Pages with tag Amazon

Amazon cancels planned HQ2 in Queens NY after massive protest by locals In November, Amazon stunned folks across the country by announcing plans to build an HQ2 facility in Queens NY, and another HQ2 facility in Arlington VA. The Queens location became controversial almost immediately, and today Amazon announced cancellation of the Queens HQ2 project. In canceling the project, Amazon said they would not reopen the HQ2 search at this time, meaning Amazon is missing out yet again on the opportunity to expand in the Midwest.
Amazon employees demand stopping face-recognition contract with federal government Among the Amazon Web Services is Rekognition, a facial recognition system running on Amazon's cloud. Anyone can sign up with the service, to have video analyzed to identify people or objects. Turns out the federal government is using this service for various tasks including deportation and detention programs run by ICE, the Immigration Control force. A group of Amazon employees have written to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos demanding that Amazon not do as IBM did during the 1940's when IBM's systems were used by Nazi Germany to help round up the Jews.
Amazon investing in Rivian, electric truck maker, and otherwise moving to own the delivery process A few days ago it was announced Amazon is leading a round of investment into Rivian, a maker of electric trucks. Since Amazon is not into auto manufacturing, that's a puzzler, until you remember that Amazon is working to own more of the delivery system. According to the attached video, Amazon has a quickly growing fleet of airplanes and is starting to take over long-haul delivery tasks that had previously been performed by FedEx, UPS and the US Postal Service. Further, Amazon has bought a large fleet of delivery trucks, and is experimenting with delivery robots. In light of all that, taking an ownership stake in Rivian means that in a couple years Amazon can reduce fuel costs, and if they are autonomous-drive trucks their employee cost could fall.
Amazon slashing affiliate commissions in midst of Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis Amazon pioneered the whole field of affiliate marketing and to a large extent the success of Amazon is due to the company's affiliate partners sending traffic to Amazon. Yesterday, Amazon sent an e-mail notice to affiliate program members about changes to the operating agreement, the effect of which is to drastically slash affiliate commissions in certain product categories. It is probably time for affiliate program members to shift their affiliate links elsewhere.
Amazon uses dirty energy, failing at clean energy promise, says Greenpeace Despite a promise to use clean renewable energy, Amazon's largest data center in North Virginia is wholly dependent on dirty electricity from coal and natural gas. Loudoun County Virginia, colloquially known as Data Center Alley, thanks to the many Internet hubs in the Reston/Herndon/Ashburn area, and is served by a utility, Dominion Energy, that relies heavily on coal and natural gas. One of Amazon's biggest AWS hubs is located there, as are data centers owned by many tech giants.
Amazon's amazing warehouse robots automate assembling your purchases for shipping

Modern business corporate mantra seeks to automate everything, eliminating the costs of human employees. Artificial intelligence and robotics have combined in Amazon's warehouse facilities to create an automated order fulfillment system.

Stored items are held in modular shelving units. The robots drive themselves around the warehouse, following markers on the floor, and slide underneath the shelving unit they are to move. The top of the robot lifts the shelving unit off the ground, and drives off carrying the shelves. The robot then has to make its way through the warehouse, dodging through the mulling crowd of other robots carrying other shelving units, until it arrives in the shipping area. Rather than human-driven forklifts, these robots perform the same task.

Humans have in front of them a screen showing the Amazon order they're assembling. The human picks what's needed off the shelving unit, and the robot drives off to return that unit back to the warehouse, while the human finalizes assembling the order.

The system lets Amazon store more stuff per square feet of warehouse space. Amazon can speed up order processing and this is how Amazon has begun to offer same-day-delivery.
Amazon's missed opportunity with HQ2 choice - Midwest USA versus NYC and Washington DC After several months of looking for "HQ2", it's new headquarters for the USA, Amazon has chosen two locations - Queens NY and Arlington VA. Each location will house about 25,000 employees and there are hopes of rehabilitating or diversifying the economies of each area. But, while this choice is good for those two locations, it represents a missed opportunity. Plenty of locations in other parts of the country could use the sort of economic injection Amazon HQ2 represents, at a lower cost to Amazon for office space.
Avoid using Alexa, it remembers everything you tell it Alexa is a nice service from Amazon, being a box where you can ask questions and request that Amazon (or partners) perform services. That's a nice application of voice recognition and artificial intelligence. We get a voice activatable information robot that can perform our bidding. You might not remember asking Alexa to start the charging station on your car, but it turns out that Alexa records every query or command it services.
EU opens investigation into Amazon unfair selling practices On Wednesday, the European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, said the EU had begun an Investigation into whether Amazon uses data from 3rd party retailers in order to gain an unfair advantage in selling its own products. The issue is one American lawmakers, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has raised, namely that Amazon is both a seller in the Amazon marketplace as well as the operator. That dual role naturally raises huge questions.
Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan calls for Amazon HQ2 in Youngstown Ohio area With Amazon's decision to cancel plans for Amazon HQ2 in Queens NY, other locales could be jockeying for attention. In this interview, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (D) makes the case for Ohio as the best location for Amazon HQ2. There are many locales around the country with airports and universities where America's high-tech industry could locate their operations.
Sen. Sanders, others, question Amazon about COVID-19 safety in its warehouse and shipping operations With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing us to stay at home, many are turning to online retailers like Amazon to delivery necessary supplies. But if the shipping facilities are themselves infected with COVID-19, the infection can reach into our houses even if we don't go outside. Sen. Bernie Sanders and others have sent queries to Amazon over whether conditions in Amazon's warehouses are safe for workers, and by extension safe for the products shipped through those facilities.
Sen. Warren seeking to break up Apple, after calling for Facebook/Amazon/et/al breakup Last week Sen. Warren (and Presidential hopeful) called for the breakup of three Tech Giants, Facebook, Amazon and Google. Warren noted that each has an outsized amount of power, and are dominating market areas, and are stifling competition. In an interview over the weekend Warren added Apple to the list of targets.
Sen. Warren seeking to break up Facebook/Amazon/et/al just like previous generation broke up Ma Bell (AT&T) Today Sen. Elizabeth posted a manifesto saying Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc, are too big, monopolistic, have too much control over commerce and society, and therefore the government needs to step in and break them up. Cue howls of protests from Libertarians, I suppose?
US Dept of Justice opens investigation into Big Tech (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc) Today the US Dept of Justice announced an investigation into "the Practices of Market-Leading Online Platforms" as Pres. Trump continues attacking Big Tech. In the past year or so, so-called Conservatives have criticized social media platforms for supposedly silencing their voices. While the DOJ press release doesn't reference that criticism, it's very likely that the two are connected.