays allow you to focus and remove distractions.

I wish more cars would follow suit. I can enable every navigational aid under the sun in the XE. I just preferred having most of them turned off. It helped me do what I love most: just drive.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

We’re getting there. Slowly but surely, the autonomous, intelligent car of tomorrow is arriving one feature at a time. The latest? Mercedes-Benz now offers the Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) intelligent assistant in the 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300.

This fantastic sport-utility is loaded with new technology like an augmented video overlay for the navigation system. However, I was most interested in testing out the new voicebot because it connects to some of the car features and doesn’t just tell you the weather.

MBUX is actually something I’ve been wanting to test for quite some time, and a feature I’ve dreamed about in cars ever since I first tested out Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Those bots work fine for navigation, weather, and controlling your music, and when you connect your phone they work seamlessly in the car (you can use the steering wheel voice activation button, for example). Amazon Alexa now works in many Ford vehicles. 

The problem is that they don’t really know you're in a car. While Apple phones do know you are driving (an iPhone can interpret the speed and movement and will lock down your phone automatically), no phone assistant today can actually lock the doors on command, change any settings in the car, or do much of anything that’s directly related to driving.

Just say the word

MBUX is different. For an entire week, I took great joy in being able to tell the bot to raise the climate-control by two degrees, change the ambient color, or set the seat warmer to level two.

I only had to say "Hey Mercedes" to activate the bot and make my voice command. The bot can also answer random questions about celebrities or give you the forecast. It’s nice to be able to ask about the weather and then see the forecast in the center display.

In a parking lot at Trader Joe’s one evening, while my wife was inside shopping, I activated the reading light by voice. Then I did it a few more times only because I thought that was really cool.

It’s not so magical in terms of a safety feature or even that high-tech (after all, it’s a reading light), but the fact that there’s now a voicebot that can control settings in the car opens up a whole new world of automation and, eventually, autonomous vehicle control.

Forget navigation and the radio. What I really want is to talk to my car all day. I want to eventually be able to ask the car to drive me home, or to go pick up my kids. “Hey Mercedes, go add some air to the left rear tire” is a dream of mine for autonomous vehicle control. (Whether there will be another bot waiting at the service station to do the fill-up is still an open question.)

I’d like to be able to control all of the lights, all of the safety features, make commands about where to drive even when I’m not in the car, and hand over control for those long and boring stretches of the road when I’ve driving to see family in another state. I’d like the car to talk to me as well. “John, we’ll arrive at your destination in a few minutes, you might want to wake up.”

That’s coming eventually. For now, I was impressed with all of the MBUX features and how easy it was to use for common functions. I’ve officially started talking to my car all day.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

In the current age of cloud computing, there is now a multitude of mature services available -- offering security, scalability, and reliability for many business computing needs. What was once a colossal undertaking to build a data center, install server racks, and design storage arrays has given way to an entire marketplace of services that are always just a click away.

One leader in that marketplace is Amazon Web Services, which consists of 175 products and services in a vast catalog that provides cloud storage, compute power, app deployment, user account management, data warehousing, tools for managing and controlling Internet of Things devices, and just about anything you can think of that a business needs.

AWS really grew in popularity and capability over the last decade. One reason is that AWS is so reliable and secure. It’s a gold standard and used by some of the most well-known brands in existence, such as Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb. What started as primarily a cloud infrastructure for computing power and storage evolved and scaled quickly (like the service offerings themselves) as companies kept looking for more and more products to help them do business.

One example of this is AWS Snowball, a highly unique service that involves a physical device that Amazon sends to you. Companies can off-load legacy data from tape back-up systems or from an entire data center (using multiple Snowball clients). When the migration is finished, an electronic label changes automatically so you can send the devices back. The data then becomes part of AWS and the cloud infrastructure and all the benefits that provides.

AWS is a leader but is also not alone in providing exemplary products and services. Both Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud and the two primary competitors in the space. IBM is also a major cloud provider. Perhaps one distinguishing characteristic of AWS is that Amazon uses its own cloud infrastructure to power Amazon.com, the most popular e-commerce website today.

Another important characteristic -- the AWS Management Console is a single point of entry to most services, many of which are compatible with each other and work in conjunction. Even a tiny startup can sign up for an AWS account and get started with the console in a few minutes. There may be one simple “register here” button for AWS, but it opens up the door to a wealth of services and products to help businesses achieve their goals.

Jump to:

• List of AWS services - with linked-to descriptions
• Complete list of Amazon Web Services

List of AWS services

The following Amazon Web Services are available:

AWS AMI: An AWS AMI (Amazon Machine Image) allows you to deploy instances in the cloud. In simple terms, it is like the portion of a local server in a data center or like a virtual machine that runs in the cloud. Without an AMI, the advantages of cloud computing really would not be possible.

AWS AppSync: AppSync is a cloud-based service that keeps mobile and web apps up to date, but only as needed and only at the scale you need for your particular needs. It uses a cost structure that is designed to maintain only critical data and leave data at rest untouched.

Amazon Athena: For companies that house their data in the cloud using a service like Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Amazon Athena is a godsend. It’s a query service that allows you to run SQL queries in the cloud, which means there’s no need to operate a local database.

Amazon Aurora: For those who need to deploy a relational database in the cloud, there is one main option from Amazon called Aurora. This means you can rely on a high-performance database that can keep up with the needs of your applications.

AWS Batch: One of the key advantages to the cloud is that the infrastructure can scale as your needs change. AWS Batch is a batch processing service for Big Data projects. As your projects increase in size, the cloud infrastructure supporting it can adapt.

AWS CLI: AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) is a downloadable application you can use to control AWS functions. This command line introduces a new, powerful way to form commands, while making it simple for team members to execute them.

AWS CloudFormation: For companies that need to deploy and manage application stacks and resource, AWS CloudFormation is a way to “form the cloud” so that you can deploy web and mobile apps easily. For managing the cloud, you can use one main command line interface.

AWS CloudFront: A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is normally a difficult undertaking for companies to develop and deploy. AWS CloudFront is a CDN that runs in the cloud and can scale as your media streaming, messaging, and file distribution needs change and evolve.

AWS CodeDeploy: This service allows you to deploy apps in a cloud environment, such as Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, or your on-premise infrastructure. It means faster, more efficient deployment for companies that want to reach a market segment faster.

AWS CodePipeline: Modern application development is a complex undertaking, but AWS CodePipeline allows companies to manage all of the steps involved, from building, testing, and production. It’s an efficient method because of a single point of management and control.

AWS Cognito: User account control is easy when it is part of a brand new app. You might only have a few dozen users. AWS Cognito can help when you start scaling up to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of users, helping with the management and authentication.

Amazon Connect: Amazon Connect is the ultimate way to improve customer service, especially for small businesses. It uses the cloud in order to save storage, it’s pay-as-you-go, and efficient and simple to navigate.

AWS Console: AWS Console is the primary source of controlling the services you use, scaling your cloud environment, and even deploying new services. It is like a one-stop shop for cloud computing needs. AWS Console is extremely fast, easy to use, and even offers support assistance if one of your services isn’t working properly.

Amazon Corretto: A production ready distribution of OpenJDK, Amazon Corretto allows you to create, run and deploy Java applications in the cloud. It’s designed to make this process more efficient and scalable so that you don’t have to overhaul your infrastructure.

AWS Data Pipeline: Data transformation is a term that can make your head spin, especially if you are in charge of the migration. AWS Data Pipeline makes this much more fluid and efficient, even if you are migrating and moving data in a complex environment.

AWS Direct Connect: AWS Direct Connect is a bridge between the old and the new. It’s a service that connects legacy and non-critical data to data stores that are actively deployed for your applications and infrastructure. The data becomes available for apps in real-time.

Amazon DynamoDB: Any garden-variety database running on a server just won’t cut it in the modern age of complex apps for the web and mobile devices. Amazon DynamoDB is a high-performance database that runs in the cloud, with all of the advantages of scale and reliability you’d expect.

AWS EBS: AWS EBS (Elastic Block Store) is a cloud service that allows you to store files in the more traditional block storage format that has existed for decades, which is helpful for legacy apps, Big Data projects, or archiving purposes.

Amazon EC2: Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) provides an IT infrastructure that runs in the cloud. It offers power, flexibility, and performance all at the same time. The biggest benefit of EC2 is that it offers quick, efficient scalability for users.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: As the name implies, Elastic Beanstalk provides an adaptable, flexible way to scale applications without the usual setup, management, and configuration of the server infrastructure. It’s elastic in the sense that it can adapt and scale to your business needs.

Amazon EMR: Amazon Elastic MapReduce is a service for deploying the frameworks needed to do Big Data analytics in the cloud. It is often used for genomic research, drug discovery, analyzing materials used for new products, and other tests that require massive data analysis.

AWS Fargate: AWS Fargate is Amazon’s serverless compute engine that makes it easier than ever to update or develop an application without fear of a data breach, so that you’re constantly keeping up with new infrastructure demands.

AWS Glue: With AWS Glue, there’s no need for advanced technology in order to keep all of your data in one place. AWS Glue is the “glue” that ties together different kinds of data, making it readily available for queries.

Amazon Kinesis: Amazon Kinesis provides real-time analytics for data as it flows in your cloud infrastructure. The service provides real-time analytics and reporting functions. The real power of Kinesis is that it can keep up with your apps and scale accordingly.

AWS Lambda: AWS Lambda is a computing service provided by Amazon that processes code and automatically operates computing resources as needed. As a cloud-based service, there is never a need to worry about power or storage.

Amazon Lightsail: Amazon Lightsail is a framework that allows developers to run applications on virtual servers in the cloud. Because it is a secure environment and is a compliment to other Amazon services like Elastic Compute Cloud (ECS2), it has a powerful use case.

AWS Outposts: What if you could run a replica of the cloud services Amazon offers, but in your own data center? That’s the idea behind AWS Outposts, a service that provides all of the features and functions of cloud services but in your local infrastructure.

Amazon RDS: Amazon RDS helps companies store relational databases in the cloud. It can be used for analytics, business dashboards, web applications or any app that uses a relational database. This provides added flexibility and an ability to scale to your needs.

Amazon Redshift: Amazon Redshift is an online data warehouse that provides its users with flexibility, ease of navigation, security, automatic updates -- and it’s just as effective for large businesses as it is small ones.

Amazon S3: A well-known object storage service, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a powerful, scalable, reliable service that meets the demands of even the most complex enterprise-grade apps and the largest companies and institutions.

Amazon SES: Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is the best way to improve messaging. It’s pay-as-you-go, and it is designed to fit right into the current IT infrastructure your business uses. It can send several thousand messages without concerns about security or performance.

AWS Snowball: AWS Snowball is a data transfer service that helps businesses perform a more secure data migration. The data being moved will not go through the Internet, so the migration is quicker, safer, and more reliable for if you want to access the information later on. Snowball is extremely scalable, allowing businesses to transport any amount of data they need.

Amazon SNS: Modern applications are constantly communicating with servers and each other. Even simple changes like a new high-score in gaming app has to be transmitted. Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) manages, tracks, and controls these messages.

Amazon SQS: Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) is a message queuing service that runs independent of the actual infrastructure you are using. It makes sure messages between servers and apps run efficiently, securely, and reliably.

AWS Step Functions: Step Functions allows developers to create apps that uses multiple transactional services. Previous to cloud computing services such as Step Functions, linking to multiple sources was much more complex, which caused issues with reliability.

AWS Storage Gateway: AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid storage option for companies with legacy data stores but who also are taking advantage of cloud storage. The service bridges the gap between the two, providing one console to control and manage both data stores.

AWS VPC: AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is, as the name implies, a secure virtual cloud that can help ease the minds of business owners launching a new website, app, or other service. AWS VPC is a separate portion of the Amazon cloud that offers a lot of flexibility and scalability.

AWS WAF: Not all firewalls run as a hardware device in a data center. AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) is a cloud based firewall you use to protect apps and data in the cloud. Companies can add ore remove cloud security features depending on their needs.

AWS X-Ray: One of the most curiously named products from Amazon, X-Ray should not be confused with the Amazon Prime Video service for finding out more about actors. It’s a cloud service that tracks and manages all of the messaging that occurs between cloud-based apps.

Complete list of Amazon Web Services

The following is a list of every Amazon Web Service available at this time. It’s likely Amazon will expand the product offering in 2020, and we’ll update this list accordingly.

1. Analytics
2. Application Integration
3. AR&VR
4. AWS Cost Management
5. Blockchain
6. Business Applications
7. Compute
8. Customer Engagement
9. Database
10. Developer Tools
11. End User Computing
12. Game Tech
13. Internet of Things
14. Machine Learning
15. Management & Governance
16. Media Services
17. Migration & Transfer
18. Mobile
19. Networking & Content Delivery
20. Quantum Technologies
21. Robotics
22. Satellite
23. Security & Compliance
24. Storage

1. Analytics

Amazon Athena: Query Data in S3 using SQL

Amazon CloudSearch: Managed Search Service

Amazon Elasticsearch Service: Run and Scale Elasticsearch Clusters

Amazon EMR: Hosted Hadoop Framework

Amazon Kinesis: Work with Real-time Streaming Data

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka: Fully managed Apache Kafka service

Amazon Redshift: Fast, Simple, Cost-effective Data Warehousing

Amazon QuickSight: Fast Business Analytics Service

AWS Data Exchange: Find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud

AWS Data Pipeline: Orchestration Service for Periodic, Data-driven Workflows

AWS Glue: Prepare and Load Data

AWS Lake Formation: Build a secure data lake in days

2. Application Integration

Amazon Athena: Query Data in S3 using SQL

Amazon CloudSearch: Managed Search Service

Amazon Elasticsearch Service: Run and Scale Elasticsearch Clusters

Amazon EMR: Hosted Hadoop Framework

Amazon Kinesis: Work with Real-time Streaming Data

3. AR and VR

Amazon Sumerian: Build and Run VR and AR Applications

4. AWS Cost Management

AWS Cost Explorer: Analyze Your AWS Cost and Usage

AWS Budgets: Set Custom Cost and Usage Budgets

AWS Cost and Usage Report: Access Comprehensive Cost and Usage Information

Reserved Instance Reporting: Dive Deeper into Your Reserved Instances (RIs)

Savings Plans: Save up to 72% on compute usage with flexible pricing

5. Blockchain

Amazon Managed Blockchain: Create and manage scalable blockchain networks

Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB): Fully managed ledger database

6. Business Applications

Alexa for Business: Empower your Organization with Alexa

Amazon Chime: Frustration-free Meetings, Video Calls, and Chat

Amazon WorkDocs: Secure enterprise document storage and sharing

Amazon WorkMail: Secure and Managed Business Email and Calendaring

7. Compute

Amazon EC2: Virtual Servers in the Cloud

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling: Scale Compute Capacity to Meet Demand

Amazon Elastic Container Registry: Store and Retrieve Docker Images

Amazon Elastic Container Service: Run and Manage Docker Containers

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service: Run Managed Kubernetes on AWS

Amazon Lightsail: Launch and Manage Virtual Private Servers

AWS Batch: Run Batch Jobs at Any Scale

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Run and Manage Web Apps

AWS Fargate: Run Containers without Managing Servers or Clusters

AWS Lambda: Run your Code in Response to Events

AWS Outposts: Run AWS services on-premises

AWS Serverless Application Repository: Discover, Deploy, and Publish Serverless Applications

AWS Wavelength: Deliver ultra-low latency applications for 5G devices

VMware Cloud on AWS: Build a Hybrid Cloud without Custom Hardware

8. Customer Engagement

Amazon Connect: Cloud-based Contact Center

Amazon Pinpoint: Personalized User Engagement Across Channels

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES): Email Sending and Receiving

Contact Lens for Amazon Connect: Contact center analytics powered by ML

9. Database

Amazon Aurora: High Performance Managed Relational Database

Amazon DynamoDB: Managed NoSQL Database

Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility): Fully managed document database

Amazon ElastiCache: In-memory Caching System

Amazon Managed Apache Cassandra Service: Managed Cassandra-compatible database

Amazon Neptune: Fully Managed Graph Database Service

Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB): Fully managed ledger database

Amazon RDS: Managed Relational Database Service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and MariaDB

Amazon RDS on VMware: Automate on-premises database management

Amazon Redshift: Fast, Simple, Cost-effective Data Warehousing

Amazon Timestream: Fully managed time series database

AWS Database Migration Service: Migrate Databases with Minimal Downtime

10. Developer Tools

Amazon Corretto: Production-ready distribution of OpenJDK

AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK): Model cloud infrastructure using code

AWS Cloud9: Write, Run, and Debug Code on a Cloud IDE

AWS CodeBuild: Build and Test Code

AWS CodeCommit: Store Code in Private Git Repositories

AWS CodeDeploy: Automate Code Deployment

AWS CodePipeline: Release Software using Continuous Delivery

AWS CodeStar: Develop and Deploy AWS Applications

AWS Command Line Interface: Unified Tool to Manage AWS Services

AWS Device Farm: Test Android, iOS, and web apps on real devices in the AWS cloud

AWS Tools and SDKs: Tools and SDKs for AWS

AWS X-Ray: Analyze and debug your applications

11. End User Computing

Amazon AppStream 2.0: Stream Desktop Applications Securely to a Browser

Amazon WorkDocs: Secure enterprise document storage and sharing

Amazon WorkLink: Enable mobile access to internal websites

Amazon WorkSpaces: Desktop Computing Service

12. Game Tech

Amazon GameLift: Simple, Fast, Cost-effective Dedicated Game Server Hosting

Amazon Lumberyard: A Free Cross-platform 3D Game Engine with Full Source, Integrated with AWS and Twitch

13. Internet of Things

AWS IoT Core: Connect Devices to the Cloud

Amazon FreeRTOS: IoT Operating System for Microcontrollers

AWS Greengrass: Local Compute, Messaging, and Sync for Devices

AWS IoT 1-Click: One Click Creation of an AWS Lambda Trigger

AWS IoT Analytics: Analytics for IoT Devices

AWS IoT Button: Cloud Programmable Dash Button

AWS IoT Device Defender: Security Management for IoT Devices

AWS IoT Device Management: Onboard, Organize, and Remotely Manage IoT Devices

AWS IoT Events: IoT event detection and response

AWS IoT SiteWise: IoT data collector and interpreter

AWS IoT Things Graph: Easily connect devices and web services

AWS Partner Device Catalog: Curated catalog of AWS-compatible IoT hardware

14. Machine Learning

Amazon SageMaker: Build, Train, and Deploy Machine Learning Models at Scale

Amazon Augmented AI: Easily implement human review of ML predictions

Amazon CodeGuru (Preview): Automate code reviews and identify expensive lines of code

Amazon Comprehend: Discover Insights and Relationships in Text

Amazon Elastic Inference: Deep learning inference acceleration

Amazon Forecast: Increase forecast accuracy using machine learning

Amazon Fraud Detector (Preview): Detect more online fraud faster

Amazon Kendra: Reinvent enterprise search with ML

Amazon Lex: Build Voice and Text Chatbots

Amazon Personalize: Build real-time recommendations into your applications

Amazon Polly: Turn Text into Lifelike Speech

Amazon Rekognition: Analyze Image and Video

Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth: Build accurate ML training datasets

Amazon Textract: Extract text and data from documents

Amazon Translate: Natural and Fluent Language Translation

Amazon Transcribe: Automatic Speech Recognition

AWS Deep Learning AMIs: Quickly Start Deep Learning on EC2

AWS Deep Learning Containers: Docker images for deep learning

AWS DeepComposer: ML enabled musical keyboard

AWS DeepLens: Deep Learning Enabled Video Camera

AWS DeepRacer: Autonomous 1/18th scale race car, driven by ML

Amazon Inferentia: Machine learning inference chip

Apache MXNet on AWS: Scalable, High-performance Deep Learning

TensorFlow on AWS: Open-source Machine Intelligence Library

15. Management and Governance

Amazon CloudWatch: Monitor Resources and Applications

AWS Auto Scaling: Scale Multiple Resources to Meet Demand

AWS Chatbot: ChatOps for AWS

AWS CloudFormation: Create and Manage Resources with Templates

AWS CloudTrail: Track User Activity and API Usage

AWS Command Line Interface: Unified tool to manage AWS services

AWS Compute Optimizer: Identify optimal AWS Compute resources

AWS Config: Track Resource Inventory and Changes

AWS Control Tower: Set up and govern a secure, compliant, multi-account environment

AWS Console Mobile Application: Access resources on the go

AWS License Manager: Track, manage, and control licenses

AWS Management Console: Web-based user interface

AWS Managed Services: Infrastructure operations management for AWS

AWS OpsWorks: Automate Operations with Chef and Puppet

AWS Organizations: Central governance and management across AWS accounts

AWS Personal Health Dashboard: Personalized View of AWS Service Health

AWS Service Catalog: Create and Use Standardized Products

AWS Systems Manager: Gain Operational Insights and Take Action

AWS Trusted Advisor: Optimize Performance and Security

AWS Well-Architected Tool: Review and improve your workloads

16. Media Services

Amazon Elastic Transcoder: Easy-to-use Scalable Media Transcoding

Amazon Kinesis Video Streams: Process and Analyze Video Streams

AWS Elemental MediaConnect: Reliable and secure live video transport

AWS Elemental MediaConvert: Convert File-based Video Content

AWS Elemental MediaLive: Convert Live Video Content

AWS Elemental MediaPackage: Video Origination and Packaging

AWS Elemental MediaStore: Media Storage and Simple HTTP Origin

AWS Elemental MediaTailor: Video Personalization and Monetization

AWS Elemental Appliances & Software: On-premises media solutions

17. Migration and Transfer

AWS Migration Hub: Track Migrations from a Single Place

AWS Application Discovery Service: Discover On-Premises Applications to Streamline Migration

AWS Database Migration Service: Migrate Databases with Minimal Downtime

AWS DataSync: Simple, fast, online data transfer

AWS Server Migration Service: Migrate On-Premises Servers to AWS

AWS Snow Family: Physical devices to migrate data into and out of AWS

AWS Transfer for SFTP: Fully managed SFTP service

CloudEndure Migration: Automate your mass migration to AWS

18. Mobile

AWS Amplify: Build and deploy mobile and web applications

Amazon API Gateway: Build, Deploy, and Manage APIs

Amazon Pinpoint: Personalized User Engagement Across Channels

AWS AppSync: Power your apps with the right data from many sources, at scale

AWS Device Farm: Test Android, iOS, and web apps on real devices in the AWS cloud

19. Networking and Content Delivery

Amazon VPC: Isolated Cloud Resources

Amazon API Gateway: Build, Deploy, and Manage APIs

Amazon CloudFront: Global Content Delivery Network

Amazon Route 53: Scalable Domain Name System

AWS PrivateLink: Securely Access Services Hosted on AWS

AWS App Mesh: Monitor and control microservices

AWS Cloud Map: Application resource registry for microservices

AWS Direct Connect: Dedicated Network Connection to AWS

AWS Global Accelerator: Improve application availability and performance

AWS Transit Gateway: Easily scale VPC and account connections

Elastic Load Balancing: Distribute incoming traffic across multiple targets

20. Quantum Technologies

Amazon Braket: Explore and experiment with quantum computing

21. Robotics

AWS RoboMaker: Develop, test, and deploy robotics applications

22. Satellite

AWS Ground Station: Fully managed ground station as a service

23. Security and Compliance

AWS RoboMaker: Develop, test, and deploy robotics applications

AWS Ground Station: Fully managed ground station as a service

AWS Identity & Access Management: Manage User Access and Encryption Keys

Amazon Cognito: Identity Management for your Apps

Amazon Detective: Investigate potential security issues

Amazon GuardDuty: Managed Threat Detection Service

Amazon Inspector: Analyze Application Security

Amazon Macie: Discover, Classify, and Protect your Data

AWS Artifact: On-demand access to AWS compliance reports

AWS Certificate Manager: Provision, Manage, and Deploy SSL/TLS Certificates

AWS CloudHSM: Hardware-based Key Storage for Regulatory Compliance

AWS Directory Service: Host and Manage Active Directory

AWS Firewall Manager: Central Management of Firewall Rules

AWS Key Management Service: Managed Creation and Control of Encryption Keys

AWS Resource Access Manager: Simple, secure service to share AWS resources

AWS Secrets Manager: Rotate, Manage, and Retrieve Secrets

AWS Security Hub: Unified security and compliance center

AWS Shield: DDoS Protection

AWS Single Sign-On: Cloud Single Sign-On (SSO) Service

AWS WAF: Filter Malicious Web Traffic

24. Storage

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): Scalable Storage in the Cloud

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS): EC2 block storage volumes

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS): Fully managed file system for EC2

Amazon FSx for Lustre: High-performance file system integrated with S3

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server: Fully managed Windows native file system

Amazon S3 Glacier: Low-cost Archive Storage in the Cloud

AWS Backup: Centralized backup across AWS services

AWS Snow Family: Physical devices to migrate data into and out of AWS

AWS Storage Gateway: Hybrid Storage Integration

CloudEndure Disaster Recovery: Highly automated disaster recovery

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka: Fully managed Apache Kafka service

Amazon Redshift: Fast, Simple, Cost-effective Data Warehousing

Amazon QuickSight: Fast Business Analytics Service

AWS Data Exchange: Find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud

AWS Data Pipeline: Orchestration Service for Periodic, Data-driven Workflows

AWS Glue: Prepare and Load Data

AWS Lake Formation: Build a secure data lake in days

AWS Step Functions: Coordinate Distributed Applications

Amazon EventBridge: Serverless event bus for SaaS apps & AWS services

Amazon MQ: Managed Message Broker for ActiveMQ

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS): Pub/Sub, Mobile Push and SMS

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS): Managed Message Queues

Amazon AppSync: Power your apps with the right data from many sources, at scale

For a small company, keeping track of user accounts for a mobile or web app is not terribly difficult. It might be a simple database you deploy and manage manually. The problem arises when you suddenly start managing hundreds, thousands, or millions of user accounts. At that point, the task is much more complicated and can involve security and authentication, access control, social media identity providers like Facebook, and other factors. What started as a fairly simple process becomes a full-time job for someone on your staff.

AWS Cognito is a user account control service that runs in the cloud. It’s designed to relieve many of the headaches related to user account control for mobile and web apps. By using AWS Cognito, you can take full control of the account management and then scale accordingly using cloud services.

AWS Cognito consists of several features for managing users for sign-up (registration), sign-in, and account management. To understand how it all works, here are the main features.

For starters, the Cognito User Pools feature helps you manage user accounts. It’s a secure user directory that can scale up as your needs evolve. With other user account control systems, you have to run a server and manage the IT infrastructure, but you can start using Cognito User Pools without having to configure any of the back-end systems.

Cognito supports “account federation” in that you can use third-party identity management providers for the login. This includes social media platforms like Facebook, well-known providers like Google and Amazon, and also enterprise-class identity providers such as Microsoft Active Directory (using SAML, the Security Assertion Markup Language). The advantage here is simplicity for the user. In a mobile app, for example, they can click a Facebook icon to sign-in quickly.

AWS Cognito uses well-known and well-established security providers, including Oauth 2.0, SAML 2.0, and OpenID Connect. These are open-source providers that use standards-based authentication and access management services. Cognito doesn’t rely on any proprietary security methods that lock you into that authentication method.

Not only is Cognito geared for helping you scale and manage your user management, but it’s also a good match for companies that need to adhere to compliance regulations. The most common is HIPAA, which regulates the health and medical field, such as for storing electronic health records. Amazon Cognito is also compliant with PCI DSS, SOC, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, ISO/IEC 27018, and ISO 9001.

Benefits and AWS Cognito

There’s no question the biggest benefit to using this service is that you can scale up as your apps grow and expand to reach a wider audience. One of the “gotchas” of any new web or mobile app is when it really catches on with users. Companies often celebrate when they see users engaging with their app, but then there’s the eventual realization that it can be extremely hard to keep up with demand if your infrastructure for user management is not ready. Because Cognito scales automatically with user demand, you don’t have to worry about the infrastructure requirements or building out and maintaining servers.

Related to this is the cost structure. Your costs are related to the user accounts you need to manage, so the costs can scale as well. This takes some of the surprises out of a fast-growing app as well, not only in how you pay for Cognito as a management tool but also in the fact that you don’t have to build out more servers or expand your infrastructure.

What this means is that you pay only to manage the monthly active users (or MAUs). A user is counted as active if they change a password, refresh their account info, or sign-up for the service within the month. This is a major advantage to companies that have legacy business apps that are still viable but also have been around for many years. They may have a large portion of users who are no longer actively using the app on a regular basis.

Perhaps one unheralded feature that is beneficial to companies developing apps is that Cognito integrates into your application framework. When you are building the front-end of your app, you can use the same branding and logo that matches the rest of your user interface.

One last benefit is that the entire service is easy to use and deploy. Amazon makes a point to demonstrate how this works by including a portion of the code you insert into your app, running only a few dozen lines long but providing everything you need to get started. Because of the ease of deployment, companies can develop multiple apps, experiment with new ones, and manage existing apps without the typical complexities and management overhead.

In the end, AWS Cognito fits right into the development cycles of most companies, especially with how easy it is to use the code, the cost structure, and the easy integration.

• Move your website to the cloud with the best cloud webhosting.

Life in the digital age can be a little complex. Our phones buzz, chime, beep, and alert us at all hours of the day. We have bots that can tell us the weather but are also listening to everything we say. In a car, it’s even worse. A multitude of safety features beep to tell us we’re drifting out of the lane, and phone calls that pop up on the dash can be annoying.

And then there’s the 2020 Ford Explorer. In a recent test, I was digging through the center console settings – on a glorious new 12.3-inch screen – and I found a rather subtle option called 'calm'. There’s a similar setting on the screen above the steering wheel. While the calm option doesn’t quite do everything I want it to (yet), it is a step in the right direction.

In that center console, calm turns off everything and just shows a clock on a pale blue background. It’s a way to remove distractions, including the navigation, radio, and the Apple CarPlay connection. In the screen above the steering wheel, it turns off everything except the speedometer, so you can’t see any of the safety options (although they continue to function).

I really like what Ford is attempting to do here. It’s a way to remove almost every blinking light on the screens to allow you to focus on the simple act of driving. The calm setting doesn’t actually disable anything, and you will still get chimes and interruptions on your phone.

During one drive, I was using the calm setting and still received a phone call. That means it’s mostly an interface choice for what you can see while you drive, but it still worked for me.

With the screens blanked out, I didn’t feel as inundated with information. In the next iteration, it would be cool if it was not even possible to select a radio station, and maybe you could use a voice command like 'deactivate calm' to make non-safety features available again. I know the technology is already available since the Ford MyKey system can lock out the radio if the driver doesn’t fasten their seatbelt (yes, it is more of a teen driver feature).

Quiet time

My mind jumped to how this might work in all areas of life.

At home, I’d like to be able to give one command to Alexa or the Google Assistant and have those bots lower the lights and the blinds, disable incoming calls and turn off all beeps and chimes from my home security system.

At work, if I need to focus on a project, it would be cool if there was a calm setting on my laptop that turned off all incoming emails, dimmed the screen, and blocked notifications in Chrome. (I particularly hate those browser notifications, although Google is apparently working on disabling them in a future version.)

And then there’s my phone. I know it’s easy to turn off Bluetooth and Wi-fi, and to turn off notifications for apps all at once. That doesn’t really help me deal with emails that arrive using my cellular data connection (unless I turn that off as well). And, it doesn’t disable any apps. What I’d like with a phone is similar to the calm setting on the Explorer: A mode that only shows the clock and a few critical apps, but otherwise disables everything else.

For now, I like the calm mode in the Explorer. I used it more than I would have expected, possibly because distractions are becoming more common and I just need the peace.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

In the age of incredible technological advancements on the Internet, autonomous cars, drones that can deliver a package from the sky, and instant access to social media feeds on our phones, it’s almost refreshing to know there is a service that is a little old school.

AWS Snowball is a data transfer service that uses a physical device sent by Amazon. Even though the only thing that’s “old school” is that it uses a physical product, Snowball is quite advanced in terms of what it does, how it works, and how it benefits your company.

For firms doing petabyte-scale research projects, those who have accumulated vast amounts of backup data, have a legacy tape backup system they need to move to cloud storage, or are closing an entire data center and using a cloud-based infrastructure, Snowball is a godsend.

In most cases, Snowball comes into play when there is a data migration project. There is a vast amount of data stored locally, and there’s a need to move that data to the cloud. However, because there may be petabytes of information, the Internet is not a viable option due to the speed concerns, security issues, and networking complexities.

With Snowball, there are several benefits. One is the ease of migration. It all starts with the AWS Console where you can initiate the migration with a few clicks. Once you do, Amazon determines whether you need one or more Snowball client devices. (For terabytes of data, you likely only need one client; for petabytes of data, you’ll need more than one.)

Then, the physical devices arrive at your site. You connect them to your network, and run the Snowball client application and select the data sources. After this, the migration runs at high speeds and over a secure connection (not on the Internet). Amazon uses an E Ink label for Snowball shipping, so once the migration is complete and you are ready to send back the devices, the label changes and shows the correct address for the return shipment.

As you might guess, the devices are not stashed away in a vault at this point. Amazon moves your data to Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for easy access in the cloud. An important point to make here is that you can now take advantage of the enormous scale of cloud computing, adding additional storage archives to this one storage location. Once you migrate the data to the cloud using Snowball, the physical transfer work is all part of enabling your company in a move to a cloud infrastructure and benefiting from the reliable, secure storage. You can decide to remove portions of your S3 archives at any time.

There are benefits to how this works from a cost standpoint as well. At a petabyte or terabyte-scale, the cost of secure data transfers over the Internet can run several thousand dollars. Amazon states that Snowball migrations tend to cost about one-fifth the normal migration costs when the Internet and high-speed networks are involved.

Examples of how Snowball works

A good example of a project where Snowball comes into play is a large company that has existed for many decades and has decided to move all of their tape backup systems to the cloud. As you can imagine, this migration would normally be fraught with complexity -- how to move the data securely, dealing with terabytes or even petabytes of storage that dates back many years, and making sure the migration is successful.

With Snowball, the company can configure the migration using the AWS Console which removes the complexity of knowing which data you need to move and where it will end up. Since the migration is highly automated using the Snowball client devices and client software, the company trying to move their tape backup systems doesn’t have to build a new IT infrastructure or purchase software to help with the legacy transfers.

The benefits are, as mentioned above, lower costs and the ease of migrating, but there are also clear advantages related to what happens after you are done migrating. The data becomes available in S3 and becomes part of your cloud infrastructure. This means you can retrieve that data from the cloud just as easily and efficiently as you migrated it to the cloud. It opens up new possibilities for using the data for business intelligence, additional research projects, data discovery, enterprise-grade apps, analytics and other projects that were not possible before.

In the end, companies benefit from how Amazon has architected the entire migration system. Snowball does involve “old school” client devices shipped to your facility, but that’s where any similarity to older data transfer migration practices ends. By using physical devices, it speeds up the entire process, makes it secure, and is designed for easy, fast migrations.

• Move your website to the cloud with the best cloud web hosting services.

Learning the terminology in cloud computing can take a little time. The first step is realizing what the cloud itself can do for your business -- mostly, it’s about scaling computing services. The servers you use do not run locally in a data center but in a remote facility. There are options for cloud storage, compute performance on virtual servers, and running web applications.

Another important term, at least when you are considering Amazon Web Services (AWS), is an instance. This is like the digital footprint for your computing resources, including your specifications for the amount of storage, processing power, and memory. If you are a startup and have a new web application you want customers to use, you can configure an AWS instance for that application, determining the parameters for how it runs in the cloud.

Because the cloud is so “elastic” and flexible, scaling with the needs of your business and user growth, there is an entire IT infrastructure available to run instances. This is the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which is the primary virtual server infrastructure available. EC2 is incredibly popular these days because it can scale as your business changes and evolves, and because the costs associated with the virtual infrastructure are based on actual usage.

After understanding these basic terms, the next step is to learn about what Amazon calls the AMI (Amazon Machine Image). In Amazon cloud computing parlance, an instance runs on an Amazon Machine Image. It’s essentially a virtual machine that runs in the cloud. Without an AMI, there would be no instances, no way to define the parameters, and no place to run a web application, store a cloud database, deploy an API (Application Programming Interface) or really take advantage of cloud computing in the first place. It’s similar to what you might view as the portion of a local server in a data center provisioned for an application.

An AMI is a template, pre-configured for your cloud computing needs. One good way to understand how an AMI works is to think in terms of a preset in a photo editing application. In Adobe Photoshop, for example, you can use a preset that automatically determines the exposure, color, brightness, and other factors of a photo. It speeds up photo editing because you can load the preset, apply it to an image, and move on to the next one.

Benefits of using AMI

Like cloud computing itself, using an AMI has several important advantages. Chief among these is the fact that you can rely on pre-configured templates that allow you to deploy one or more instances. With an AMI, you have the ability to quickly and efficiently determine what computing power, memory, storage, and other factors you need for your applications.

Of course, the low cost is also a major benefit. An AMI is a virtual machine that runs in the cloud, and you can deploy and configure each one according to your business needs. For massive Big Data projects, you can deploy multiple instances on an AMI and pay for the higher usage, but even a small startup could deploy instances for a simple mobile app. There are no up-front costs as you might expect from a cloud computing provider.

The AMI also speeds up configuration and deployment because the templates are well-known and defined for typical computing infrastructure needs. The alternative is much more complex. Developers would have to define the parameters they need on their own data center servers or architect the virtual servers and settings on their own. With AMI, this is all accomplished in a more seamless way, especially since other companies likely deploy similar instances.

Flexibility is the key benefit as well. An AMI can run Linux, Unix, or Windows, and you can augment the AMI with additional services. As you can expect from an Amazon service, an AMI is compressed, encrypted, and secured no matter which operating system you use.

Most of the advantages to using AMI are the same as using EC2 itself. Other than the pre-configured templates, the pay-as-you-go cost structure, and speed of deployment, there are advantages in being able to scale and experiment with new features of an app or by releasing additional apps without worrying about the infrastructure itself.

One example is when a startup decides to make a new app -- it’s always an unknown if the app will catch on with users or if they will look for new features right away if there are other services you need to deploy (say, to capture credit card information or offer a place to store files to the user). And when one app is successful and catches on, there might be an opportunity to develop and deploy more apps that are similar and provide a new host of services.

• Move your website to the cloud with the best cloud hosting providers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) includes over 175 different products and services, all of them geared to help you run your cloud computing environment. It’s quite an extensive catalog, including tools to help you manage, deploy, and maintain compute, online storage, cloud databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning, Internet of Things, security, VR and AR, media, and application development, and mobile apps -- to name but a few.

AWS Console is the primary point of control for all of the services you use, and it has the power to help you scale and manage your cloud computing environment. It’s a “one-stop-shop” that even provides access to the AWS Marketplace for finding and deploying more services and a way to view your services and any associated costs for using those services. And yet the console itself is easy to use and not overly complicated for new users.

As a way to cover what this tool and do for your business, this overview will start by explaining AWS itself and then the main core functions of the AWS Console.

AWS is actually a company and a product at the same time. A subsidiary of Amazon, the company started in 2006 and provides a host of services for cloud computing. In fact, AWS includes 175 different services, including 60 that are free to try and deploy in a real-world setting. The most popular services include Amazon Simple Storage Service (or S3) for object storage in the cloud and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for virtual server access.

It would over-simplify AWS to say it’s just for apps, storage and servers. Companies use AWS for a wide variety of cloud computing functions, including code deployments, Big Data analytics, reliably running popular mobile apps, operating vast data lake projects and for data warehousing, and media streaming. If you name a random company, like Netflix or Uber, and wonder if they use AWS for their cloud computing needs, it’s a good bet they already do.

That’s why it’s interesting that AWS Console even exists because it should be far more complicated. Any company can sign up for AWS Console in a few minutes, then select the services to deploy and have them up and running a few moments later. This might explain the vast popularity of AWS and AWS Console -- that there is all of this power and flexibility, a way to scale the computing performance of a company, and yet getting started is so straightforward. With competing cloud computing services, the on-ramp is much more complex.

AWS Console provides access to all of your users, service usage, cloud computing health, and monthly billing. When you need assistance with any service, you can generate a support ticket right from the app. AWS Console also allows you to deploy an API (Application Programming Interface) and keep track of the revisions and code deployments for apps.

Benefits of using AWS Console

The key benefit here is having one point of management and control for all of these services, in a way that almost seems unlikely in the age of technical complexity in the cloud. To say there is one interface you can use for adding and removing services, for seeing a deployment map for your IT infrastructure, for reviewing the costs for all services in one place almost seems impossible. The fact that AWS Console is so extensive and accessible to anyone to get started with cloud computing is a major advantage to using the product.

AWS Console provides a great degree of flexibility as well. You can choose the operating system you want to use, the services you want to deploy, and the level of security needed for your apps and data. AWS Console is designed for any company and removes much of the initial complexity, configuration requirements, and up-front costs associated with the cloud.

Once you dive into AWS Console, it’s also worth noting that there is extensive online support for every service, including a vast array of tech support material. Because AWS has become so popular with so many companies, there is a wealth of case study information, practical guidance, and advice for anyone who wants to deploy multiple services in the cloud.

Another interesting perk to using AWS Console is that it’s the same tool Amazon uses to run Amazon.com, which is a multi-billion dollar e-commerce operation. This means it’s reliable, secure, and operationally sound enough for one of the most-used web portals today.

What this all means for any business is that the compute power you need is accessible, available, and affordable to get started, and then allows you to scale up your services and take advantage of more and more AWS products as your needs evolve. In the end, any company can experiment with cloud services without the usual complexity and high costs.

• Move your website to the cloud with the best cloud hosting.

What if you could pay by the second for all of your computing needs? That’s a question Amazon has answered by offering Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) since it launched way back in 2006.

Easily one of the most well-known service offerings from Amazon (perhaps second only to  Simple Storage Service or even Amazon.com), EC2 provides an IT infrastructure that runs in the cloud and operates like a data center you have running at your own headquarters. It’s ideal for companies that need performance, flexibility, and power all at the same time.

EC2 is relatively easy to define, but it also has many related services, product offerings, and partners that can seem overwhelming. At its core, EC2 is a service that allows you to rent a virtual server remotely for running your applications. It’s much more than that, of course -- which is why it’s important to define a few related terms as a way to describe EC2 and its value.

One term that is helpful to understand initially is instance. This word describes a single virtual computing environment made up of CPU, memory, cloud storage, and networking capacity. In the old days, Information Technology personnel might have used an entire server to run applications, but it’s better to understand cloud computing and EC2 in terms of an instance because it runs on a virtual server -- essentially, one portion that is provisioned for your applications.

A second important term related to EC2 is Amazon Machine Image (AMI). This is the provisioned part of a virtual computing environment -- essentially a preconfigured template you use as part of your virtual infrastructure. You could say the computing instance runs on top of the AMI. Once you have an instance configured for the AMI, it means you have defined the computing power, storage, memory, and networking you need.

As you might guess, an instance can run more than a business app for employees and more than a mobile app that runs on an iPhone. An instance is flexible enough to run just about anything. The word “elastic” in the name Elastic Compute Cloud is really all about the flexibility and scalability of the environment and is also related to the pay model. As mentioned at the outset, EC2 is elastic in the sense that you pay only for the compute instances you use.

An instance can contain web applications, mobile apps, a cloud database and the data used by your apps, the configuration files for a Big Data project, code libraries, and even the configuration for your computing environment. How you define and use the computing environment is up to you, and it’s not limited in terms of what you can run, for how long, the size of the applications, or even whether you run the application on the instance at all. This type of flexibility in how you start using EC2, what you can do, and how you can scale is what makes it so powerful.

Benefits of using EC2

In business, there’s a concept called “lift,” which is a good descriptor for why EC2 has become so popular and powerful. Lift is the idea that you can scale and reach more customers without as much friction. In the end, what EC2 ultimately provides for any company is lift. It’s the ability to scale and grow without having to wait for the technology to keep up.

With Amazon EC2, any discussion about the benefits and advantages has to start with the cloud itself. In some ways, EC2 and the cloud are synonymous these days -- with apologies to Google, Microsoft, and many other cloud-focused companies. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that companies like Netflix, Airbnb, User, and Pinterest might not exist if they weren’t using EC2, or that they would at least exist in some other form or without the same reliability.

That’s because EC2 has flexibility and scalability, but also a long list of features, partner relationships, supported infrastructures, security, and reliability. One example of this is the service level agreement for EC2. Amazon guarantees 99.99% availability spread out over three separate zones according to the region where you are using it.

Another example of the computing power available is that there are 275 instance types available. These types are defined by pre-configured templates, so there might be an instance type that is optimized for networking speed, memory capacity, or server performance.

Perhaps one of the most important benefits -- apart from the scaling and flexibility, the cost structure, and the instance types available -- is that any company can get started on EC2, not just the massive companies with enterprise-level needs. Even a small startup can sign up to start using EC2 and create only a single instance for their new web application. There’s no partiality in terms of who can use EC2 and what you can accomplish with it.

• Move your website to the cloud with the best cloud hosting.

The way we define an “application” has changed dramatically over the last decade. With the advent of cloud computing, Big Data research projects, drug discovery, transactional systems that use Bitcoin and other alternative currencies, and a vast array of services impossible to count, there’s become a great need to track what is actually happening within an app.

A modern application consists of microservices that are constantly in operation. Think of a gaming app like Fortnite with millions of users. The game is not just constantly tracking the location of every player and item, each resulting in a “user request” to track that data, but it also has to manage and analyze transactional data like items a gamer has purchased, their account information such as credit card, date of birth, and email, and do this all without any hiccups.

Another example of this is when there’s a massive transactional database used to operate an e-commerce site such as Amazon.com, or when a cable provider such as Comcast needs to keep track of user requests within its web applications. Every microservice runs in the background of modern apps unbeknownst to the end-user (and sometimes the developers themselves). Only with modern tools to analyze applications and the related microservices can any company possibly develop and deliver a reliable, high-performing app.

AWS X-Ray is a service that can help keep track of applications and user requests within those apps. It’s a debugging tool that works with AWS for production-level apps and those that are in a build and test phase. It’s designed to trace microservice user requests and works with all of the Amazon services you would expect, such as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), Amazon EC2 Container Service (Amazon ECS), AWS Lambda, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

The best way to understand X-Ray is to walk through a typical scenario of how it all works and what it does to help companies track and debug applications in the cloud.

X-Ray starts by monitoring the user requests within an application that run within a serverless environment. X-Ray collects these as they pay through the application, and can be beneficial for those with one or two applications running a transactional system for an e-commerce site or for hundreds of apps running a vast Big Data project meant to develop a new material used for a new type of product. The point of using AWS X-Ray is that it can work in the background to detect errors, latency issues, and other faults that can slow down apps.

Next, X-Ray then analyzes and records these requests, combining them into what is called a trace. A trace is a collection of user requests between the service and the resources available. Developers can use the traces in a service map that shows latencies within business apps. The last stage in using AWS X-Ray is to then analyze the traces to see where any problems might be occurring and to resolve latency issues that result from the user requests. Once developers determine the causes of the disruptions they can then work to resolve the latency issues.

Benefits of using AWS X-Ray

One of the key benefits to using AWS X-Ray is that developers have the ability to analyze and resolve latency issues in high-performing apps, including e-commerce sites, gaming apps, Big Data research projects, and everything in between. Developers can see a service map that lays it all in vivid detail, allowing them to root out problems that cause bottlenecks within the app.

This leads to better-performing apps, and the ancillary benefit to companies trying to stay competitive is that the apps run faster, smoother, and without as many faults. X-Ray also fits right within the app framework you are already using, such as Amazon EC2.

X-Ray is also flexible enough to work with just about any cloud-based app, including those with only a few user requests but a great need for low-latency, or for those who run web apps that generate thousands of user requests and need to make sure there is smooth performance. Regardless of the breadth and depth of the app, developers can still see where latencies occur and work to resolve them. All of this occurs in real-time as the app is running.

It’s also designed to work for apps in a build stage, helping developers experiment and design the app to see where latencies occur. Then, they can use X-Ray for testing the app before it hits production, helping them root out latency issues before end-users have access. Once an app hits production, developers can continue to see service maps and resolve problems. X-Ray helps after you release apps because you can implement new features, fix bugs, and deal with any endpoint security issues but still monitor and resolve bottlenecks that occur.

• We've featured the best cloud web hosting services.

Fast deployment of code is a major advantage in business. With so much competition, a multitude of platforms and services, and an enormous number of users connecting and using smartphones and other mobile devices, it is an opportunity to scale up and reach a wider audience. When you have a seamless and efficient way to deploy code, it means the business gets a boost and thrives in ways that encumbered processes don’t allow.

Think of a small company just starting out with a new social media app, one that intends to take on TikTok and capture a younger audience. There might be multiple services, servers in various locations, an on-premise IT infrastructure that is tricky to maintain -- in short, it’s not so easy. While the idea might be sound and the business requirements are clear, it is hard to deploy the code on servers where it can run reliably and where version control is not a Herculean task.

AWS CodeDeploy is a way to solve that problem, allowing companies to deploy apps on an infrastructure that runs using cloud services or in an on-premise facility in a way that is much easier. The goal with any new app, including a TikTok competitor, is to focus more on what the app can do and accomplish for the user, even if it’s watching short, entertaining videos. It’s not in trying to deploy the app so it is available for end-users at all times and runs reliably.

CodeDeploy can help you deploy apps on Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, or your on-premise infrastructure. To understand what CodeDeploy does, it’s important to briefly cover what each of those services from Amazon do and how they help your company.

ECS (Elastic Compute Cloud) is a well-known infrastructure for running virtual servers in the cloud. It’s a way to rent the compute power you need to run applications that are reliable, available, and secure. AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine that handles the compute resources you need and can scale according to your needs. AWS Lambda is an event-driven, serverless infrastructure that only deploys apps and services when they are needed.

Companies that have an on-premise infrastructure can also use CodeDeploy. As you scale your own data center and servers, the service can also scale with you.

Benefits of using AWS CodeDeploy

Developers tend to become overloaded because of the burden they face creating and maintaining business apps, but also because they are then tasked with the complexity of deployment. This can involve making sure the version control tracking is current, that revisions are tracked adequately, that the infrastructure itself can support the instances of the app, and even making sure the app is available and runs reliably for all users. They become not just developers, but also deployment and infrastructure specialists.

CodeDeploy has one major advantage in that it helps remove some of the complexity and maintenance required to deploy apps onto servers and in the infrastructure. Developers become more likely to quickly deploy new features, services, and updates. They don’t have to worry as much about reliable operation. They can focus on building the actual app.

One example of this is when it comes to minimizing downtime. During the deployment process and when apps are running in the cloud infrastructure or within your on-premise environment, CodeDeploy can track and monitor errors. Developers set rules for how the application is deployed and what happens when there are faults detected.

What’s so brilliant about this is that developers don’t have to do any of these deployments -- for a multitude of apps and services within the apps -- using what is traditionally a manual and cumbersome process. Imagine having the ability to essentially pull a switch and know that an app will be deployed across the infrastructure and be available to all users on a variety of devices, in multiple locations around the globe, and without a versioning or provisioning issue.

Thinking back to the example of the small company creating a new competitor to TikTok, the main advantage is that there’s less of a focus on deploying the app and more of a focus on what the app can do, who is able to use it, and adding new features requested. This makes a small company more competitive in the marketplace, but also helps companies of any size improve the feature-set, reliability, security, and usefulness of all apps in their portfolio.

All of this is integrated with your current software development process and the Amazon services you already use, and from one main management console instead of multiple ad hoc methods or relying on a manual, disparate process. In the end, it’s a seamless way to deploy apps that you want to bring to the market quickly and efficiently, or for apps that are in high demand and that you are continuously updating and improving over time.

• We've featured the best cloud hosting services.