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.
After rolling out its own take on Spotify Wrapped last year, Amazon Music now lets you view “insights,” which show the artists, songs, and podcasts you listened to the most during each month. Other music streaming platforms have started offering more frequent glimpses into user listening habits, too, with YouTube launching seasonal recaps and Apple Music delivering them on a monthly basis.
Amazon announced its Q2 earnings results today, and at the same time said that Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, See, Dirty Pretty Things) will be the writer of its first 007 movie, which Denis Villeneuve is already set to direct.
According to Deadline’s inside sources, even with those roles locked down, it could be a while until we hear about who will carry on the starring role, as Knight works on the script and Villeneuve is finishing up Dune: Part Three.
The amount of the investment in Fable, which is making a service called Showrunner, hasn’t been disclosed, Variety reports. The company’s CEO and co-founder also says that it is in talks with Disney about potentially licensing IP.
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.
[techcrunch.com]
