By RyanKamauff

Here are the top tech news and stories for the day.

• Amazon had a big outage in North Virginia on the 22nd - This outage affected Reddit, Pinterest, Airbnb, Foursquare, Minecraft and more. As we rely more on the cloud to deliver services, then we will have to find ways around outages such as this one. Amazon is an incredibly resilient infrastructure, but even they have issues. Via TechCrunch, more here.
• Ars Technica has an in-depth look here at Windows RT - Windows 8/RT will be their best shot at coming close to creating an ecosystem to rival Apple’s, Google’s or even that of Amazon. It is no surprise that Apple is releasing details of their iPad Mini this week, or that Google will have a huge event next week. Microsoft is making their last powerplay, and a lot of it rests on Windows 8/RT. Via Ars Technica, more here.
• CloudLock aims to protect Google Apps from rogue apps - Google Apps is a killer product that makes Chrome OS possible. CloudLock offers PCI scanning for Google Apps as well as a firewall to help control what information is shared with third-party applications. Via GigaOM, more here.
• Yahoo! is a firm we rarely even consider anymore - yet with their new change in management, they could yet again become a factor. Here are 5 ways that Marissa Mayer plans to change the search giant. Via PaidContent.org, more here.
• Apple’s event today is many new Mac computers and a new iPad Mini - As Mac is attempting to move into a more enterprise friendly environment, they continue to increase the capabilities of their stable of desktops. They’ve also refreshed the iPad and added a new iPad Mini. Interesting (but not surprising) is the removal of an optical disk in the iMac. Apple is hoping you will purchase any (and all) software via the Apple Store, thus you do not need an optical disk. Via TechCrunch, more here.