Once a modest online seller of books, Amazon is now one of the largest companies in the world, and its former CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the world’s most wealthy person. We track developments, both of Bezos and Amazon, its growth as a video producer, the popular Prime service, as well as its own hardware, which includes the Amazon Kindle e-reader, Amazon Kindle Fire tablets, and Amazon Fire TV streaming boxes.
The deal, which includes access to the NYT, The Athletic, and NYT Cooking, will have Amazon paying $20 million to $25 million per year, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. In May, the NYT said Amazon will use its content to train AI models and bring article summaries to Alexa.
A Wolfenstein show is in development, reports Variety, and sounds like it could be based on MachineGames’ fantastic games that actually told stories rather than starting from scratch. Both MachineGames’ studio director Jerk Gustafsson and the showrunners of Fallout (which got the games right) Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan are attached. Showrunner here is Patrick Somerville; the show’s not official yet.
Alexa Plus’ new agentic AI capabilities are ambitious and show promise, but too often, I had to finish the job myself.
It saw a 6 percent rise in planet-heating pollution last year, according to the company’s latest sustainability report. As it expands data centers for AI, Amazon is moving further away from a goal it set in 2019 to reach net zero carbon emissions.
“One of the biggest challenges with scaling AI is increased energy demands for data centers,” Amazon’s sustainability report says.
Ahead of Invincible’s season 4 premiere next year, Variety reports that Amazon has renewed the series for fifth season that will dig even deeper into the story of Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) as he becomes one of the galaxy’s toughest superheroes.
Amazon’s third batch of Project Kuiper satellites has launched into space on Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket. The deployment of 24 Kuiper satellites comes just three hours after 26 Starlink satellites were deployed. Jeff Bezos plans to light up his space Internet service later this year with help from launch partners ULA, Arianespace, and yes, his own Blue Origin. The Kuiper constellation will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites, less than half of what Starlink already has operating, with more competitors to come.
My first impressions after one day with Amazon’s smarter, more conversational, generative AI-powered assistant.
0We’re in the final hours of Amazon’s four-day sales event, which means these discounts won’t last much longer.
Here are our top picks for day three of Amazon’s four-day sales event, from earbuds to e-readers.
The Verge’s top deals from day two of Amazon’s four-day sale on laptops, headphones, video doorbells, and more.
The new Echo Dot Rome Limited Edition will respond to the command “Alexa, speak Roman,” with some colorful expressions in the city’s local dialect.
The €89.99 smart speaker is designed to celebrate the city of Rome, and features eye-catching artwork by Italian artist Ale Giorgini highlighting St. Peter’s, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain.
The smart speaker with Italian flair is only available in Italy and has been released in honor of Rome’s Jubilee.
The Verge’s favorite deals from Amazon’s four-day sales event, from earbuds and video games to robot vacuums and more.
July is your last chance to watch Amazon’s FAST channel. The service will shut down in August, according to an email sent to users. But the message says you’ll still be able to watch all its content on Prime Video “for free, no subscription needed.”
Freevee’s demise was first announced last year, shortly after Prime Video began showing ads, in order to “deliver a simpler viewing experience for customers,” according to Amazon.
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That’s the milestone Amazon just crossed. As The Wall Street Journal notes, it’s coming up fast on the company’s total human workforce, which the paper estimates at 1.56 million people right now, and as Amazon’s CEO has said is likely to go down over the next few years.
The million includes the new touch-sensitive Vulcan robot unveiled last month, though probably not Amazon’s rumored work on autonomous humanoid delivery robots.
The Guardian reports that a letter was sent to executives last month, representing more than 200 Amazon employees, accusing the company of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Complaints center around last year’s revamp of the company’s work-from-home policies for disabled employees, which workers also claim have been processed using AI automations. They further allege that the deletion of some Slack messages infringes their rights to organize.
Amazon announced that the Blade Runner 2049 and Dune director is going to take on another high-profile franchise with the next James Bond flick. It will be the first one produced after Amazon reportedly paid $1 billion to obtain full creative control over James Bond.
Villeneuve:
I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr. No with Sean Connery. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory. I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor. Amy, David, and I are absolutely thrilled to bring him back to the screen.
