DSC-JGI — Weekly Digest #009
Ample opportunities and a burrow of all the latest trends in this technology-driven world. DSC — JGI’s weekly digest #009 is an excellent way to find out what’s happening around the globe in a hassle-free way.
Take out a few minutes and savor the latest news digest!
DSC Special:
By Dheeraj Kumar (DSC-JGI, Technical Team: Android Development)
Why was Google down?
Google was down for 47 minutes on Monday 14 December 2020. The outage was worldwide. But why did that happen?
The issue was not with YouTube or Gmail. Not all Google services were down. Users were not able to use those services which require user authentication. That’s why people were able to use those services in incognito mode and some other services also which do not require user authentication.
The Problem
The problem was with Google’s Central Identity Management System (CIMS).
What is CIMS
Google’s CIMS manages the authentication of the users who want to visit google services. In simple words, CIMS acts as a gatekeeper who asks for your id card whenever you want to go inside your home. If you pass the gatekeeper then you can go anywhere you want but if the gatekeeper rejects your request then you will not be able to go inside.
The same thing happened with Google’s CIMS. When users wanted to visit any of the services CIMS was not able to authenticate the users due to which users were getting errors.
In system designs, these types of points are called Single points of failure (SPOF).
Single Points of Failure?
In computing, a single point of failure is that point where the entire system can crash if that one single point fails.
Suppose you have a database and set of servers. If the database crashes then the entire system crashes. So your entire system design will be focused on this part.
According to Google:
“The root cause was an issue in our automated quota management system which reduced capacity for Google’s central identity management system, causing it to return errors globally. As a result, we couldn’t verify that user requests were authenticated and served errors to our users.”
Well, Google hasn’t told us the problem which was in the automated quota management system till now let’s see if we will get to know about that.
So in the end what we can conclude here is to not rely on these services too much like if you have your smart bulbs, TV, refrigerator, etc. connected to Google home these times can be pretty hard for you.
Placements and recruitments
Here’s a little something for you, we have assembled a lineup of some of the leading companies in the market with an ongoing hiring process for the freshers:
- Google Inc. hiring 2021 Graduates for Bengaluru Office under their University Hiring Programme. — Read More
- Accenture job opening for freshers as Associate Software Engineers Across India. — Read More
- Job opening for freshers as Business Technology Analyst at Deloitte under Off-Campus Hiring Programme for Hyderabad Office. — Read More
- Liventus hiring for Application Developer at Bangalore Office. — Read More
Technical
The world as we know it is changing at a rapid pace. Here are some of the trending topics on emerging technologies from the last week:
- Microsoft is a founding member of the Ransomware Task Force:
Microsoft, McAfee, and 17 other organizations have come together to form a Ransomware Task Force. The new RTF is made up of security firms, tech companies, and non-profits with a shared goal of combatting ransomware. The group will work to assess current solutions that people and organizations can use to protect against ransomware attacks. — Read More
- ‘Can’t reach Google’ glitch breaks Assistant on Android, disables Smart Displays/speakers for some users:
Over the past week, a small subset of users has not been able to access Google Assistant on any of their devices. This Assistant glitch appears to be occurring at the Google Account level, with Smart Displays and speakers being the most severely impacted devices. — Read More
- The World’s first Under-display selfie camera isn’t very good:
As the war on bezels continues, plenty of Android OEMs have been trying to find ways to keep the selfie camera functional. The holy grail of that tech has been under-display cameras, and now the first phone with that feature has arrived in the ZTE Axon 20. Unfortunately, it shows the idea has a long way to go. — Read More
- Amazon’s Project Kuiper That Will Compete With Elon Musk’s Starlink:
Elon Musk’s Starlink company is not alone in placing satellites in Earth orbit to provide the Internet. Amazon presented the antennas that will communicate with the more than 3,000 satellites that Jeff Bezos intends to launch into space to provide web connectivity. — Read More
Computer Science
To help you stay updated with new developments in the field of computer science. Here are some of the popular headlines from the last week:
- The tiny quantum computer solves real optimization problem:
Quantum computers have already managed to surpass ordinary computers in solving certain tasks — unfortunately, totally useless ones. The next milestone is to get them to do useful things. Researchers have now shown that they can solve a small part of a real logistics problem with their small, but a well-functioning quantum computer. — Read More
- Developing a better way to address vulnerabilities at the source-code level:
The need to patch a problem in a program that is embedded in an existing system, perhaps to introduce or enhance security, is a common one, according to UC Santa Barbara computer science professor Giovanni Vigna. — Read More
- Researchers reveal a link between cryptocurrency coding and market behavior:
A new study by Reader in City’s Department of Mathematics, Dr. Andrea Baronchelli, published in the Science Advances journal, has revealed a connection between the coding of cryptocurrencies and their market behavior — Read More
- Major Computing Breakthrough: Copenhagen Researchers Can Now Achieve “Quantum Advantage”:
University of Copenhagen researchers have advanced their quantum technology to such a degree that classical computing technology can no longer keep up. They have developed a chip that, with financial backing, could be scaled up and used to build the quantum simulator of the future. Their results are now published in Science Advances. — Read More
- “Electronic Amoeba” Analog Computer Finds Swift Solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem:
Researchers at Hokkaido University and Amoeba Energy in Japan have, inspired by the efficient foraging behavior of a single-celled amoeba, developed an analog computer for finding a reliable and swift solution to the traveling salesman problem — a representative combinatorial optimization problem. — Read More
Hold on tight for our next weekly digest, to find out “What new cool things are happening around you”.
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