Cloudflare's Speed Week teaser, APIs, exam-related shutdowns and WarGames 40 years-in

Welcome to our weekly review of stories from our blog and other sources, covering a range of topics from product announcements, tools and features to disruptions on the Internet. João Tomé is joined by our CTO, John Graham-Cumming.

In this week's program, we give you a teaser of what to expect from our Speed Week 2023. It’s our next innovation week, which is coming after this Sunday, full of announcements, new tools (that include AI and machine learning), and performance metrics. We also discuss the importance of Cloudflare API Gateway and of API-driven applications in general — given that now our service can protect GraphQL APIs against malicious requests. We also explain how exam-related Internet shutdowns in Iraq and Algeria put connectivity to the test, and are recurrent in several countries.

Our fun fact of the week is related to the 40 years of the American science fiction techno-thriller film, WarGames — it was released in June 1983.

At the end, we have in our "Around NET" short segment, Mark Steyn, a Scottish Web Engineer, based in London, from our Product Experience team. He shares how he is doing a “50,000 steps for 50 days” challenge for his 50th birthday that also includes giving money to charity that offers support to children who have been bereaved.

You can check the blog posts:

• Protecting GraphQL APIs from malicious queries
• Exam-related Internet shutdowns in Iraq and Algeria put connectivity to the test

Follow the Speed Week 2023 hub for updates: cloudflare.com/speed-week/