Amazon
Amazon will no longer accept Venmo as a payment option starting next month
Amazon is dropping Venmo as a payment option next month, the PayPal owned mobile payment service announced on its website. The official announcement comes as Amazon notified users last night…
Twitch to shut down in Korea over ‘prohibitively expensive’ network fees
Twitch, the popular video streaming service, plans to shut down its business in South Korea on February 27 after finding that operating in one of the world’s largest esports markets…
Amazon has been No. 1 in the cloud for years but now finds itself playing catch-up to Microsoft when it comes to AI.
Rightbot, which is developing robots to unload freight, lands investment from Amazon
Rightbot, a startup developing suction-based robots that can unload truck-transported freight in a range of sizes, has raised $6.25 million in a funding round led by Amazon’s Industrial Innovation Fund…
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AWS re:Invent: Everything Amazon’s announced, from new AI tools to LLM updates and more
We will deliver quick hits of the biggest news from AWS re:Invent as they are announced.
Amazon signs 3-launch deal with SpaceX for Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation
Amazon has purchased three Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX to support deployment of its Project Kuiper mega-constellation, the company said Friday. The new deal comes scarcely two months after it…
Amazon finds itself in the unusual position of playing catch-up in AI
“This might be the first time where people looked and said that Amazon isn’t in the pole position to capitalize on this massive opportunity.”
AWS Clean Rooms ML lets companies securely collaborate on AI
Amazon’s launching (in preview) a privacy-preserving service that lets AWS customers deploy “lookalike” AI models trained for one-off company-company collaborations. Called Clean Rooms ML — an offshoot of AWS’ existing…
Amazon SageMaker HyperPod makes it easier to train and fine-tune LLMs
At its re:Invent conference today, Amazon’s AWS cloud arm announced the launch of SageMaker HyperPod, a new purpose-built service for training and fine-tuning large language models (LLMs). SageMaker HyperPod is…
Amazon finally releases its own AI-powered image generator at AWS re:Invent 2023
Amazon is releasing an image generator — joining the ranks of the many, many other tech giants and startups that have already done so. During a keynote at its AWS…
Amazon unveils Q, an AI-powered chatbot for businesses at AWS re:Invent
Amazon is launching an AI-powered chatbot for AWS customers called Q. Unveiled during a keynote at Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this morning, Q — starting at $20…
We are all talking about the business gains from using large language models, but there are lot of known issues with these models, and finding ways to constrain the answers…
There’s a shortage of GPUs as the demand for generative AI, which is often trained and run on GPUs, grows. Nvidia’s best-performing chips are reportedly sold out until 2024. The CEO…
Amazon announces three new serverless offerings to kick off AWS re:Invent 2023
Amazon kicked off AWS re:Invent, its annual customer conference, in Las Vegas tonight with a few new serverless offerings designed to make it easier to manage Aurora, ElastiCache and Redshift…
Amazon’s iRobot purchase sucks up formal competition concerns in EU
European Union regulators have sent Amazon a formal statement of objections setting out competition concerns over its proposed acquisition of robot vacuum maker, iRobot. The step does not confirm the…
Amazon’s new $195 thin client looks just like a Fire TV Cube
Amazon’s new thin client looks just like a Fire TV Cube… and that’s by design. At its AWS re:Ignite conference, the company this morning announced the launch of new $195…
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LA Auto Show: The tech, EVs and cars that got our attention
The 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show is a wrap — for press, anyway. That means it’s time to recap the big launches, strange details, cars on display and peculiar absences we noticed this year. The highlights include the SUV that’ll make or break Lucid, Amazon’s auto fixation, a pickup that calls Tesla’s Cybertruck to mind…
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Children’s tablet has malware and exposes kids’ data, researcher finds
In May this year, Alexis Hancock’s daughter got a children’s tablet for her birthday. Being a security researcher, Hancock was immediately worried. “I looked at it kind of sideways because I’ve never heard of Dragon Touch,” Hancock told TechCrunch, referring to the tablet’s maker. As it turned out, Hancock, who works at the Electronic Frontier…
In an acknowledgement that cracking the home robotics market is hard, Amazon is bringing its Astro robot to a decidedly more corporate audience. The company today announced Astro for Business,…
Amazon introduces new Buy with Prime perks, such as tracking and returns
Amazon’s Buy with Prime, a service that lets Prime members shop directly from third-party merchants and get Prime benefits like free shipping and returns, launched today new features, including the…
Amazon Games will close its Crown channel on Twitch and cut 180 jobs
Amazon announced another cluster of layoffs this week along with plans to discontinue the Crown channel, a flashy Amazon-run Twitch channel that featured television-like programming. Amazon will also shutter its…
Amazon strikes deal with Snap to let users buy its products from ads on Snapchat
Amazon has entered into a partnership with Snap to allow users to buy its products directly from ads on the social app, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The news was…
Meta and Amazon team up on new in-app shopping feature on Facebook & Instagram
Meta may have abandoned its efforts around live shopping on Facebook and Instagram, but the social networking company still believes in its apps’ potential as a shopping platform. That leads…
Amazon makes online grocery available for non-Prime members, starting with Amazon Fresh
Amazon today announced changes to its grocery delivery service designed to make ordering from Amazon Fresh more competitive with rivals like Instacart, Walmart, Target-owned Shipt, DoorDash and others. The company…
Prime members can now get a One Medical membership for $9/month
Amazon announced today a new One Medical membership benefit for Prime members, giving them access to affordable healthcare services for $9 per month or $99 annually. Originally $199 a year,…
Rivian vans are no longer an Amazon exclusive. The automaker said on Tuesday that it will now let other companies buy its commercial electric vans, ending an exclusivity deal that…
Between open source and cloud-hosted, more proprietary solutions, there’s an abundance of AI-powered code-generating tools to choose from. So how does one choose? That’s a nuanced question. Beyond stronger performance…
Meta and Amazon settle UK antitrust probes over use of third-party data to benefit marketplaces
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today announced that it has accepted proposals from Facebook’s parent Meta and Amazon to limit how they use data gathered from their respective…
Deft is building e-commerce search to help you find the right product quickly
E-commerce search startup Deft is releasing a multimodal search function for users to get better results. The company, which opened its service to beta users in May, has rolled out…
Unredacted FTC suit shows ‘Project Nessie’ price-raising algorithm made Amazon $1.4B
The mysterious “Project Nessie,” hinted at in what little was not redacted in the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon, is indeed an algorithmic pricing scheme that raised prices where it could…
