Monthly Archives: January 2022

Health News Roundup: U.S. FDA approves Pfizer’s drug to treat eczema; U.S. reports case of highly pathogenic avian flu in a wild bird and more -…

Posted: January 17, 2022 at 8:20 am

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Peak Omicron? Experts wary of calling time on variant wave in Europe

A surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant may have peaked in some parts of Europe but medics say the impact will continue to be felt across the region, with hospitals still at risk of facing a rush of admissions. Health experts and politicians warn against complacency, saying it is not yet clear whether their data reflect the full impact of the Christmas and New Year holidays, when families gathered for long periods indoors and the risk of intergenerational spread of the virus may be greater.

U.S. FDA approves Pfizer's drug to treat eczema

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer Inc's drug Cibinqo to treat eczema, a skin disease, the company said on Friday.

EMA lists rare spinal condition as side effect of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot

A safety panel of the European drug regulator on Friday recommended adding a rare spinal inflammation called transverse myelitis as a side effect of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) safety committee also recommended a similar warning be included for Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine in October, and reiterated the decision on Friday.

UK study finds more Omicron hospitalisations in youngest children, but cases mild

Young children and babies are proportionally more likely to be hospitalised with Omicron compared to older children than with previous variants but the cases are still mild, British researchers said, adding the overall picture was reassuring. Omicron has spread rapidly in Britain and fuelled a spike in cases to record highs, though the variant is less severe than previous ones, and high vaccination levels among adults have also helped to limit the rise in hospitalisations. Children are less vulnerable than older adults to COVID-19.

FDA approves expanded use of AbbVie's arthritis drug to treat eczema

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the expanded use of AbbVie Inc's arthritis drug to treat eczema, a skin disease, the company said on Friday. The approval of Rinvoq for the treatment of moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, or eczema, was for patients 12 years and older who do not respond to previous treatment or when use of other treatments is not recommended.

As Omicron fuels surge, U.S. students stage walkouts to protest in-person classes

Hundreds of students in Boston and Chicago walked out of classes on Friday to pressure officials to switch to remote learning, as a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant disrupts schools around the United States. About 600 students from 11 Boston schools participated, according to the school district. Many students returned to classrooms later, while others went home after taking part in peaceful demonstrations.

Mexico approves emergency use of Pfizer's COVID-19 pills

Mexican health regulator COFEPRIS said on Friday it had approved U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer's antiviral oral treatment against COVID-19 for emergency use in adults with light or moderate risk of complications. Paxlovid, which combines nirmatrelvir and ritonavir in a tablet, will require a prescription, it said in a statement.

U.S. reports case of highly pathogenic avian flu in a wild bird

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday confirmed the first case of a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza in a wild bird since 2016, in South Carolina. The strain, Eurasian H5 avian influenza, was found in a wild American wigeon in Colleton County, South Carolina, the agency said in a statement. It advised poultry producers to review safety measures to assure the health of their birds.

U.S. households can order 4 free COVID-19 tests starting Jan 19 - White House

U.S. households can order four free at-home COVID-19 tests from the website COVIDTests.gov starting on Jan. 19 with shipping expected seven to 12 days after ordering, the White House said on Friday. The batch of free tests are aimed at easing a shortage of COVID-19 tests across the country amid increased demand during the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

Burned by COVID supply crunch, hospitals invest in U.S. mask-making

Two days before Christmas, a cargo ship left Mumbai with a mask-making machine bound for Illinois-based OSF HealthCare, which will use the equipment to make its own N95 masks. It isn't the hospital group's first foray into manufacturing. After COVID-19 border closures in early 2020 choked shipments from Asia, producer of about 80% of the world's medical masks and protective gear, OSF and some other hospital groups started investing in U.S. production of key supplies including masks, gowns and critical pharmaceuticals.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Read more here:
Health News Roundup: U.S. FDA approves Pfizer's drug to treat eczema; U.S. reports case of highly pathogenic avian flu in a wild bird and more -...

Posted in Eczema | Comments Off on Health News Roundup: U.S. FDA approves Pfizer’s drug to treat eczema; U.S. reports case of highly pathogenic avian flu in a wild bird and more -…

The supplements that help with weight loss, eczema, UTI’s and colds – North Wales Live

Posted: at 8:20 am

Bacteria is often associated with disease and general uncleanliness, however ingestion of certain types can actually have remarkable health benefits.

Probiotics are live bacteria and yeasts and often lauded for their natural composition that helps ailments as well as weight loss.

They are a certain type of friendly bacteria, that provides health benefits when eaten.

Read more: Important changes on Covid vaccines for young people in Wales announced

One way in which they can help is weight loss. Harvard Health says that visceral fat has been linked to increased risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

If you are planning to lose weight for your health, advice suggests that you do this in a gradual way. A healthy diet and exercise can help, however, this supplement can also be considered.

Healthline suggests that probiotics may help you lose visceral fat, and the good bacterias use does not stop there.

There is also some research that shows they're useful for problems in other parts of your body as well as helping with weight loss. For example, some people say they have helped with:

Skin conditions, like eczema

Urinary and vaginal health

Preventing allergies and colds

Oral health

Researchers are trying to figure out exactly how probiotics work. Some of the ways they may keep you healthy:

When you lose "good" bacteria in your body, for example after you take antibiotics, probiotics can help replace them.

They can help balance your "good" and "bad" bacteria to keep your body working the way it should.

The NHS explains for most people, probiotics appear to be safe but notes probiotics are generally classed as food rather than medicine, which means they don't go through the rigorous testing medicines do.

Lactobacillus - This may be the most common probiotic. It's the one you'll find in yogurt and other fermented foods. Different strains can help with diarrhea and may help people who can't digest lactose, the sugar in milk.

Bifidobacterium .- You can find it in some dairy products. It may help ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and some other conditions.

Saccharomyces boulardii - is a yeast found in probiotics. It appears to help fight diarrhea and other digestive problems.

Probiotic foods include yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh, and kimchi.

One study published in the Journal of Functional Foods looked at probiotics, and found that they may have body composition modifying properties.

Did you know we offer a free Love North Wales newsletter?

Whether you live in the region or just like to visit the area, our weekly newsletter will bring you inspiration for the best places to visit, eat, shop and have fun in North Wales.

To sign up to the weekly Love North Wales newsletter click here.

Another, published in the National Library of Medicine, says certain probiotics can help you lose weight and visceral fat, by reducing dietary fat absorption in the gut, increasing how much of it you excrete in faeces.

The NHS recommends: Your GP or practice nurse can help you assess your current diet and levels of physical activity, and set personal goals for change.

It is important to note that these supplements should be discussed with your doctor before taking a high amount or lengthy course. In rare cases they could lead to mild side effects.

More information can be found on these good bacteria at Healthline.

See the original post:
The supplements that help with weight loss, eczema, UTI's and colds - North Wales Live

Posted in Eczema | Comments Off on The supplements that help with weight loss, eczema, UTI’s and colds – North Wales Live

Dermavant Presents New Patient Satisfaction Data from PSOARING 3 Long Term Extension Trial of Tapinarof in Adults with Plaque Psoriasis at the 2022…

Posted: at 8:20 am

- Patients from PSOARING 3 who completed the survey preferred tapinarof to prior topical treatments with 81.7% considering it more effective -

LONG BEACH, Calif. & BASEL, Switzerland, January 15, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dermavant Sciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics in immuno-dermatology, today announced results from a patient satisfaction questionnaire in the long-term, open-label Phase 3 PSOARING 3 extension study of tapinarof cream 1% once daily for the treatment of plaque psoriasis in adults. Patient responses demonstrated consistent high rates of satisfaction and positive perception of treatment with tapinarof across all patient-relevant parameters, including patient satisfaction with treatment efficacy, formulation elegance, ease of application, impact on daily life and preference for tapinarof versus prior psoriasis therapies. These results were presented during the 2022 Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference, held January 14-19 in Koloa, Hawaii.

"As a clinician, its paramount that my patients are satisfied with their treatment, as research shows that patients who are satisfied with their treatment are more likely to continue treatment, which may improve treatment efficacy. I am encouraged by these results with tapinarof showing consistent patient satisfaction, which has often been difficult to achieve with current psoriasis treatments, including steroidal topicals," said Jerry Bagel, M.D., M.S., director of the Psoriasis Treatment Center of New Jersey and Eczema Treatment Center of New Jersey in East Windsor, a member of the National Psoriasis Foundation board of directors, and lead author of this publication. "Building on previous PSOARING 3 results, these findings demonstrate that tapinarof, subject to FDA approval, has the potential to be a long-awaited new treatment option to improve the care of patients suffering from this debilitating, chronic condition."

Story continues

Responses to the questionnaire, which were assessed at study completion (week 40 or early termination), demonstrated consistent high rates of satisfaction across all evaluated parameters. Of the 78.5% (599/763) of patients from PSOARING 3 who completed the survey:

Patients preferred tapinarof to prior topical treatments with 81.7% considering it more effective.

85.8% either strongly agreed or agreed they could easily manage their psoriasis with tapinarof.

82.5% expressed that they would use tapinarof again or continue using it if available.

"As a team that is driven by a passion for helping patients, we are delighted to present findings for patient satisfaction with tapinarof from PSOARING 3 during the 2022 Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference, highlighting our continued commitment to addressing unmet needs for patients with inflammatory skin conditions," said Philip M. Brown, M.D., J.D., Chief Medical Officer of Dermavant. "We know that patients with plaque psoriasis and their physicians are looking for non-steroidal topical treatment options, and we hope to bring long-overdue innovation to this community."

In August 2021, the FDA accepted a New Drug Application for tapinarof for the treatment of plaque psoriasis in adult patients and assigned a Prescription Drug User Fee Act target action date in Q2 2022.

About Dermavants Phase 3 Program for Tapinarof in Psoriasis

Dermavants pivotal Phase 3 clinical program for tapinarof in adult plaque psoriasis consists of PSOARING 1 (NCT03956355) and PSOARING 2 (NCT03983980), as well as PSOARING 3 (NCT04053387), a long-term extension study.

PSOARING 1 and PSOARING 2, which collectively enrolled 1,025 patients, were two identically designed, multi-center, randomized, vehicle-controlled, double-blind, parallel group studies conducted in North America that evaluated the safety and efficacy of tapinarof cream, 1% dosed once daily (QD) for 12 weeks versus vehicle QD in adult patients aged 18-75 years diagnosed with plaque psoriasis. The primary endpoint of both studies was the proportion of patients who achieved a PGA score of clear (0) or almost clear (1) with a minimum 2-grade improvement from baseline at Week 12.

PSOARING 3 was a long-term, open-label, extension study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of tapinarof cream, 1% for the treatment of plaque psoriasis in adults. Patients in the study had previously completed treatment with tapinarof or vehicle in either the PSOARING 1 or PSOARING 2 Phase 3 pivotal efficacy and safety studies. PSOARING 3 consisted of up to 40 weeks of tapinarof cream, 1%, and a 4-week safety follow-up period. As such, patients who received drug during PSOARING 1 and PSOARING 2 and who completed PSOARING 3, received treatment with tapinarof cream for up to 52 weeks. Greater than 90% of eligible patients who completed PSOARING 1 and PSOARING 2 enrolled in PSOARING 3. Dermavant released interim analysis results from PSOARING 3 in February 2021 and the study completed on April 5, 2021.

About Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic, systemic, inflammatory skin disease characterized by red patches and plaques with silvery scales on the skin. Psoriasis affects approximately 8 million people in the United States and 125 million worldwide.

Psoriasis can begin at any age, but typically has two peaks of onset, the first at age 20 to 30 years and the second at age 50 to 60 years. People with psoriasis are at an increased risk of developing other chronic and serious health conditions. Comorbidities include psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and depression. Psoriasis has a significant impact on quality of life and on psychological health.

About Dermavant

Dermavant Sciences, a subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics in immuno-dermatology. Dermavants focus is to develop therapies that have the potential to address high unmet medical needs while driving greater efficiency in research and clinical development. The companys robust medical dermatology pipeline includes both late-stage and earlier-stage-development product candidates the company believes could address important immuno-dermatological conditions, including psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, vitiligo, primary focal hyperhidrosis, and acne. Tapinarof is a novel, therapeutic aryl hydrocarbon receptor modulating agent, in development as a once-daily, steroid-free and cosmetically elegant topical cream for the treatment of plaque psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, which affect approximately 8 million and 26 million people in the United States, respectively. The company has reported positive Phase 3 results for tapinarof cream in adult patients with plaque psoriasis. For more information, please visit http://www.dermavant.com, and follow us on Twitter (@dermavant) and LinkedIn (Dermavant Sciences).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220115005007/en/

Contacts

Gilmartin:Laurence WattsManaging Directorlaurence@gilmartinir.com 619-916-7620

dna Communications:Angela Salerno-RobinSenior Vice President, Media Relations, HealthcareASalerno-Robin@dna-comms.com 212-445-8219

Go here to read the rest:
Dermavant Presents New Patient Satisfaction Data from PSOARING 3 Long Term Extension Trial of Tapinarof in Adults with Plaque Psoriasis at the 2022...

Posted in Eczema | Comments Off on Dermavant Presents New Patient Satisfaction Data from PSOARING 3 Long Term Extension Trial of Tapinarof in Adults with Plaque Psoriasis at the 2022…

Cloud Computing Services | Microsoft Azure

Posted: at 8:18 am

Simplify and accelerate development and testing (dev/test) across any platform

Bring together people, processes and products to continuously deliver value to customers and coworkers.

Build secure apps on a trusted platform. Embed security in your developer workflow and foster collaboration with a DevSecOps framework.

Give customers what they want with a personalised, scalable and secure shopping experience

Build, quickly launch and reliably scale your games across platforms and refine based on analytics.

Turn your ideas into applications faster using the right tools for the job.

Create reliable apps and functionalities at scale and bring them to market faster.

Reach your customers everywhere, on any device, with a single mobile app build.

Respond to changes faster, optimise costs and ship confidently.

Build apps faster by not having to manage infrastructure.

Connect modern applications with a comprehensive set of messaging services on Azure

Accelerate time to market, deliver innovative experiences and improve security with Azure application and data modernisation.

The rest is here:

Cloud Computing Services | Microsoft Azure

Posted in Cloud Computing | Comments Off on Cloud Computing Services | Microsoft Azure

Top 10 Cloud Service Providers In 2021

Posted: at 8:18 am

Introduction

Whether its infrastructure, software, applications, services, products, or even an operating system, everything is making its way to the cloud. As a result, billions of dollars are being invested in cloud migration. In this detailed article, Ill review the most popular cloud providers, their cloud offerings, and which cloud provider you should choose for your cloud services, from a developer perspective.

Cloud computing has multiplied over the past several years. As such businesses are increasingly transitioning to different cloud services. In this article, Ill review some of the best, most popular cloud providers and their offerings, pricing, and features. I will also provide details on which cloud provider you should choose and why.

Cloud computing is Web-based computing thatallows businesses and individuals to consume computing resources such as virtual machines, databases, processing, memory, services, storage, messaging, events, and pay-as-you-go. Cloud services often improve upon older ones. For example, the pay-as-you-go model charges for resources as they are used. Unlike traditional computing, if you do not use any resources, you do not need to pay. Similar to a water connection or an electricity line, you have a meter and this meter keeps track of your monthly usage. You then pay for that usage at a given rate.

Here are some key advantages of cloud computing:

1. Cloud computing allows a business to cut their operational and fixed monthly costs of hardware, databases, servers, software licenses. Eventually, it will reduce the need for IT resources, including people. All hardware, database servers, web servers, software, products, and services are hosted in the cloud and added to an account as needed.

2. Cloud computing offers 24/7 uptime (99.99% uptime). Cloud servers and data centers are managed by the cloud service provided. Therefore, there is no need for employee management.

3. Cloud computing is scalable and reliable. There is no limit to the number of users or resources. Furthermore, the cloud increases processing and resources as needed. If you do not need resources, you can always scale down.

4. Cloud computing provides maintainability and automatic updates of new software, OS, databases, and third-party software. It also reduces IT labor cost for a business.

5. Cloud service providers have data centers in various locations, which makes them faster and more reliable. Larger companies such as Microsoft and AWS even have data centers around the world.

Cloud computing can be divided into three major categories, Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

IaaS offers entire IT computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet. The key components of IaaS are used to replace existing development and test environments, virtual machines, website hosting, storage, backup, networking, servers, operating systems, middleware, data, and applications, and high-performance computing (HPC).

According to Gartner Magic Quadrant, AWS leads Microsoft and Google cloud in the IaaS position.

The PaaS component of cloud computing offers a full development and deployment environment in the cloud, including dev, test, QA, debugging, and deployment tools and services.

SaaS is a software developed and hosted by someone else. Businesses or individuals are able to use them as needed.

Today, the majority of top cloud service providers offer all of these services. The two leaders in cloud computing are Amazon and Microsoft, followed by Google, Alibaba, and IBM. In this article, we will compare the top cloud computing providers and their categories.

According to a report by Canalys shown in the below chart, in Q4, 2020, AWS cloud grew by 28% and Azure, Google, and Alibaba clouds grew 50%, 58%, and 54% respectively. As of this report, AWS has 31% of total cloud market share followed by Azure, Google, and Alibaba that have 20%, 7%, and 6% respectively.

Here is a list of my top 10 cloud service providers:

The following table summarizes the top 3 key players and their offerings in the cloud computing world:

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Company

AWS Inc.

Microsoft

Google

Launch year

2006

2010

2008

Geographical Regions

25

54

21

Availability Zones

78

140 (countries)

61

Key offerings

Compute, storage, database, analytics, networking, machine learning, and AI, mobile, developer tools, IoT, security, enterprise applications, blockchain.

Compute, storage, mobile, data management, messaging, media services, CDN, machine learning and AI, developer tools, security, blockchain, functions, IoT.

Compute, storage, databases, networking, big data, cloud AI, management tools, Identity and security, IoT, API platform

Compliance Certificates

46

90

Annual Revenue

$33 billion

$35 billion

$8 billion

#1. Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an Amazon company that was launched in the year 2002. AWS is the most popular cloud service provider in the world.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the worlds most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 165 fully-featured services from data centers globally. This service is used by millions of customers.

AWSs revenue in the year 2018 was $25.6 billion with a profit of $7.2 billion. The revenue is expected to grow to $33 billion in 2019.

AWS Services

AWS offers hundreds of services. Some of these include Virtual Private Cloud, EC2, AWS Data Transfer, Simple Storage Service, DynamoDB, Elastic Compute Cloud, AWS Key Management Service, AmazonCloudWatch, Simple Notification Service, Relational Database Service, Route 53, Simple Queue Service, CloudTrail, and Simple Email Service.

The following graphic is a list of the various categories of services available in AWS. The right side of the list includes AWSs featured services.

AWS Security

Cloud security is the highest priority for AWS. As a customer, you will benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations.

AWS security offers services such as infrastructure security, DDoS mitigation, data encryption, inventory and configuration, monitoring and logging, identity and access control, and penetration testing.

Compliances

AWS provides 40+ compliance certifications for the global, US, and other countries. Here is the list of various supported compliance certifications:

AWS global availability

See the original post here:

Top 10 Cloud Service Providers In 2021

Posted in Cloud Computing | Comments Off on Top 10 Cloud Service Providers In 2021

Best cloud hosting services in 2022 | TechRadar

Posted: at 8:18 am

Cloud hosting has changed the hosting industry for the better, allowing for increasing reliability and resilience for clients.

Signing up for a simple web hosting package would usually buy you a defined block of resources on a single server: register your domain name, then choose this much web space, that much bandwidth, maybe a set amount of RAM or CPU cores.

While this works well for many websites, having fixed resources can be a problem for larger projects. There's generally no way to temporarily allocate extra RAM or bandwidth if you experience an increase in traffic, and even a simple plan upgrade might require your website to go offline for a while.

Cloud hosting plans look much like virtual private server (VPS) web hosting products, where you'll initially pay for a set amount of web space, RAM, CPU time and bandwidth. But these resources are spread across multiple devices instead of just one, and changing your plan later adding another gig of RAM, for instance is generally as easy as dragging a slider, with the extra power coming online within moments.

There are also additional options for small business web hosting, such as environmentally-friendly green web hosting. Additionally, cloud hosting is scalable and can provide for a good alternative to needing a dedicated server with colocation provider, and there are options for managed web hosting services.

You can use cloud hosting for everything, from just hosting your emails, to replacing your business server. However, if you want a hands-on experience expect the virtual servers to be running Linux, not Windows.

Cloud hosting still won't be for everyone, and small, simple websites are likely to be better off with regular packages. But the technology has a lot to offer anyone with larger or more ambitious projects, and many hosts run free trials which make it easy to explore their abilities for yourself.

1. Hostinger

Best cloud web hosting provider

+Disk Storage - starts from 200GB+Free SSL+Free Domain+300 Websites+Daily Backups

Hostinger is one of the biggest providers of free web hosting via its 000webhosting brand. It has well over 30 million users, and some of the lowest prices thanks to low running costs and overheads. Hostinger gives their users a convenient choice of technology - cPanel or hPanel, its own customized control panel. A more intuitive hPanel allows a better and more comfortable control of performance and features.

There are three plans available, Cloud Startup, Cloud Professional, and Cloud Enterprise, all of which offer 300 websites and unlimited bandwidth for your account.

The Cloud Startup plan comes with 200GB of SSD storage, 3GB of RAM, and 2 CPU cores. The Cloud Professional plan increases these to 250GB storage, 6GB RAM, and 4 CPU cores, the Cloud Enterprise plan extends these further to 300GB storage, 12GB RAM, and 6CPU cores. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and domain name.

Pricing depends on how long you commit to the service. For the Cloud Startup plan, it costs $29.00 on a month to month basis. However, if you commit for a year the monthly cost falls to $12.99 a month. For a two-year contract, it drops to $10.99 per month, and for a four-year contract, it falls to $9.99 a month.

2. HostGator

Cloud hosting for only websites

+Simple to use+Solid range of plans+Temptingly priced with initial discounts

If you only need to host a website rather than additional business data, then HostGator's cloud platform could be a more ideal choice. Unlike normal web hosting, Hostgator's cloud hosting platform spreads your website load across multiple virtual server instances for more reliable and scalable hosting, but it's as easy to use as standard shared hosting, and only costs a little more.

For example, the baseline Hatchling Cloud plan gets you support for one domain, unmetered bandwidth and storage, a share of up to two cores and 2GB RAM, and distributed Varnish caching to speed up the loading of static content. You can get started for as little as $3.13 (2.26) per month if you buy three years upfront, although the price leaps to $8.95 (6.40) on renewal.

If you need something more powerful, the top-of-the-range Business Cloud plan supports unlimited domains, gives you up to six cores and 6GB RAM, and includes private SSL and a dedicated IP. Another chunky introductory discount means you can pay as little as $6.28 (4.54) per month over three years, but after that, you'll pay $17.95 (12.80) per month.

Benefits of the cloud plans include (up to) twice as fast load times, along with more site statistics, and because your site is mirrored across multiple devices, the ability to switch your site to another server in the event of a hardware failure.

But the key advantage of all cloud hosting schemes is scalability. If your site can't cope with demand, you can scale up to eight cores and 8GB RAM with a click. There's no waiting around for someone to process your order and no downtime while your web space is reallocated you get the extra resources right away.

Also, while prices go up after the initial discount promotion, they still remain extremely competitive.

3. Cloudways

A neat compromise between power and ease-of-use

+User-friendly yet powerful+Highly configurable+Free trial

At first glance, cloud hosting products seem to be divided into two clear groups: enterprise-level technology from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and more, or simpler and more user-friendly products from hosts like Hostgator.

Cloudways represents an interesting middle path. The company offers managed cloud hosting which is powered by your choice of the top providers Amazon, Google, DigitalOcean, Linode or Vultr are supported and comes packed with features, yet is configured from a simple web console which is just as easy to use as the more basic competition.

It's an impressive platform. Cloudways' ThunderStack covers all your core performance needs: Nginx, Apache, Memcached, MySQL/MariaDB, Varnish Cache, PHP 7, PHP-FM and Redis. There's one-click cloning, backup and restore, integrated Git and team collaboration tools for developers, and no less than 60 data centers strategically placed around the world (over 25 locations).

Despite all this high-end functionality, Cloudways products are generally simple to operate, and prices start at a beginner-friendly $10 (7.15) per month for one core, 1GB RAM, 25GB storage and 1TB of bandwidth. It's all supremely configurable, and a free trial allows you to check out the product, with no credit card details required. Furthermore, a referral system is available, where both you and your friends can receive free hosting credits.

4. Bluehost

An exceptional cloud web hosting provider

+Unmetered bandwidth+WooCommerce hosting+Free domain+24x7-US-based support

Bluehost is a company based in Utah which is owned by web giant Endurance International Group (EIG). It offers basic shared hosting from $2.75 monthly (on a three-year contract), with managed WordPress plans starting at $9.95 per month (although thats also a discounted introductory rate).

For the money, you get automated setup for WordPress, not to mention other popular apps via a Mojo Marketplace-powered system. Theres also a cPanel-based area to allow expert users to tweak things.

Furthermore, Bluehost provides a Weebly-based website builder. This is a basic browser-based affair that lets you create a website of up to six pages, and there are no extras like site templates included. But still, its better than nothing, and more functionality is in the pipeline plus you get this builder with the basic account.

Theres also good customer support on offer, and the end result is a mix of user-friendly aspects alongside a good amount of power, and potential tweaking for more advanced users.

While Bluehost doesn't offer cloud hosting as a separate service, it does offer free access to CloudFlare cloud hosting with all of its plans. This automatically increases the performance of your website without having to code or program for any changes.

5. Dreamhost

Best cloud server hosting and cloud object storage

+Open source platform+Powerful hardware+Entry for cloud services+Computing or storage options

Dreamhost offers cloud server hosting, taking it a step up from the other plans offered here. However, by running their unmanaged cloud servers the expectation is that users will be comfortable with a command line environment for managing their cloud hosting service.

Dreamhost's cloud hosting services cover two main areas: cloud computing and cloud object storage.

DreamCompute is the cloud computing service, and offers an easy way to develop and grow your own cloud services. You can run it based on Linux, BSD, or Windows, in a serverless environment based on the latest SSD storage and next-gen processors.

Built around the free and open-source OpenStack platform, there is no lock-in to proprietary software, and you can use Dreamhost as a place to grow until you're ready to manage your own OpenStack.

DreamObjects is Dreamhost's secure cloud storage hosting storage service, which can be use as a web development environment to augment or replace AWS E3 services. DreamObjects can also be used for backup storage.

While cloud services and storage can seem over-whelming for new users, Dreamhosts provides the ideal place to start to experiment, explore, and grow your cloud services at a very cost-effective rate.

Round up of today's best deals

Read more from the original source:

Best cloud hosting services in 2022 | TechRadar

Posted in Cloud Computing | Comments Off on Best cloud hosting services in 2022 | TechRadar

Could Nvidia Be a Great Stock to Buy in 2022? – The Motley Fool

Posted: at 8:18 am

In a recent episode of "The Rank" on Fool Live, three of our top contributors discussed their highest-conviction stocks for 2022. In this clip,recorded on Jan. 10, Fool.com contributor Danny Vena explains why Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one of his top stocks to buy in 2022, and why he still thinks it has lots of upside potential from here.

Danny Vena: Nvidia is a company that many people are familiar with. This is a company that is the leading provider of graphics processing units or GPUs for gaming computers. Now, GPUs started out as being the humble ship that's used by high-end gamers, but it has since expanded its role so let's talk a little bit about who Nvidia is and what they do.

Now, Nvidia is the pioneer of the modern GPU. Other graphics processors have been around as early as the mid-'70s. Nvidia introduced the modern graphics processor in 1999 and its secret sauce is the ability to do what's called parallel processing or it can conduct a multitude of complex mathematical calculations simultaneously, which is what allows the company to produce these lifelike graphics in video games. Now, part of the reason that I'm so excited about Nvidia is the fact that they dominate the GPU market with about 83% of the discrete desktop GPU sales according to Jon Peddie Research.

Now, this is just a jumping-off point, however. I mean, if you think about all of the great companies in the world and primarily they have one gigantic dominant product and then they expand off into other areas. Think about what Meta (NASDAQ:FB), formerly Facebook, has done. Think about what Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) has done. This is where Nvidia got its start, was in gaming chips. But since then, Nvidia, after doing tons of research found that the parallel processing capabilities of their GPUs also were uniquely suited to serve the needs of artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

So as a result of that, Nvidia GPUs are found in all of the world's largest data centers and cloud computing operations. Now, as a result of this, if you look at their financial results, in the third quarter, they generated revenue of $7 billion up 50% year-over-year. That included record gaming revenue of $3.2 billion up 42%, record datacenter revenue, $2.94 billion up 55%. Their gross margin is ticking higher from just under 63% a year ago to just over 65% now and net income was $2.46 billion up 84%.

Now that's accelerating a lot faster than what the revenue is and the reason for that is because they have leverage, they're building, not just these GPUs, but hardware and software combinations that they can sell directly to these data centers, to these cloud computing operations and as a result of that Nvidia has been soaring and all of that research is funded by sales of its humble gaming chips. I'm really excited about Nvidia.

I think that the move to cloud computing and the move to AI is going to continue not only this year but for a decade or more and Nvidia has the best mousetrap out there for helping in those areas. Nvidia is one of my highest conviction stocks. I have about a half a dozen of them out of the 60-plus in my portfolio and Nvidia is definitely in the top five.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

Continue reading here:

Could Nvidia Be a Great Stock to Buy in 2022? - The Motley Fool

Posted in Cloud Computing | Comments Off on Could Nvidia Be a Great Stock to Buy in 2022? – The Motley Fool

Routed announces new Partner Portal – IT-Online

Posted: at 8:18 am

VMware Cloud Verified and VMware Principal Partner, Routed, has launched its channel partner portal.

It aims to provide curated resources for partners, managed services providers, and ISPs selling, marketing, and operating as resellers of VMware Cloud through Routed.

Routed became the first VMware Cloud Verified partner in Africa in 2019 and has gone on to become a VMware Principal Partner, too. Andrew Cruise, MD of Routed, explains that Routed has built a resilient and robust channel to assist its partners in delivering the best solutions that their end-customers have come to expect from VMware.

VMware has a discerning customer base with specific requirements of their cloud technologies. Building our Partner Platform has allowed us to curate and focus our efforts on providing our partners with the right tools, material, and support for VMware Cloud presence in Africa through Routed, says Cruise.

Sumeeth Singh, cloud provider business head at VMware South Africa, confirms: Cloud computing solutions are driving the current wave of digital innovation. Through partners like Routed and their channel, we see the acceleration we look forward to, in an age where organisations big and small can benefit from a secure, efficient, and scalable VMware Cloud service delivery platform.

According to Gartner, spending on the public cloud is forecast to grow over 18% in 2021, with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) expected to gain the most. Managed Service Providers, ISPs, even ISVs and distribution partners will do well to capitalise on this as organisations needs evolve. The market has already shifted from supply-driven to demand-driven, and its become essential for all organisations to consider how the cloud fits into their infrastructure plans.

On-premises infrastructure will always have its place in organisations, especially when more control is required, but it is asset-heavy and slow to adapt to change and growth. For the right use-cases migrating infrastructure to the cloud provides end-customers with agility and cost savings.

Routed depends on partners who can manage the implementation of its solutions, some of the most complete VMware Cloud-based infrastructure deployments available locally.

The opportunity exists for our partners who, with the right resources, knowledge and support from Routed and VMware, can confidently engage with their end-customers to provide the world-class solutions that VMware is renowned for with the level of support and service that they come to expect, adds Cruise.

With its Principal Partner status as a Cloud Provider the highest tiered recognition within the VMware Partner Connect programme Routeds partners now benefit from the same level of resources and support that a Principal Partner will enjoy but facilitated by Routed.

We are changing the cloud landscape, and this is just the start because, at Routed, we want the industry to develop because when the end-customers realise the benefits, we all win, concludes Cruise.

Related

View post:

Routed announces new Partner Portal - IT-Online

Posted in Cloud Computing | Comments Off on Routed announces new Partner Portal – IT-Online

Team Singularity signs multi-year deal with IGG – Esports Insider

Posted: at 8:18 am

Media tech business Interactive Gaming Group (IGG) has signed a multi-year partnership with Danish esports organisation Team Singularity.

As part of the deal, IGG will act as a key partner and will look to raise the commercial profile of Team Singularity.

RELATED: Team Singularity expands Blocksport partnership to launch NFT series

Atle S. Stehouwer, Founder & CEO of Team Singularity, commented: I am excited for Team Singularity to team up with the good people from Interactive Gaming Group. Their extensive track record speaks for itself, and this partnership will help us grow our revenue stream and partnership engagements overall.

According to the release, the collaboration is anchored around Team Singularitys vision to become a global leader in esports, with a strong and dedicated core community. To do that, IGG will leverage some of its own existing relationships across key global markets and raise awareness of the Team Singularity brand.

Cristina Niculae, CEO of Interactive Gaming Group (IGG), added: We are delighted to partner with Team Singularity, an organisation which is paving the way to a growing worldwide eSports ecosystem across multiple platforms.

We believe in the power of community building, and Team Singularity stands out in its ability to engage a community between content and competition. This partnership is one step forward towards our vision to inspire the world to play and bring great interactive entertainment to people around the globe.

RELATED: Team Singularity unveils first Path2Pro partnerships

At the end of 2021, Team Singularity joined forces with gaming chair manufacturer AndaSeat. Moreover, the organisation expanded its cooperation with Swiss-based sportstech company Blocksport to launch fan tokens.

Esports Insider says: Team Singularitys commercial profile is set for a big boost with the help of Interactive Gaming Group (IGG). The media company boasts some big-name partners in the tech and esports industry such as Google, Twitch and YouTube. With the right strategy, Team Singularity will be able to further grow its global community.

Sign up to our ESI Dispatch Newsletter

The rest is here:

Team Singularity signs multi-year deal with IGG - Esports Insider

Posted in Singularity | Comments Off on Team Singularity signs multi-year deal with IGG – Esports Insider

Morality in the Age of Machines | John Waters – First Things

Posted: at 8:18 am

The Age of AI:And Our Human Futureby henry a. kissinger, eric schmidt, and daniel huttenlocherjohn murray, 256 pages, $30

This is a book with three authors, which is both unusual and tricky because, while reading it, youre constantly wondering who might have written the section or sentence before you. Unsurprisingly, it is a book incapable of entering into functional relationships. You cannot settle down with it or get to know the mind that created it, so as to succumb to or fight against it. This book has an insinuating purpose that is not literary, not purposefully discursive, not even argumentative. What it advances is a rather sly, self-interested, and one-sidedbrieffor how the most pressing issue currently facing the human race might be boxed off to the benefit of you-know-who.

The overall impression is of a kind of manifesto for an election yet to be declared. Clearly, the book aims to seize the initiative on AI so that Big Tech can monopolize and control it, because thats why Big Tech exists. Anyone genuinely seeking to understand what is happening with AI and the related spheres of transhumanism, posthumanism, and the Technological Singularity should probablylook elsewhere.

The questions concerning what is to be done with or about AI, and who will have control of the toggle switch, are about to become urgent ones. After a period of seeming technical somnambulanceAI winters, techies call these pauses in advancementthere has lately been a burst of renewed above-ground activity, perhaps indicating that the moment of Technological Singularity (essentially, when the machines created by man become more clever than their creators) may be at hand. This moment will trigger a frenetic jockeying for positionby governments, corporations, and especially by Silicon Valleyto lay claim to control, to table and filibuster against regulation, to frame the philosophical contract that will govern this new era.

As things stand, it appears that artificial intelligence, while capable of outperforming humans in certain tasks and reckonings, still requires human supervision. Being neither sentient nor self-aware, AI cannot reflect on its own processes. It gets things wrong, mainly due to insufficient, poor, or confusing inputs, albeit less so than before. Sometimes the problems arise from human bias manifesting in the input data. It seems the AI cannot (as yet?) be taught common sense. Such teething problems are inevitable, we are told, but the authors pointedly note thatwhiledevelopers are continually weeding out flaws, deployment has often preceded troubleshooting. This tendency, they concede, is extremely risky. But also, I would interject, inevitable when things are left in the hands of amoral corporations.

For many years, the pursuit of what is called the technological posthuman has continued at the subterranean level, pushing forward without much pause for check or scruple. The discussion, such as it was, happened in-house at Silicon Valley, and largely had to do with how far things might go before anyone started to wonder why not much about what was happening was being reported above ground.

The undoubtedly determined march of AI, with or without the Singularity, will change the majority of human lives beyond all recognition, eliminating most human work, creating a form of supra-intelligence to which humans may rapidly become subject on terms lacking accountability or transparency, and essentially demoting humanity to the role of second most intelligent species on the planet. We have no idea where this will take us, and we have yet to begin any coherent general conversations about it.

It goes without saying that the risksassociated with AI have nothing ultimately to do with the inert pieces of metal and plastic comprising the attendant technology, but with the people who will control it. The most important question is: Who should manage this epoch-making moment?

Big Tech already controls the world via the internet, through data harvesting, intimate surveillance, and censorship. Now it moves toward the final stage: the unity of humans and machine, but not on the terms of the human, or at least not the human race. Instead, as usual, the plan is for things to be handled by placing the well-placed few over the befogged many, in the name of progress.

The three authors of this book are insiders: Eric Schmidt is a former CEO and chairman of Google, Daniel Huttenlocher is a tech academic and Amazon board member; Henry Kissinger is Henry Kissinger. It goes without saying: All three authors are convinced globalists. The idea seems to be to lead the discussion in the required direction, raising the democratic and human concerns, but happily subjecting these to a series of controlled explosions so as to minimize the possibility of their being raised again before we are well past the finishing line.

In November,Timemagazine published an article titled Henry Kissingers Last Crusade: Stopping Dangerous AI, which included interviews with Kissinger and Schmidt.It contained a quote from Schmidt that defines the central problem with this book:

This may have gone down well with readers ofTime, but to the unwashed and unwoke it is clear that Schmidt comes to bury governments, not corporations. An even narrower agenda is visible also, since his reference to governments interfering in elections is designed to invoke the Russian interference lie that was comprehensively debunked by revelations arising from the Robert Mueller investigationa lie sustained by Big Tech. Schmidt thus eloquently conveys that his concern is neither philosophical nor anthropological, but superficially ideological, which is to say money- and power-related. His reference to the antivax movement is even more tedium-inducing. As far as the present COVID controversy is concerned, there is, in effect, noantivax movementjust campaigns by concerned citizens against certain vaccines, and for very good reasons that Big Tech seeks to suppress.

Schmidts arguments, in short, derive entirely from the palette of woke pseudo-liberalism, which is to say the emerging tyranny now threatening the world and its inhabitants.

This book bears the same stamp, albeit more subtly imprinted. The word disinformation, for example, is scattered throughout the text, but nowhere does it manifest as other than a camouflagedapologiafor partisan ideological censorshipfor silencing those who say things Big Tech doesnt like. There is no criticism, even implied, of Silicon Valley abuses in this connection. Nor is there any mention of Twitter's suppression of the story of Hunter Bidens laptop, or of that companys high-handed suspension of the account of a sitting president of the United States.

Yet the authors also concede that In a free society, the definition of harmful and disinformation should not be the purview of corporations alone. But if they are entrusted to a government panel or agency, that body should operate according to defined public standards and thorough verifiable processes in order not to be subject to exploitation by those in power. Chance would be a fine thing. And, what, by the way, does powermean? Governmental power only, it is clear.

The Age of AIclaims to set out the questions to be faced in the coming years of the AI advance, as well as tools to begin answering them. What do AI-enabled innovations in health, biology, space, and quantum physics look like?; what does AI-enabled war look like?; when AI participates in assessing and shaping human action, how will humans change?; what, then, will it mean to be human?

Good questions, urgent questions. Too urgent to be left to insiders spinning on behalf of interests already proven to be unfit to hold power. The committee nominated to discuss or dispose of the pressing AI issues should contain the minimum possible of Bilderbergers, Trilateralists, current or past board members of Google, or members of the Party of Davos.

Some scientists acknowledge, rather blithely, that the moment of Technological Singularity may well result in the obliteration of virtue, conscience, and morality, and even the final exit of the human species from the world, as human beings lose the battle to justify their existence against the claims of vastly more intelligent beings. Against these risks, scientists posit benefits like increased cognitive capacity and processing speed, leading to the possibility of more and more scientific discoveries, but rarely do they get to the question:to whose benefit?The outcome of such questions may depend on the emphasis placed on values, conscience, and morality in programming the AI, and will depend also on the meanings attributed to rationality and intelligence, and whether these are compatible with a moral framework. A super-intelligent entity, primed to maximize rationality in pursuit of even higher intelligence, may decide that human-centered morality is irrational, and therefore counter-productive. Inevitably, as things progress, the pressure will grow to remove impediments to the growth of machine intelligence, which will by definition mean that humans will be first to hit the pine.

The Age of AIissues intermittent calls for a discussion of such questions, and yet it reflects precisely the demeanor that has radically curtailed public discussion over the past two decades. It fails to deal with or even mention the selective censorship practices of Silicon Valley operators, while still implicitly assuming that such operators have some kind of prior entitlement to continue at the wheel even after the age of intelligent inanimacy has moved into top gear.

AI ultimately will either be a new beginning or a final ending. There is a view in tech circles that, since the human race faces extinction thanks to its own behavior, some kind of absorption of humanity by the machine may be the only way of maintaining an intelligent, albeit mechanical, human presence on earth. Thus, this thesis expands, the biological essence of humanity might have to be sacrificed, and the species maintained in the only form by that stage possible: posthumanist man. Conversely, there is the hypothesis that the moment of Technological Singularity will bring with it a radical threat to natural selection: The machine will elevate humans according to values different from those of naturea Superman. Where have we heard that before?

We have reached the upper stories of the Tower of Babel and most of us are coming down with acute vertigoand the only level-headed ones remaining have rather worrying glints in their eyes.

John Watersis an Irish writer and commentator, the author of ten books, and a playwright.

First Thingsdepends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.

Clickhereto make a donation.

Clickhereto subscribe toFirst Things.

Photo by Virtuo Doc via Creative Commons. Image cropped.

Here is the original post:

Morality in the Age of Machines | John Waters - First Things

Posted in Singularity | Comments Off on Morality in the Age of Machines | John Waters – First Things