Amazon wants to be the provider of your cybersecurity response tools

AWS has announced the general availability of its Amazon Security Lake, designed to be a central, purpose-built data lake to handle all things security and make it easier to see and act on information in one place.

Amazon Security Lake promises to pull in data from customers’ AWS environments, as well as other SaaS providers, on-prem environments, and cloud sources, in accordance with the OCSF open standard. At launch, the company’s headline figures include more than 80 sources, security partners, and analytics providers, as well as 55 customers and partners like CrowdStrike and Datadog.

Unlike Microsoft, which has been accused of various anticompetitive doings and is in the midst of a European antitrust case, Amazon hopes its approach to working with other cloud hosting companies will keep customers happy, thus they will continue to pay for AWS services as part of their multicloud strategies.

Amazon Security Lake

Amazon Security Lake was first announced at the company’s re:Invent 2022 event, where it immediately went into preview in seven AWS regions, which laid the foundation for six months of testing up until this point.

As part of the rollout, more AWS regions have been included, meaning customers in the following regions can now get access to the lake: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), and South America (São Paulo). More regions are promised to get support soon.

Pooling security data from such a broad spectrum of environments into a single lake looks to be an efficient way of identifying, assessing, and responding to threats across a business’s IT. AWS Security Services VP, Jon Ramsey, said:

“With more than 80 sources providing data to Amazon Security Lake, security teams can achieve greater visibility into potential security threats and how to respond to them, further protecting the workloads, applications, and data that are critical to driving business forward.”

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The Meta Quest 3 is thinner, faster, and pricier at $500

What’s the most popular PC-based virtual reality headset? If you said the Valve Index, you’re wrong: it’s the Meta Quest 2. Yes, the stand-alone, wireless headset from Facebook’s parent company is by far the most popular option, even for gamers who just want something to connect to a PC, because it’s cheap and has tons of tools for doing so. That means the new, just-announced will probably take its place when it arrives later this year.

The Quest 2 was a gentle revision from the original design, more focused on the ecosystem than the hardware. That’s not the case with the Quest 3. Even with the short preview video posted by Meta, we can see it’s inheriting a ton of advanced hardware and capability from the much more expensive Quest Pro. The Quest 3 will feature a new Snapdragon processor with “double the GPU power,” higher-resolution displays, new controllers with more advanced haptics and without the sensor rings, and a 40 percent thinner build. Those last two points should make it a lot easier to throw on for a quick session, to say nothing of travel.

But perhaps the biggest change is full-color pass-through cameras with depth sensors, enabling the Quest 3 to function as a full augmented reality set as well as VR. The Quest 2 had pass-through camera functionality, but it was sort of bootstrapped onto the motion and position sensor system, limited to choppy black-and-white video just to let you walk around a room without tripping over an ottoman like Dick Van Dyke. The new system is fully capable of AR gaming…the better to compete with Apple’s much-rumored AR system, no doubt.

Quest 2 and Quest 3 size comparison

Meta

Though Meta didn’t show it, presumably the Quest 3 will preserve the ability to connect to a local gaming PC, either wirelessly or via USB-C, and play PC VR games through Steam VR or Quest’s proprietary store. Despite raising the price significantly to $500, it’ll still be the cheapest new VR system around, and won’t require the extra dedicated room sensors of Valve and HTC’s hardware. If you’re looking for an even cheaper solution, the older Quest 2 is getting a discount to $300 for the base model — which is technically just a return to its original retail price.

The Quest 3 will get a more thorough technical breakdown before its release, sometime in the fall of 2023.

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The Full Nerd: Computex’s hottest PC hardware trends (with Paul’s Hardware, Ian Cutress, and Alex from LTT)

Hello from Taiwan!

In this episode of The Full Nerd, Gordon Ung and Adam Patrick Murray are live from MSI’s booth to talk about the hottest PC hardware trends of Computex 2023. But not just Gordon and Adam—they’re joined throughout the show by scintillatingly smart folks like Paul from Paul’s Hardware, Dr. Ian Cutress from TechTechPotato and MoreThanMoore, and Alex Clark from Linus Tech Tips.

Does Nvidia still care about PC gamers? Where did all the computer wires go? How will AI affect gaming? What’s so special about MSI’s new electric car charger? How many AMD chips can the gang stuff into their mouth? Witness it all here:

You can also watch The Full Nerd episode 259 on YouTube (subscribe to the channel while you’re there!) or listen to it on Megaphone.fm if you prefer the audio alone. 

Speaking of audio, you can subscribe to The Full Nerd in  (please leave a review if you enjoy the show). We’re also on , Google Podcasts,, or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader to:

If you want to wear your geekiness on your sleeve, check out !

Have a PC- or gaming-related question? Email thefullnerd@pcworld.com and we’ll try to answer it in the next episode. You can also join the PC-related discussions and ask us questions on. Finally, be sure to follow PCWorld on Facebook, YouTube, andto watch future episodes live and pick our brains in real time! 

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Breaking: Meta has unveiled the Oculus Quest 3 VR headset

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the Oculus Quest 3 VR headset (now officially known as the Meta Quest 3), the follow-up to the hugely popular Oculus Quest 2.

 The Quest 3 will share a few similarities with the Quest 2 – in terms of it offering an accessible VR experience – but will also come with some upgrades that make it a worthwhile follow-up. Chief among them are its new mixed-reality capabilities; the Quest 3 will adopt full-color passthrough – meaning it can show you the real world in color – rather than using the same grainy black and white passthrough that the Quest 2 employed.

Zuckerberg’s announcement via his Facebook and Instagram pages comes just days before WWDC 2023, the conference where we’re expecting to finally see the long-rumored Apple VR headset.

While this is an earlier reveal than we expected – we believed that the device would first get shown off at Meta Connect which typically lands in October – it certainly makes a lot of sense. Select individuals were invited to test out a prototype of the Quest 3 recently, and Meta has its Quest Gaming Showcase 2023 happening later today – which should give people interested in the new hardware a flavor of the best VR games they’ll be able to play on it.

With hype for VR riding high at the moment thanks to Apple headset speculation, it seems Meta is keen to ensure its efforts don’t lose the spotlight. While the Quest 2 has made VR the most mainstream it’s ever been, interest in virtual reality has been dwindling. More recent headset releases – like the Meta Quest Pro and HTC Vive XR Elite – haven’t captured the same levels of attention as the more budget-friendly Meta headset did in the months and years after its launch. 

Meta likely hopes the Quest 3 will reignite interest in its metaverse – and maybe claw back mindshare from the new tech buzzword: ChatGPT and other generative AI. 

This is a breaking news story. We’re updating the page with the latest info as it comes in.

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Take $300 off this already affordable, RTX-infused Dell gaming laptop

If you’re looking to save some money on a mid-range gaming laptop, you best stick around, as we’ve got a fantastic deal on tap for you today. Dell’s currently selling the Dell G16 gaming laptop for $999.99, which is a savings of $300. This laptop features a chic obsidian black color scheme, a backlit keyboard, and powerful internals. It’s also chock-full of connectivity options, which is useful for when you need to hook up to an external monitor or mouse. Let’s get into it.

The Dell G16 is packing an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. In other words, you should be able to play most modern games on the High or Ultra graphics preset, depending on the resolution you play at. Speaking of, the 16-inch display has a resolution of 2560×1600 and a refresh rate of 165Hz, which means you can expect smooth visuals. As for the port selection, it’s rather diverse. You’re getting one RJ45 Ethernet, three USB 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.1, and one Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort.

This is a phenomenal deal. Don’t miss out.

Get the Dell G16 gaming laptop for $999.99 at Dell

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Take $300 off this already affordable Dell gaming laptop

If you’re looking to save some money on a mid-range gaming laptop, you best stick around, as we’ve got a fantastic deal on tap for you today. Dell’s currently selling the Dell G16 gaming laptop for $999.99, which is a savings of $300. This laptop features a chic obsidian black color scheme, a backlit keyboard, and powerful internals. It’s also chock-full of connectivity options, which is useful for when you need to hook up to an external monitor or mouse. Let’s get into it.

The Dell G16 is packing an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. In other words, you should be able to play most modern games on the High or Ultra graphics preset, depending on the resolution you play at. Speaking of, the 16-inch display has a resolution of 2560×1600 and a refresh rate of 165Hz, which means you can expect smooth visuals. As for the port selection, it’s rather diverse. You’re getting one RJ45 Ethernet, three USB 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.1, and one Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort.

This is a phenomenal deal. Don’t miss out.

Get the Dell G16 gaming laptop for $999.99 at Dell

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Many SMBs say they won’t be able to pay their rent this year

New figures from Alignable have revealed an incessant rise in rent for small and medium businesses, which continues to grow as we approach the second half of 2023.

As of May 2023, over half (54%) of SMBs surveyed by the firm said they were paying more in rent than they were six months ago, having climbed one percentage point per month in the previous three months, making it costly for businesses to operate from physical locations and pushing many under.

The research also emphasizes the ongoing effects of the pandemic and the broader economy, which has seen many businesses experience losses in revenue, therefore widening the gap between income and expenditure.

Business rent continues to climb in 2023

High inflation, increasing interest rates, and greater recessionary fears are all cited as key drivers for the financial struggles challenging businesses across the US and globally this year.

Last month, more than one-third (37%) of US SMB owners said that they could not meet the month’s rent requirements in full and on time, potentially spelling the end for many. To make matters worse, more than half (57%) of minority SMB owners could not pay May’s rent.

Of all of the US states, Arizona looks to be among the healthiest (read: best of a bad bunch). While May’s rent still presented a clear challenge for many businesses, the figure sat at 7%, much lower than the national average. Rent delinquency rates also look to be among the lowest among SMBs in the US.

More broadly, fewer than one-third (32%) of US SMBs report having recovered to their pre-pandemic economic situation, while the remaining businesses continue trying to build back their revenue amid huge surges in artificial intelligence, posing threats and opportunities in equal measures.

Quite clearly, as larger organizations begin to ramp up IT spend once more, smaller businesses are continuing to fine-tune their figures in an effort to make ends meet.

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