All news with #product update tag

⚡ Microsoft is testing an optional background preload for File Explorer on Windows 11 to reduce launch times and improve responsiveness. When enabled, the app loads automatically with no visible UI change; users can disable it by unchecking "Enable window preloading for faster launch times" in File Explorer's Folder Options under the View tab. The feature is rolling out to Windows Insiders on 25H2 in the Dev and Beta channels with preview build 26220.7271 (KB5070307). Microsoft also reorganized File Explorer's context menu into grouped flyouts to reduce clutter and has requested feedback via the Feedback Hub.

🚀 Amazon EMR Serverless now supports Apache Spark 4.0.1 (preview), enabling teams to build data pipelines using standard ANSI SQL and native VARIANT types for semi-structured data. The release adds Apache Iceberg v3 table format to provide transactional guarantees and audit-ready change tracking. Improved streaming controls make it easier to manage stateful, real-time applications and monitor streaming jobs.

🚀 Amazon SageMaker now supports Amazon Athena for Apache Spark, combining a new notebook experience with a fast serverless Spark runtime in a single workspace. Data engineers, analysts, and data scientists can query data, run Python, develop jobs, train models, and visualize results with no infrastructure to manage and second-level billing. The service runs Spark 3.5.6, is optimized for Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake, and adds debugging, real-time Spark UI monitoring, and secure Spark Connect communication. Table-level access controls are enforced through AWS Lake Formation.

📱 AWS Device Farm now provides a fully managed Appium endpoint that developers can connect to with just a few lines of code to run interactive tests on multiple real devices from their IDE or local machine. The capability integrates with third-party tools such as Appium Inspector (hosted and local) for element inspection and debugging. Live video and log streaming deliver faster feedback in local workflows while existing server-side execution remains available for scaled, secure enterprise runs.

🔁 EC2 Image Builder now supports automatic versioning for recipes and automatic build version increments for components, removing the need to manually manage version numbers. You can place an 'x' placeholder to auto-increment any position in a recipe version and use wildcard patterns to resolve to the highest compatible version in pipelines. The feature is available across all AWS regions, including China and GovCloud, and is accessible via Console, CLI, API, CloudFormation, and CDK.

🧪 Amazon Web Services has added natural-language test Q&A generation to Automated Reasoning checks in Amazon Bedrock Guardrails. The capability generates up to N test Q&As from input documents to accelerate creating and validating formal verification policies. Automated Reasoning checks apply formal methods to detect correct model outputs and report up to 99% accuracy in identifying correct responses and reducing hallucinations. The feature is available in multiple US and EU Regions and accessible via the Bedrock console and Python SDK.

🔎 The new AI-powered investigative agent in AWS Security Incident Response automates evidence collection, correlation, and timeline building to speed incident investigations from hours to minutes. It interactively asks clarifying questions, queries CloudTrail, IAM, EC2, and cost data, and summarizes critical findings and timelines. The capability is available now across commercial AWS Regions and is included with the service’s metered pricing.

🔧 The AWS IoT Core rules-SQL now supports a SET clause to define and reuse variables across SQL statements, simplifying complex queries and ensuring consistent content when values are referenced multiple times. A new get_or_default() function returns fallback values when encountering data encoding or external dependency failures so rules continue executing. These capabilities reduce SQL complexity and improve reliability across regions.

📧 Amazon Connect Email now lets agents send follow-up replies to existing email contacts, enabling them to add information or continue assistance without opening a new thread. The feature preserves full conversation history so agents retain context and deliver consistent support. It is available in multiple AWS regions including US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Frankfurt, London), Canada (Central), several Asia Pacific locations, and Africa (Cape Town). Refer to documentation and pricing to get started.

📣 Second-generation AWS Outposts racks are now supported in the AWS Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region. Organizations in and outside Japan can order Outposts racks connected to this region to optimize latency and meet data residency requirements while running low-latency workloads on-premises. Outposts extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools into customer data centers or colocation spaces and connects back to a home Region for centralized management.

🔔 Amazon Web Services has raised the maximum storage limit for Aurora DSQL database clusters to 256 TiB, doubling the prior 128 TiB cap. This update enables customers to store and manage much larger datasets within a single cluster, simplifying data management for large-scale applications. Storage continues to auto-scale and customers pay only for used capacity; default clusters remain limited to 10 TiB and higher limits require a Service Quotas request.

🔔 Amazon Connect now enables monitoring of contacts queued for callback, allowing supervisors and integrations to search queued callbacks and view details such as customer phone numbers and queued duration in the Connect UI and via APIs. Teams can proactively route contacts nearing promised callback windows to available agents and clear customers who have already been served to avoid duplicative work. This capability is available in all regions where Amazon Connect is offered.

🔐 AWS WAF now supports Web Bot Auth, providing cryptographic verification for automated agents and crawlers that access web applications. The capability uses signed HTTP messages and a public key directory defined by active IETF drafts to authenticate bot identities. AWS WAF will automatically allow verified WBA bots by default, refining previous behavior where the AI category blocked unverified bots. This change helps operators distinguish trusted automated traffic from potentially harmful automation.

🆕 Amazon EMR 7.12 now supports the Apache Iceberg v3 table format (Iceberg 1.10) and includes Apache Spark 3.5.6. This update reduces storage and pipeline costs by marking deleted rows instead of rewriting files, while adding automatic row-level history for stronger governance and change-data capture. It also introduces table-level encryption and integrates with AWS Lake Formation. Apache Trino 476 is included, and EMR 7.12 is available in all Regions that support EMR.

🔐 Aurora DSQL now provides Python, Node.js, and JDBC Connectors that transparently handle IAM token generation for standard PostgreSQL drivers. The connectors integrate with psycopg/psycopg2, node-postgres, Postgres.js, and the PostgreSQL JDBC driver and support common pooling libraries such as HikariCP and built-in pooling in Node.js and Python. By automatically generating IAM tokens via the AWS SDK for each connection, they remove the need for custom token code or manual token provisioning, reducing reliance on static database passwords while preserving existing driver features and workflows.

🚀 Vertex AI Studio now centers developer workflows around Gemini and introduces agents-as-tools to streamline prompt engineering and app creation. The Studio adds three core agent commands — /Prompt, /Evaluate, and /Build — to refine prompts, assess outputs with custom autoraters, and generate working code. Team features include cross-account prompt sharing, version history, and notes. Onboarding is simplified with one-click API keys, an /Ask helper, express mode, and loginless model trials.

🚀 The Gemini CLI now includes Looker and Looker Conversational Analytics extensions, enabling direct terminal access to Looker data and dashboards. These additions let users ask complex questions, generate reports, and create dashboards without leaving the command line. Installation requires the Gemini CLI (npm), the two extensions, and configuration of Looker API credentials and optional Google Cloud settings. The update aims to streamline workflows and make data exploration more accessible from everyday development environments.

🤖 BigQuery AI consolidates BigQuery’s built-in ML, generative AI functions, vector search, and agent tools into a unified platform. It enables users to apply generative models and embeddings directly via SQL, perform semantic vector search, and run end-to-end ML workflows without moving data. Role-specific data agents and assistive features like a data canvas and code completion accelerate work for engineers, data scientists, and business users.

📈 Google announces it was named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems for the sixth consecutive year and positioned furthest in vision. The post presents the company's AI-native Data Cloud—a unified stack integrating BigQuery, Spanner, AlloyDB, Looker, and Dataplex—to support agentic AI. Google highlights embedded specialized agents, developer tooling (Data Agents API, ADK, Gemini CLI) and Agent Analytics in BigQuery to accelerate AI-driven applications while asserting cost and governance benefits on a single, open platform.

💸 AWS has announced general availability of Flexible Cost Allocation (FCA) for AWS Transit Gateway, enabling organizations to distribute data processing and transfer charges more flexibly across accounts. FCA lets you assign usage to the source, destination, or the central Transit Gateway account and supports attachment-level or per-flow granularity. It also supports middle-box appliances such as AWS Network Firewall, allowing costs to be attributed to original source or destination owners. You can enable FCA via the AWS Management Console, CLI, or SDK with no additional charge.