Abstract: A block-based storage system may implement reducing durability state for a data volume. A determination may be made that storage node replicating write requests for a data volume is unavailable. In response, subsequent write requests may be processed according to a reduced durability state for the data volume such that replication for the data volume may be disabled for the storage node. Write requests may then be completed at a fewer number of storage nodes prior to acknowledging the write request as complete. Durability state for the data volume may be increase in various embodiments. A storage node may be identified and replication operations may be performed to synchronize the current data volume at the storage node with a replica of the data volume maintained at the identified storage node.

Abstract: A technology is provided for using a multi-factor authentication process to access services in a computing service environment. One or more policies can be defined for allowing access to one or more services and/or resources associated with a service provider environment according to an authenticated identity. A device, detected by a voice-capturing endpoint within a defined geographical location, may be authenticated according to a unique identification (ID). Voice data received from the voice-capturing endpoint can be authenticated. The authenticated identity can be established according to the authenticated device and the authenticated voice data. A command, received via a voice command from the voice-capturing endpoint, may be issued with the authenticated identity to access the one or more services and/or resources associated with the service provider environment according to the plurality of policies.

Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for identifying and recommending events of interest in real-time media content. Individual ones of multiple media content streams are analyzed to determine whether events of interest are occurring in real-time. It is then determined that an event of interest is occurring in real-time in a particular media content stream of the multiple media content streams. A user interface is generated that recommends the particular media content stream based at least in part on the event of interest.

Abstract: Described is a method for processing image data to determine if a portion of the image data is affected due to sunlight. In some implementations, image data is sent to an image data store and camera parameters are sent to a radiance detection service. The radiance detection service, upon receiving the camera parameters, retrieves the image data, converts the image data to gray-scale and processes the image data based on the camera parameters to determine a radiance value for the camera. The radiance value may be compared to a baseline radiance value to determine if sunlight is represented in the image data. In some implementations, a baseline model may be developed for the camera and used to cancel out any pixels of the image data that are overexposed under normal or baseline conditions. Likewise, a foreground model may be generated to detect any objects in the image data for which corresponding pixel values should not be considered for determining if sunlight is represented in the image data.

Abstract: A first column of a first database table may be transferred to a second table in a combined truncate and append operation in a transaction that may be atomic and reversible. References data for the first column may be removed from the first table and added to the second table. The combined operation may be reversed by removing, from the second table, references to blocks of data added to the second table prior to commencing the combined operation. A second column corresponding on a row-by-row basis to the first column may be added to the second table, where the data is indicative of visibility of data in the first column to other transactions on the second table.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for common mode filters with inverted inductive ground structures. In one embodiment, an example printed circuit board may have a first layer with a pair of differential transmission lines, and a common mode filter embedded in the printed circuit board. The common mode filter may include a signal reference structure and an inductive ground structure. The signal reference structure may include a first rectangular portion, and a second rectangular portion having the same dimensions. The second rectangular portion may be separated from the first rectangular portion by a distance. The inductive ground structure may include a first cell having a first conductive line coupled to a first side of the first rectangular portion and a first edge of the common mode filter, and a second cell having a second conductive line coupled to a first side of the second rectangular portion and the first edge.

Abstract: A participant in a network is configured to query a data storage system to determine whether there have been any changes to a network. The participant receives a response to the query and determines, based at least in part on the response, whether reconfiguration is necessary. If the network has changed (e.g., if the network topology has changed), as indicated in the response, the system performs one or more actions in accordance with the response. Multiple participants in the network may query the data storage system so that, collectively, network updates are initiated by changes to data in the data storage system. The network may be an overlay network that allows communication according to a communication protocol, such as multicast, that may not be completely supported by a physical network substrate.

Abstract: A magnetic tape drive includes a head assembly with a write head and a read head. The read head is positioned ahead of the write head, so that as a magnetic tape is moved across the head, the read head is able to read data that is about to be overwritten by the write head. When a client computer system commands the tape drive to write data to the magnetic tape, the tape drive writes the data to the tape but preserves any data that is overwritten by reading the data before it is overwritten. The preserved data is returned to the client computer system. In various examples, the returned data can be written back to the tape, discarded, or stored elsewhere under the control of the client computer system.

Abstract: A service provider launches an index analysis computing system instance to evaluate logs generated by a virtual computing system server to identify events encountered by the server. The index analysis computing system instance obtains, from a datastore, a data log for the virtual computing system server and uses the log to identify the events. The index analysis computing system instance identifies, based on data from the log associated with the events, tasks to be performed to obtain processor state data for the server. The index analysis computing system instance generates, based on the identified tasks, a metadata for a file, where the metadata represents the tasks to be performed. This file is transmitted to a scheduler computing system instance which can identify the tasks based on the metadata for the file.

Abstract: A data storage management process is directed to aspects of managing encrypted data via data storage volumes in conjunction with a service provider computer network that hosts virtual machine instances. A volume can be created and configured for managing encrypted data with an encrypted version of a volume key. The volume can be attached to a virtual machine instance such that the virtual machine instance accesses the volume in a transparent fashion based on the volume key. Encrypted data specific to the volume can be copied across multiple regions of data storage each associated with distinct encrypted versions of a volume key corresponding to the volume.

Abstract: Systems and methods for managing configuration of network devices are provided. In one embodiment, a network device management service can obtain relevant device-specific information, deployment information, and network topology data associated with a network device to be provisioned. The network device management service can enable generating, identifying or obtaining configuration metadata based on relevant network topology data as well as other applicable information. The network device management service can further generate configuration instructions to facilitate configuration of network devices based on configuration metadata.

Abstract: A computing system providing virtual computing services may maintain a fleet of servers that host virtual machine instances having a wide variety of types and configurations. A service provider may rent processor and memory capacity by defining and offering various virtual machine instances to clients. Each virtual machine instance may include one or more virtual CPUs and a fixed amount of virtualized memory allocated to each virtual CPU, dependent on a predefined ratio between virtual CPU capacity and virtualized memory capacity for the instance type. Each server may include a custom, non-standard sized physical memory module containing memory devices of multiple technologies, types, or sizes on the same printed circuit board. By including custom memory modules, rather than relying only on standard memory modules, the service provider system may implement virtual machines having finer grained options for processor and memory capacity combinations, and may avoid stranding rentable resources.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that uses both a knowledge base and a detailed index of other sources that may be accessible over the Internet. The knowledge base is used to answer questions of more general interest whose answers are contained in the knowledge base. The index is used to answer more complex questions that are not answerable using the knowledge base. Web and other sources are analyzed to create the index, where text segments are indexed along with data describing the text segments in a quasi-semantic way. Quasi-semantic features are extracted from incoming spoken questions and used, along with machine learning trained models, to identify an indexed text segment that includes the answer to the question. The text segment may then be rearranged or simply passed to a speech synthesizer so the answer may be spoken aloud to a user.

Abstract: A system-on-a-chip (SoC) includes a master module and a first adapter module. The master module includes an upstream interface and a downstream interface. The upstream interface is coupled to a host unit for receiving a write burst or a read burst therefrom. The master module is configured to convert the write burst or the read burst into a series of access requests to the downstream interface. The first adapter module includes an input interface, an output interface, and an endpoint interface, and an address Base Address Register (BAR). The input interface is coupled to the downstream interface of the master module. The output interface is coupled to a second adapter module or to a termination module. The endpoint interface is coupled to a first functional unit or to a third adapter module. The first adapter module is configured to detect a respective access request corresponding to the address BAR.

Abstract: Data replication groups may be used to store data in a distributed computing environment. The data replication groups may include a set of nodes executing a consensus protocol to maintain data durably. In order to monitor and debug the operation of the data replication group a chaining mechanism may be utilized during log creation by the set of nodes of the data replication group. The chaining mechanism may cause entries in the log to indicate an operation being performed and an operation performed immediately prior to the operation being performed. In various embodiments, an outside observer receives the logs and checks the logs for errors indicated by the chaining mechanism.

Abstract: An emulated input/output memory management unit (IOMMU) includes a management processor to perform page table translation in software. The emulated IOMMU can also include a hardware input/output translation lookaside buffer (IOTLB) to store translations between virtual addresses and physical memory addresses. When a translation from a virtual address to a physical address is not found in the IOTLB for an I/O request, the translation can be generated by the management processor using page tables from a memory and can be stored in the IOTLB. Some embodiments can be used to emulate interrupt translation service for message based interrupts for an interrupt controller.

Abstract: A system for transmitting data over a network may include data processed according to a data-redundancy encoding technique such as erasure coding to be transmitted via an unreliable, connectionless transmission protocol, for example user datagram protocol (“UDP”). A transmitting manager may receive a request from an application to transmit data. The transmission manager may select encoding parameters and encode data to be transferred using a data-redundancy encoding technique. The transmission manager may initiate transmission of the encoded data and payload header data may via a network, for example via a network communication stream or protocol stack. A reconstruction manager associated with the receiving node may reconstruct the original data using the received erasure coding data and payload header data. In some embodiments, the receiving node may transmit telemetry data to the erasure coding algorithm.

Abstract: In a distributed system, a computer system responsible, at least in part, for complying with a cryptographic key usage limit for a cryptographic key, obtains results of cryptographic operations generated based at least in part on the cryptographic key and transmits the obtained results over a network. The computer system digitally signs the results and provides the results with digital signatures of the results. Another device intercepts the results and allows the results to proceed to their destination contingent on successful validation of the digital signature.

Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for providing a live video stream with an interactive shopping interface. A live video stream and item information are obtained from another computing device. The item information indicates one or more items being featured in the live video stream. A user interface is rendered upon a display. The user interface includes the live video stream and a timeline interface indicating the items being featured during various segments in the live video stream.

Abstract: A data processing technique uses an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Rectifier Linear Units (ReLU) to yield improve accuracy in a runtime task, for example, in processing audio-based data acquired by a speech-enabled device. The technique includes a first aspect that relates to initialization of the ANN weights to initially yield a high fraction of positive outputs from the ReLU. These weights are then modified using an iterative procedure in which the weights are incrementally updated. A second aspect relates to controlling the size of the incremental updates (a “learning rate”) during the iterations of training according to a variance of the weights at each layer.