Amazon
Amazon’s lofty ambitions across retail, cloud computing and now AI remain in place as it continues to be among the biggest players in e-commerce. The company, like many others, is deploying AI features and services across its offerings like hosting generative AI models within AWS or adding AI voice search to its smart devices, with TechCrunch particularly covering its efforts within the cloud computing and enterprise spaces.
The current AI wave is a never-ending barrage of news items. To understand what I mean, ask yourself how long you spent considering the fact that Amazon put another $2.75…
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The market is forcing cloud vendors to relax data egress fees
As a number of factors come into play, like the reality of a multi-cloud world and a stricter regulatory environment, companies are beginning to see the error in their ways.
Amazon announced Thursday the launch of its new app for Amazon One, its contactless palm recognition service that allows customers to hover their palm over a device in order to…
Amazon doubles down on Anthropic, completing its planned $4B investment
Amazon invested a further $2.75 billion in growing AI power Anthropic on Wednesday, following through on the option it left open last September. The $1.25 billion it invested at the…
Amazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive after all, following a decision by the European Union’s highest court…
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8 million (or in local currency:…
Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal
In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior…
Amazon now lets sellers create listings through a URL by using AI
Amazon launched generative AI-powered features last year to help sellers quickly create listings by entering just a few words about the product. The company is now making it easier for…
Smart fitness ring maker Oura announced a partnership with Amazon today to sell its products through the e-commerce site. The company said that both its rings — Horizon in six…
The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to enter the quick-commerce business, aimed at providing customers with the convenience of receiving their orders instantly after making their purchases, a source…
Amazon generates a lot of trash. Precisely how much is a matter of some debate. In 2021, the company says it used 214 million or so pounds of single-use plastic…
It was only a few years ago — in 2021 — that Windows 11 gained official support for Android apps thanks to a Microsoft-maintained VM called the Windows Subsystem for…
Last month, Amazon announced that it’d launch a new AI-powered chatbot, Rufus, inside the Amazon Shopping app for Android and iOS. After a few days’ delay, the company began to…
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Agility Robotics’ new CEO is ‘focused on the here and now’
There was nothing else like Digit on the ProMat floor last year. The manufacturing supply chain event has gradually morphed into a tech show in recent years. Many of the biggest names in the space were present, showcasing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), bin picking arms and automated storage and retrieval…
Target to launch its own version of Amazon Prime, starting at $49/year
During Target’s investor event on Tuesday, the retail giant announced it is launching a paid membership program, Target Circle 360, on April 7 to compete with rivals Amazon and Walmart.…
The Ring Car Cam appears to be finished, doomed by an unclear target market
Once upon a time, gadgets knew what they were truly for. Toaster? Brown thy bread. Smartphone? Connect thy user. But the Ring Car Cam? Ever since its launch, it found…
Amazon to launch ‘special store’ for value fashion in India
Amazon is preparing to make another attempt to break into India’s fast-growing fashion and lifestyle e-commerce sector, setting up a battle with rival Flipkart, owned by Walmart; Reliance’s Ajio; and…
Amazon and SpaceX are quietly trying to demolish national labor law
Amazon alleged in a legal filing published Friday morning that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional. SpaceX and Trader Joe’s — companies that, like Amazon, have repeatedly faced labor law…
Researchers at Amazon have trained the largest ever text-to-speech model yet, which they claim exhibits “emergent” qualities improving its ability to speak even complex sentences naturally. The breakthrough could be…
Pinterest announces a new ad deal with Google as it approaches 500M MAUs
Pinterest announced a new ad deal with Google as the company aims to ramp up its ad revenue. Google is the social platform’s second third-party ad partner after Amazon signed…
Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…
Cloud infrastructure saw its biggest revenue growth ever in Q4
For the last several quarters we’ve seen a lull in the expansion of the cloud infrastructure market, with lower growth numbers than we’ve been accustomed to seeing in the past.…
Amazon debuts ‘Rufus,’ an AI shopping assistant in its mobile app
Amazon announced today the launch of an AI-powered shopping assistant it’s calling Rufus that’s been trained on the e-commerce giant’s product catalog as well as information from around the web.…
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Amazon’s $1.4B iRobot deal is dead. Now what?
A year and a half after announcing its intention to acquire iRobot, Amazon’s deal is officially dead. All parties involved anticipated some level of regulatory scrutiny, but after a few decades of tech company consolidation, few expected this much friction. The deal had already passed through select international regulatory bodies,…
iRobot and Amazon call it quits, terminate acquisition agreement
Amazon has ended its bid to acquire iRobot, the maker of robotic vacuums, after running up against headwinds with European regulators. Amazon and iRobot have opted to mutually terminate their…
Amazon reverses course, revokes police access to Ring footage via Neighbors app
Update: Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia offered TechCrunch the following statement: Today, Amazon Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage…
French regulator fines Amazon $35M over its surveillance system of warehouse workers
France’s data privacy watchdog, the CNIL, has fined Amazon’s logistics subsidiary in France €32 million, or $35 million at today’s exchange rate. The CNIL says that Amazon France Logistique has…
We all make mistakes. But sometimes we forget that technology does, too — especially when it comes to AI, which is still in its early days in many respects.
It’s been 17 months since Amazon agreed to buy iRobot for $1.7 billion. The subsequent year and a half has unfolded at a glacial pace, as the deal has inched…
Amazon confirms more layoffs, impacting its Buy with Prime unit
As Amazon initiates job cuts across its entire business, including its streaming division, the e-commerce giant is now laying off employees within its Buy with Prime segment. “We regularly review…
