Amazon empowers Alexa with generative AI

ARLINGTON, United States — Amazon’s popular Alexa digital assistant is about to be supercharged with the powers of generative artificial intelligence, the company said on Wednesday, as the tech giant steps into the AI race dominated by ChatGPT, Google and Microsoft.

Voice assistants like Alexa or Apple's Siri are often designated as perfect candidates to have their sometimes-glitchy and robot-like technology streamlined with capabilities of generative AI.

Generative AI, such as used in the ChatGPT chatbot, delivers content as complex as a poem or scholarly essay in just seconds, and Amazon's goal is that Alexa could do that and even more with verbal commands from a user's living room or kitchen.

At an event at the company's offices near Washington, the company said that an English-language version of Alexa AI would be made available as an opt-in on all its devices in the United States in the coming months.

"It's going to take some time to integrate these technologies into the surface area that is Alexa. But I am super optimistic that we are off to a wonderful an excellent start," said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services.

With the change, Alexa will be able to converse with a more personable style and drop its robotic tone, the company said.

Alexa would also tap into real-time information and create the semblance of a personal rapport with users that would include an awareness of their habits or favorite sports teams.

"For example, you could say 'Alexa every morning at 8 am turn on the coffee machine, open the blinds, dim the lights in the study and play my morning news,' and boom -- it creates the routine," Limp said.

While widely plugged as the next stage of consumer technology, in the past decade Alexa and its connected smart home devices have yet to become big money spinners for Amazon, with Google and Apple also struggling to make traction in the space.

Daniel Rausch, the executive in charge of Alexa, told reporters that the AI would put an extra emphasis on accuracy and that its efforts in AI were not comparable with chatbots that have been shown to output inaccuracies or go off the rails.

"Accuracy in smart home means yes, we did turn on the right light, we did lock the right door, we are sure about the state of the security system," he said.

At the launch event, Amazon also introduced its latest Echo 8 smart home hub as well as a soundbar for televisions and new AI-fueled search capabilities on its FireTV service.

Limp, Amazon's longtime device chief, is retiring after more than a decade in the role amid reports he will be replaced by a senior executive from Microsoft.

Agence France-Presse 

Popular live video streaming site Twitch confirms hack

Amazon's popular live video streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday hackers had broken into its network after reports of exposed confidential company data surfaced online.

The service, where users often stream live video game play, confirmed the break-in on Twitter.

"We can confirm a breach has taken place," Twitch said in post from its verified Twitter account.

"Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this."

The statement came after reports emerged that a massive dump of Twitch data had been posted on fringe anonymous message board 4Chan. 

A post at 4Chan served up 125 gigabytes of data reported to include Twitch source code, records of payouts to streamers, and a digital video game distribution service being built by Amazon Game Studios.

It did not appear that personal Twitch user data was in the dump, but the extent of the hack was still being investigated.

Google searches for "how to delete Twitch" rocketed eightfold as news of the hack spread, according to marketing analysts firm N. Rich.

"With such a concerning data breach from a platform as widespread and global as Twitch, users are naturally wanting to protect themselves and their data as soon as possible," an N.Rich spokesperson said.

The person who posted the trove of stolen data left a message claiming the break-in was performed to foster competition in video streaming, and because the Twitch community "is a disgusting toxic cesspool," according to media reports.

Users of Twitch, the world's biggest video game streaming site, staged a virtual walkout last month to voice outrage over barrages of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse on the platform.

The phenomenon of "hate raids" -- torrents of abuse -- has seen the platform become increasingly unpleasant many for Twitch streamers who are not white or straight.

A Twitter hashtag, #TwitchDoBetter, has become a magnet for complaints over the past month, largely from female, non-white and LGBTQ players saying that Twitch is failing to stop internet trolls running amok -- all while taking 50 percent of streamers' earnings.

Twitch has maintained that it is working to improve tools for protecting accounts from abuses.

The service is suing two users in US federal court, accusing them of orchestrating the so-called "hate raids."

Agence France-Presse

Microsoft protests Amazon win of big US cloud contract

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Microsoft on Thursday confirmed it is challenging a decision to award a multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract to its rival Amazon.

US media reports said the contract valued at $10 billion is for modernizing storage of classified data at the National Security Agency (NSA).

"Based on the decision we are filing an administrative protest via the Government Accountability Office," Microsoft said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We are exercising our legal rights and will do so carefully and responsibly."

The NSA spokesperson said that it "will respond to the protest in accordance with appropriate federal regulations," while Amazon declined to comment.

A post on the Government Accountability Office website showed that it is considering a protest filed by Microsoft in July concerning the NSA, but provided no details.

The move came as payback of sorts for Amazon successfully protesting a different $10-billion cloud computing contract that had been awarded to Microsoft.

The Pentagon in July scrapped the deal, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, sidestepping a bitter dispute between Amazon and Microsoft over allegations of political bias that swayed the bidding.

Microsoft in late 2019 won the JEDI contract, sparking a challenge by Amazon on grounds that then president Donald Trump may have improperly influenced the outcome.

Amazon alleged it was shut out of the deal because of what it called Trump's vendetta against the company and its chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Agence France-Presse

‘Best day ever’: Billionaire Bezos has successful suborbital jaunt

VAN HORN, Texas—Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, soared about 107 kilometers above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps to inaugurate a new era of private commercial space tourism. 

"Best day ever," Bezos, accompanied by the world's oldest and youngest space travelers, said after his space capsule descended with three large parachutes and touched down, kicking up a cloud of dust.

The 57-year-old American billionaire, wearing a blue flight suit and donning a cowboy hat, was joined by three crewmates for a trip to the edge of space lasting 10 minutes and 10 seconds. After landing, Bezos and the other crew members exchanged hugs and popped champagne, spraying each other.

"Astronaut Bezos in my seat — happy, happy, happy," Bezos said in response to a mission control status check after the crew members buckled back in aboard New Shepard's capsule following a few minutes of weightlessness in space. 

The fully autonomous 60-foot-tall gleaming white spacecraft, with a blue feather design on its side, ignited its BE-3 engines for a vertical liftoff from Blue Origin's Launch Site One facility about 32 km outside the rural town of Van Horn. There were generally clear skies with a few patchy clouds on a cool morning for the launch. 

Bezos, founder of ecommerce company Amazon.com Inc, and his brother Mark Bezos, a private equity executive, were joined by two others. Pioneering female aviator Wally Funk, 82, and recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen, 18, became the oldest and youngest people to reach space.

The flight came nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism company Virgin Galactic's successful inaugural suborbital flight from New Mexico. The two flights give credibility and inject enthusiasm into the fledgling space tourism industry that Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion annually in a decade.

Bezos, who founded Blue Origin two decades ago, described the company's first crewed space flight as a step toward an ambitious future. Blue Origin plans for two more passenger flights this year. Bezos said it has not determined its future pace of flights after that but said it is approaching $100 million in private sales.

"The demand is very, very high," Bezos told a news conference.

"We're going to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build a future. ... We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth," Bezos added.

Bezos said the architecture and technology for the flight was "overkill for a little tourism mission."

"Big things start small," Bezos added. 

-reuters-    

Amazon restores service after global outage

Amazon.com Inc said its online stores had returned to normal services after a global outage disrupted shopping on its country sites.

According to outage monitoring website Downdetector, services were disrupted for nearly two hours and at the peak of the disruption, more than 38,000 user reports indicated issues with Amazon's online stores. They occurred on Sunday evening in the United States and Monday morning for much of the rest of the world.

"Some customers may have temporarily experienced issues while shopping. We have resolved the issue, and everything is now running smoothly,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

The spokesperson declined to comment on the reason for the outage.

It was the second broad disruption since late June when users experienced a brief outage on Amazon platforms including Alexa and Prime Video before services were restored.

-reuters-

Amazon quarterly profit triples as online sales boom

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Tech and e-commerce colossus Amazon on Thursday reported that its profit in the recently ended quarter tripled as online sales boomed.

Total revenue soared to $108.5 billion, an increase of 44 percent from the same period a year earlier, as the pandemic revved a trend of shopping online instead of in real-world stores.

Profit in the quarter was $8.1 billion, compared with $2.5 billion in the first three months of last year. Amazon shares jumped more than 5 percent in after-market trades.

The Amazon Web Services unit that hosts services and data in the internet cloud saw revenue in the quarter climb to $13.5 billion as compared with $10.2 billion in the first quarter of 2020.

The results marked the latest blowout results from Big Tech firms this week including Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet, which have been delivering critical goods and services during the pandemic.

Analyst Nicole Perrin at eMarketer said Amazon has been growing its digital ad revenues in addition to its online sales and cloud business.

"The amount of retail being transacted through digital channels continues to grow and will support all the more ad spending in future," Perrin said.

More than 200 million people around the world now pay to be members of Amazon Prime, which provides fast, free delivery along with a streaming television service that vies with Netflix.

Seattle-based Amazon boasted that its studios making original shows for Prime had their most successful awards season to date this year.

Attention-getting original titles included One Night in Mia, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm. and Sound of Metal.

"As Prime Video turns 10, over 175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year, and streaming hours are up more than 70 percent year over year." Amazon founder and chief Jeff Bezos said in the earnings release.

"Amazon Studios received a record 12 Academy Award nominations and two wins."

The results come with Big Tech firms facing growing scrutiny over their dominance of key economic sectors, which has been rising during the pandemic.

Agence France-Presse

Bezos says Amazon needs better 'vision' for workers

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Thursday told investors the e-commerce giant needs a better "vision" for its workers, just days after an effort to create the company's first labor union was defeated.

Defending Amazon's treatment of employees, Bezos laid out a new goal for the company to be "Earth's best employer and Earth's safest place to work," in his final letter as chief executive.

"Despite what we've accomplished, it's clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees' success," Bezos said in the letter.

Bezos will remain chairman of the board after he resigns as chief executive later this year, handing control of Amazon to Andy Jassy of the company's cloud services unit.

A contentious unionization drive at an Amazon warehouse in the southern US state of Alabama failed last week as a vote count showed a wide majority of workers rejecting the move.

"Bezos's admission today demonstrates that what we have been saying about workplace conditions is correct," said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the union that vied to represent Amazon workers.

"But his admission won't change anything, workers need a union –- not just another Amazon public relations effort in damage control."

Bezos contended that he took no comfort in the unionization failure.

"While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it's clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees," Bezos said in the letter.

He rejected news reports that he said unfairly portray Amazon workers as "desperate souls and treated as robots."

"That's not accurate," Bezos said.

"They’re sophisticated and thoughtful people who have options for where to work."

Unions and political leaders have argued that Amazon employees face constant pressure and monitoring, with little job protection, highlighting the need for collective bargaining.

Amazon has argued that most of its workers don't want or need a union and that it already provides more than most other employers, with a minimum $15 hourly wage and other benefits.

The Seattle-based technology and e-commerce powerhouse hired 500,000 people last year and now directly employs 1.3 million people globally, according to Bezos.

Amazon plans to invest more than $300 million this year into workplace safety projects, and roll out a software program that figures out how to rotate employees between jobs to reduce chances of injuries caused by repetitive motions.

Agence France-Presse

No tills? No problem, as Amazon opens 'contactless' UK grocery store

Amazon on Thursday launched its first "just walk out shopping" outlet outside the United States, as the online retail giant steps up its competition with traditional supermarkets and other retailers.

Customers at Amazon Fresh in Ealing Broadway shopping centre in west London queued outside the black and green storefront under social distancing measures to be first to use the convenience store which has no checkouts.

The outlet, according to Amazon, is the "first convenience grocery store to offer just walk out shopping in the UK" and its "first physical shop and grocery store outside of the US".

To use the new outlet, customers have to download an app and then scan a QR code before an electronic gate swings open and allows them to browse a range of Amazon-brand products.

On its opening day, a team of assistants, dressed in vibrant green jackets -- the same colour as the grocery shop's colourful branding -- were on hand to explain how the system worked.

Once they have bagged their items, customers don't have to show a card or let anyone know, they simply walk out.

"It was really strange, it felt like I was a criminal, because I was just taking things and putting them straight in my bag," 71-year-old Ealing resident Philippa Dolphin told AFP.

-'You just walk right out'-

"But apparently there are cameras watching me. And then you just walk out! It didn’t seem right but I was assured it was okay!" she added.

Amazon has said the store, which is similar to 20 Amazon Go outlets in the United States, uses "deep learning" algorithms -- technology which allows machines to learn by themselves -- with cameras and sensors to tell what customers have picked up.

"It automatically knows what you’ve got in your basket and when you leave the shop it charges you and bills you automatically into the account you have set up," said Erica Ely, a 57-year-old local resident, holding her purchases on the street outside the shop.

Benjamin Rogers, 31, a sales manager who lives in the area, stopped in to buy ingredients for a cake and said the speed of shopping at the Amazon store made it appealing. 

"I think the major advantage is the fact that sometimes when you go to the supermarket you can do your shopping and then it can be a five-, 10-, 15-minute wait to pay for your goods at the end" he said.

"This is just a simple way to cut through and walk out and finish your job."

Matt Birch, a former Sainsbury's executive who now leads Amazon Fresh Stores UK, said the brand which is also used for online groceries in the UK has looked to make the experience "as convenient as possible".

-'Reversing the trend'-

"We recognise that UK customers want to shop in a convenient way so we really think they will appreciate being able to walk in and walk out with the shopping they need," he added.

Amazon, which was already growing in Britain before the pandemic and competing with a struggling retail sector, has seen its position strengthen since the outbreak and months of closure for shops deemed non-essential.

Shopper Mark Lloyd said it was "interesting" that Amazon was moving from online into "bricks and mortar retail business". 

"It is kind of reversing the trend for e-commerce and digital shelves, so it is quite unusual in that respect," the 58-year-old creative director said.

Despite the ease of her shopping experience, Dolphin said she was somewhat troubled what about the arrival of the Amazon shop would mean in the long term.

"I am a bit worried that it is going to put other businesses that I use out of business. So yes, I am a little bit concerned because they are such a giant," she said.

Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk leaves behind Amazon's Bezos to become world's richest person: Bloomberg News

Tesla Inc chief and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk surpassed Amazon.com Inc's top boss Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest man, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Including Thursday's gains in Tesla shares, Musk, 49, had a net worth of more than $188.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than Bezos, the report said.

Musk's personal wealth has been boosted by last year's more than eight-fold surge in the shares of Tesla, which became the world's most valuable carmaker.

He has a 20 percent stake in the carmaker and about $42 billion of unrealized paper gains on vested stock options, according to the Bloomberg report.

Tesla shares were up as much as 7.4 percent on Thursday at a record high of $811.61.

The Forbes Billionaires List, however, said Musk still trails Amazon's Bezos by $7.8 billion.

Forbes has a more conservative estimate based on the Tesla stake that he has pledged as a collateral for personal loans. To take that into account, it applies a 25 percent discount to his shareholding, according to its report in November.

Musk, who co-founded and sold Internet payments company PayPal Holdings Inc, now leads some of the most futuristic companies in the world.

Besides Tesla, he heads rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup that is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

He set up the Boring Company to make affordable tunnels below busy city streets for an all-electric public transportation system to avoid the nasty traffic jams in US cities.

-reuters-

Amazon shuts New Jersey facility as COVID-19 cases rise among workers

Amazon.com Inc said on Sunday it had closed one of its warehouses in New Jersey out of caution until December 26, after seeing an increase in asymptomatic positive cases amongst workers.

"Through our in-house COVID-19 testing program, we detected an increase in the number of asymptomatic positive cases at our PNE5 facility in northern New Jersey and have proactively closed the site until December 26th out of an abundance of caution," an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, did not specify the number of workers who contracted the disease at its PNE5 facility, which is a sorting center.

The company, however said, that its employees will be paid for the shifts that they miss because of the shutdown of the facility.

In October, Amazon said more than 19,000 of its US frontline workers contracted the coronavirus this year, or 1.44 percent of the total, a disclosure sought by labor advocates who have criticized the COVID-19 response of the company.

Some staff, elected officials and unions in recent months have said Amazon put its employees' health at risk by keeping warehouses open during the pandemic.

The company had said it would expand virus testing to 50,000 US employees per day by November through internally built capacity. 

-reuters-

Cyber Monday set to be biggest online shopping day in U.S. history

NEW YORK/BENGALURU - Cyber Monday was set to garner up to $12.7 billion in online sales, according to industry estimates, surpassing Black Friday's digital numbers as U.S. retailers enter the last lap of an extended holiday selling season.

Retailers have given shoppers nearly two months of offers since Amazon.com held its Prime Day in October, as they sought to be competitive and recoup the sales lost in this year's coronavirus-driven closures of malls and other stores.

Latest estimates from Adobe Analytics showed this year's conclusion to Thanksgiving weekend promotions would, however, still be the largest online sales day in history, with spending between $10.8 billion and $12.7 billion.

"While I anticipate another year of discount chicken — where consumers hold out for deeper and deeper discounts throughout the season ... Cyber Monday should (still) offer a great opportunity to make a big dent in holiday shopping," said Rob Garf, VP of strategy and insights at Salesforce.

Traditionally, Cyber Monday starts with people, fresh after a long weekend, scouring for discounts online at work and driving another big day of promotions.

However, the popularity of event shopping days has faded with the emergence of online shopping and cheap deals throughout the year from retailers including Amazon and Walmart Inc, with the health crisis this year also playing with shopping patterns.

"I did a lot of my shopping even before Black Friday... I feel I've gotten mostly everything," said Caroline McCormick, 33.

The Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, sales engineer said she's been receiving "early access" Black Friday emails for several weeks now, prompting her to buy hiking boots on Columbia Sportswear's website for her mother, socks on Kohl's Corp's website and more.

Today, when she was pitched more deals for Cyber Monday, "nothing popped out that made me think 'I need to get that right now.'"

The tentpole shopping event of Black Friday, which pulled in record online sales of about $9 billion, according to Adobe, saw shoppers turning up in smaller numbers at stores as they utilized the early deals and avoided stepping out into large crowds. 

This year's Cyber Monday saw not just online sellers such as Amazon offer steep discounts for its own brands, including Fire TV stick, Echo devices, and other electronics like PlayStations and roombas, but also brick-and-mortar stores such as Lululemon Athletica and Best Buy provide online deals.

"I go online a little bit and look around and do some comparison shopping, but Amazon pretty much beats everything," said Bill Hon, 49, a cook living in Crawfordsville, Indiana, who started his holiday shopping during Amazon's Prime Day event.

Apple also held a four-day event on its website ending on Monday, offering gift cards of up to $150 on purchase of certain products.

-reuters-

Amazon, Apple stay away from new French initiative to set principles for Big Tech

PARIS - US tech giants Amazon and Apple have not signed up to a new French initiative to get global tech companies to publicly commit to principles including paying their fair share of taxes, government officials said on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron has sought for the past three years to cajole tech giants into collaborating with governments on a series of global challenges such as fighting hate speech online, preserving privacy or contributing to state coffers.

Amid a public outcry about technology groups' good fortunes during the coronavirus pandemic this year, Macron's advisers said on Monday that the president had asked tech companies to sign up to a new initiative called "Tech for Good Call" underlining principles for the post-COVID world.

The French government released a list of 75 executives of tech companies that had signed up to the initiative so far, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft President Brad Smith. Apple and Amazon were notably absent from the list.

Apple declined to comment, but French officials said talks with the group were ongoing and they could still join the initiative, details of which will be published officially by Tuesday. A representative for Amazon, which French officials said had declined to join the initiative, did not return a request for comment.

"The goal is also to... observe objectively those who decide to play ball and align their interest with individuals and societies and those who stay out of this joint movement," a presidential adviser told a press briefing.

Leading tech executives such as Facebook's Zuckerberg attended the so-called "Tech for Good" summit hosted by the French president at the Elysee Palace in 2018, which gave birth to working groups on issues that have become sources of tension between governments and "Big Tech".

The new initiative is not legally binding, but French officials said Macron will use it as a tool to influence upcoming negotiations at global forums on regulating Big Tech.

The US and European governments have clashed over the issue of taxing Big Tech during talks at the OECD.

Signatories to the "Tech for Good Call" commit to "contribute fairly to the taxes in countries where (they) operate"; prevent the dissemination of "child sexual abuse material, terrorist or extreme violence online contents"; and "support the ecological transition", among other things.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Agence France-Presse

Amazon says cloud outage triggered by capacity upgrade

WASHINGTON - A giant outage of Amazon's cloud-computing network in the US, which impacted large users such as media companies, was triggered by an effort to upgrade capacity, the company said Saturday.

The e-commerce giant's Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major glitch on Wednesday that even hit the publishing system of the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

"The trigger, though not root cause, for the event was a relatively small addition of capacity," Amazon said in the statement.

The outage impacted many companies, which use AWS services to store data without having to manage their own servers. 

According to US media, the New York subway was among those affected, as well as Roku, a streaming television service. 

The Wall Street Journal said it was hit too. 

AWS, created in 2006, leads the market for remote computing services. Research firms say it has a 30-50 percent market share.

Agence France-Presse

Europe charges Amazon with using dominance and data to squeeze rivals

BRUSSELS - The European Union charged Amazon with damaging retail competition, alleging on Tuesday that the US company uses its size, power and data to gain an unfair advantage over smaller merchants that sell on its online platform.

The move by competition chief Margrethe Vestager, the latest European salvo against US tech giants, comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified Amazon's role in the global economy, with online sales soaring in lockdowns.

The European Commission has been investigating Amazon's position as both a marketplace for merchants and a rival seller, while the firm also faces scrutiny in the United States over its alleged mistreatment of sellers, as well as its dual role.

The EU regulator looked into how Amazon collects data on competitors that sell on its platform, offering everything from electronics and toys to food and kitchenware. It says that Amazon uses that sensitive information, which shows what is proving popular or not, to better target its own products.

"The use of these data allows Amazon to focus on the sale of the best-selling products and it marginalizes third-party sellers and caps their ability to grow," European Competition Commissioner Vestager told a news conference.

Vestager, who has a reputation of being one of the world's toughest antitrust enforcers, said that regulators had to ensure that dual-role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, did not distort competition. Amazon disagreed with the EU assertions. "Amazon represents less than 1% of the global retail market, and there are larger retailers in every country in which we operate," the company said.

A US Congressional antitrust report earlier this year into the alleged abuse of market power by Amazon also raised the concerns highlighted by the EU and is likely to influence the case US regulators bring against the company.

US Representative David Cicilline, a Democrat and the top antitrust lawmaker in the House, applauded the EU and urged the US Federal Trade Commision to take similar action.

"As we found as part of a 16-month bipartisan investigation, Amazon has monopoly power over sellers on its platform," Cicilline said.

The EU charges are the latest example of how watchdogs around the world, led by Europe, are grappling with the challenges of regulating Big Tech, companies that have achieved dominance in their fields and vast troves of user data.

On Vestager's watch, the EU has imposed large fines on Alphabet's Google and other companies. See FACTBOX:

A final EU decision could come next year. Amazon faces being fined up to 10% of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching antitrust rules. However it can avoid a hefty penalty and a finding of wrongdoing by offering concessions to settle.

NEW INVESTIGATION

The EU competition enforcer has been investigating Amazon since July last year after rival traders voiced their grievances. The regulator said the charges related to Amazon's activities in France and Germany, its two biggest markets in Europe and where it is the dominant player.

The case focuses on its use of merchant data on its platform. Vestager said her officials had trawled 80 million transactions and reviewed 100 million products on Amazon's platform to put the case together.

The European Commission also opened a new investigation into Amazon on Tuesday, over the possible preferential treatment of its own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use Amazon's logistics and delivery services.

That probe will look into the possible preferential treatment of Amazon's own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use Amazon's logistics and delivery services.

Regulators will investigate the criteria the company uses to select winners of its "buy box", which allows customers to add items from a specific retailer directly into their shopping carts.

"Its rules should not artificially favor Amazon's own retail offers or advantage the offers of retailers using Amazon's logistics and delivery services," Vestager said, citing the importance of e-commerce, an area which has gained importance with the COVID-19 pandemic.

-reuters-

Amazon to expand tech hubs, corporate offices, adding 3,500 jobs

WASHINGTON - Amazon unveiled plans Tuesday to hire 3,500 new employees as part of an expansion of its technology hubs and corporate offices across the United States.

The US technology and e-commerce giant said the latest plans call for some 2,000 new jobs in New York City, where Amazon has acquired the landmark Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue.

The move comes after Amazon -- which has seen gains in revenue during the pandemic from its e-commerce and cloud computing operations -- said it would make permanent 125,000 of the 175,000 jobs it added since the start of the public health crisis.

The latest moves expand Amazon tech hubs in Dallas, Detroit, Denver, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego and represent an investment of some $1.4 billion, according to the company.

"People from all walks of life come to Amazon to develop their careers -- from recent graduates looking for a place to turn their ideas into high-impact products, to veterans accessing new jobs in cloud computing thanks to our upskilling programs," said Beth Galetti, senior vice president of human resources at Amazon.

"These 3,500 new jobs will be in cities across the country with strong and diverse talent pools. We look forward to helping these communities grow their emerging tech workforce."

In New York -- where Amazon had announced but then canceled plans for a high-profile headquarters -- the announcement confirms Amazon's acquisition of the iconic Lord & Taylor department store building earlier this year, in a deal reported to be worth nearly $1 billion, from office-sharing startup WeWork.

The building will be used for some 58,000 square meters (630,000 square feet) of office space, according to Amazon.

Amazon, whose expansion has attracted increased antitrust scrutiny in the US and elsewhere, said its global workforce now stands at some 876,000.

In addition to e-commerce and cloud computing, Amazon has operations in streaming video and music and artificial intelligence and owns the Whole Foods supermarket chain.

It recently unveiled plans to invest $10 billion for its planned space-based internet delivery system that will deploy more than 3,000 low-orbit satellites.

Agence France-Presse

Amazon smart cart lets grocery shoppers skip checkout

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Amazon on Tuesday introduced a smart grocery cart that will let shoppers skip checkout queues.

Amazon's latest cashierless shopping innovation comes as merchants and customers strive to do business while reducing risk of exposure to coronavirus.

Dash Carts that use discretely embedded sensors and cameras to tally prices of items placed inside will debut in an Amazon grocery store to open in Southern California later this year.

"It's a new smart shopping cart that makes a quick grocery trip even quicker by allowing you to skip the checkout line," the technology titan, which owns the Whole Foods market chain, said in a post.

"When you're done shopping, you'll simply exit through the store's Amazon Dash Cart lane, and your receipt will be emailed to you."

Each cart uses computer vision software and sensor data to identify what is put inside, showing a running total along with item descriptions and prices on a display, according to Amazon.

Using a Dash cart requires a smartphone loaded with the Amazon application, which synchs by scanning a QR code and then charges the purchase to the credit card on file, the US based company explained.

Amazon early this year began offering its "just walk out" technology to other retailers in a move aimed at boosting the use of the cashierless store system.

"Just Walk Out technology enables shoppers to simply enter a store, grab what they want, and just go," the website said.

The move came shortly after Amazon launched its first full-size grocery store in Seattle using the cashierless model.

Amazon has already opened more than 20 smaller Amazon Go stores using the same system, including in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

The Go stores allow pre-registered customers to skip the cashier and allow their credit cards to be billed for their purchases, with the technology detecting what they take and return to the shelves.

Agence France-Presse

Google to make online shopping service free to merchants

SAN FRANCISCO - Google is opening its online shopping service to merchants free of charge as it competes with Amazon in precious e-commerce and digital ads.

Merchants in the US will be able to use Google Shopping for free to proffer their wares by the end of April, and the goal is to do the same for sellers around the world before the end of the year, according to commerce unit president Bill Ready.

Google Shopping had previously showcased only retailers who paid to promote products to consumers searching online for items.

"As consumers increasingly shop online, they're searching not just for essentials but also things like toys, apparel, and home goods," Ready said in a blog post.

"While this presents an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, many cannot afford to do so at scale."

The closing of physical shops due to the pandemic has accelerated Google's plan to make it free for merchants to sell with its online commerce service, according to Ready.

Beginning next week, results for searches in the Google Shopping tab will be mostly free listings. Google will display paid ads on results pages as well.

"For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings," Ready said.

Online retail colossus Amazon uses a similar formula, mixing sponsored product posts with offerings by merchants and has been making an increasing amount of revenue from digital ads in the process.

Google said it is working with PayPal to allow merchants to use the financial transactions service for sales on the Shopping platform, making it easier for potential vendors to join.

Online shopping has surged, with Amazon center stage, as people sheltering at home to avoid coronavirus risk have relied on e-commerce for groceries, medicine, household staples and more.

"Solutions during this crisis will not be fast or easy, but we hope to provide a measure of relief for businesses and lay the groundwork for a healthier retail ecosystem in the future," Ready said.

Agence France-Presse

Bezos, Zuckerberg join White House phone calls on reopening U.S. economy

Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com Inc, and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Inc's CEO, on Wednesday participated in White House conference calls about how to reopen the U.S. economy in light of the coronavirus pandemic, company representatives said.

The phone calls followed an announcement Tuesday by President Donald Trump about the formation of advisory groups on how to open up the country, which include other top U.S. executives such as Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook and JPMorgan Chase & Co chief Jamie Dimon.

Business leaders told Trump the country needs much more coronavirus testing before the public would be confident enough to participate in reopening the economy, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The president, on Twitter, called the calls "very productive", adding that corporate leaders were "all-in on getting America back to work, and soon."

Some 94 percent of Americans have been under government stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which causes the potentially lethal respiratory illness COVID-19. The orders, including mandatory business closures, have battered the U.S. economy and left millions of Americans unemployed.

Trump has turned to Corporate America to help plot a course forward. He has often sought business leaders' assistance, as with a previously announced drive-through testing program with prominent retailers including Walmart Inc.

However, relations between the White House and Amazon - the world's largest online retailer - have at times appeared strained. Trump, for instance, has described the Bezos-owned Washington Post as Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.” The top editor of the newspaper, which has published articles critical of the president, has said Bezos has no involvement in its news coverage. (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin and Katie Paul in San Francisco Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)

-reuters-

Amazon worker in US quarantined with novel coronavirus

SAN FRANCISCO, California - Amazon confirmed Tuesday that an employee who works in the internet giant's home city of Seattle had been quarantined after testing positive for the new coronavirus.

"We're supporting the affected employee who is in quarantine," Amazon said in response to an AFP inquiry.

Amazon sent an internal memo explaining that the employee went home after feeling unwell at work last week and has not returned to the company's offices, according to a report in CNBC.

Amazon has an "urban campus" in Seattle, with offices spread across the city.

Workers known to have been in close contact with the ill employee were notified, and the risk to others at the company was considered low, the memo was reported to say.

The death toll attributed to virus in the United States has risen to nine, many linked to a nursing home in the Seattle suburbs, while the overall number of infections shot past 100 including cases on both coasts and the Midwest.

More than 90,000 people have been infected and 3,200 killed since the first cases were identified in China's Hubei province late last year.

The vast majority of cases have been in China, but South Korea, Italy and Iran have also emerged as hotspots.

The virus has spread into Latin America and Africa, raising fears it could become established in countries with weak health infrastructure.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

1 million products banned on Amazon over false coronavirus claims

Amazon.com Inc has barred more than 1 million products from sale in recent weeks that had inaccurately claimed to cure or defend against the coronavirus, the company told Reuters on Thursday.

Amazon also removed tens of thousands of deals from merchants that it said attempted to price-gouge customers. The world's largest online retailer has faced scrutiny over the health-related offers on its platform, and earlier this week Italy launched a probe into surging prices around the internet for sanitizing gels and hygiene masks while it battled the biggest outbreak in Europe.

The coronavirus has caused at least 2,797 deaths globally. New reported infections around the world now exceed those from mainland China, where the flu-like disease arose two months ago out of an illegal wildlife market. Governments from Australia to Iran have closed schools, scrapped events and stockpiled medical supplies to contain the virus's spread.

One offer comparison site showed recent examples of higher-than-usual prices for masks on Amazon made by US industrial conglomerate 3M Co.

A merchant Thursday offered a 10-pack of N95 masks for $128, a Reuters reporter saw when clicking through the buying options on Amazon. That was up from a recent seller average price of $41.24, according to the tracking website camelcamelcamel.com. The item was no longer available in a check later in the day.

A two-pack respirator was offered new at $24.99 earlier this week by a third-party seller, up from a recent average of $6.65 when sold by Amazon, the price-following site showed.

"There is no place for price gouging on Amazon," a spokeswoman said in a statement, citing the company's policy that product information must be accurate and that Amazon can take down offers that hurt customer trust, including when pricing "is significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon."

It declined to specify the exact threshold at which an item is considered unfairly priced.

The company said it has monitored for price spikes and false claims through a mix of automated and manual review of listings.

source: news.abs-cbn.com