LAS VEGAS -- Amazon said Wednesday it expects to begin large-scale deliveries by drone in the coming months as it unveiled its newest design for its "Prime Air" fleet.
Jeff Wilke, head of Amazon's consumer operations, told the company's Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space conference in Las Vegas that drones would play a role in ramping up efforts to shorten delivery times for many items to just 1 day for Amazon Prime members.
"We've been hard at work building fully electric drones that can fly up to 15 miles (25 kilometers) and deliver packages under 5 pounds (2.3 kilos) to customers in less than 30 minutes," Wilke said in a blog post.
"And, with the help of our world-class fulfillment and delivery network, we expect to scale Prime Air both quickly and efficiently, delivering packages via drone to customers within months."
Amazon offered no details about where or when the drone deliveries would be operational.
The company conducted its first test of drone deliveries in 2016 in Britain. At the time, it said US regulations made it harder to use drones for delivery in the United States.
Wilke said Wednesday that Amazon has invested to make its delivery drones safer and more efficient.
"It can do vertical takeoffs and landings -- like a helicopter," he said. "And it's efficient and aerodynamic -- like an airplane. It also easily transitions between these two modes, from vertical-mode to airplane mode, and back to vertical mode."
The new drones are also designed to be stable even in gusty wind conditions, Wilke added.
"We know customers will only feel comfortable receiving drone deliveries if they know the system is incredibly safe," he said.
"So we're building a drone that isn't just safe, but independently safe, using the latest artificial intelligence technologies."
Amazon said earlier this year it would speed up its free delivery for its Prime subscribers, currently 2 days for most items, to a single day, with North American customers the first to benefit.
It said it would spend some $800 million in the current quarter in the effort to shorten delivery times. It is also hiring more drivers and offering employees an opportunity to launch their own delivery enterprise with a subsidy from Amazon.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon.com Inc is rolling out machines to automate a job held by thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders.
The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years that scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelops them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two people who worked on the project told Reuters.
Amazon has considered installing two machines at dozens more warehouses, removing at least 24 roles at each one, these people said. These facilities typically employ more than 2,000 people.
That would amount to more than 1,300 cuts across 55 U.S. fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory. Amazon would expect to recover the costs in under two years, at $1 million per machine plus operational expenses, they said.
The plan, previously unreported, shows how Amazon is pushing to reduce labor and boost profits as automation of the most common warehouse task – picking up an item – is still beyond its reach. The changes are not finalized because vetting technology before a major deployment can take a long time.
Amazon is famous for its drive to automate as many parts of its business as possible, whether pricing goods or transporting items in its warehouses. But the company is in a precarious position as it considers replacing jobs that have won it subsidies and public goodwill.
"We are piloting this new technology with the goal of increasing safety, speeding up delivery times and adding efficiency across our network," an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement. "We expect the efficiency savings will be re-invested in new services for customers, where new jobs will continue to be created."
Amazon last month downplayed its automation efforts to press visiting its Baltimore fulfillment center, saying a fully robotic future was far off. Its employee base has grown to become one of the largest in the United States, as the company opened new warehouses and raised wages to attract staff in a tight labor market.
A key to its goal of a leaner workforce is attrition, one of the sources said. Rather than lay off workers, the person said, the world's largest online retailer will one day refrain from refilling packing roles. Those have high turnover because boxing multiple orders per minute over 10 hours is taxing work. At the same time, employees that stay with the company can be trained to take up more technical roles.
The new machines, known as the CartonWrap from Italian firm CMC Srl, pack much faster than humans. They crank out 600 to 700 boxes per hour, or four to five times the rate of a human packer, the sources said. The machines require one person to load customer orders, another to stock cardboard and glue and a technician to fix jams on occasion.
CMC declined to comment.
Though Amazon has announced it intends to speed up shipping across its Prime loyalty program, this latest round of automation is not focused on speed. "It's truly about efficiency and savings," one of the people said.
Including other machines known as the "SmartPac," which the company rolled out recently to mail items in patented envelopes, Amazon's technology suite will be able to automate a majority of its human packers. Five rows of workers at a facility can turn into two, supplemented by two CMC machines and one SmartPac, the person said.
The company describes this as an effort to "re-purpose" workers, the person said.
It could not be learned where roles might disappear first and what incentives, if any, are tied to those specific jobs.
But the hiring deals that Amazon has with governments are often generous. For the 1,500 jobs Amazon announced last year in Alabama, for instance, the state promised the company $48.7 million over 10 years, its department of commerce said.
PICKING CHALLENGE
Amazon is not alone in testing CMC's packing technology. JD.com Inc and Shutterfly Inc have used the machines as well, the companies said, as has Walmart Inc , according to a person familiar with its pilot.
Walmart started 3.5 years ago and has since installed the machines in several U.S. locations, the person said. The company declined to comment.
Interest in boxing technology sheds light on how the e-commerce behemoths are approaching one of the major problems in the logistics industry today: finding a robotic hand that can grasp diverse items without breaking them.
Amazon employs countless workers at each fulfillment center who do variations of this same task. Some stow inventory, while others pick customer orders and still others grab those orders, placing them in the right size box and taping them up.
Many venture-backed companies and university researchers are racing to automate this work. While advances in artificial intelligence are improving machines' accuracy, there is still no guarantee that robotic hands can prevent a marmalade jar from slipping and breaking, or switch seamlessly from picking up an eraser to grabbing a vacuum cleaner.
Amazon has tested different vendors' technology that it may one day use for picking, including from Soft Robotics, a Boston-area startup that drew inspiration from octopus tentacles to make grippers more versatile, one person familiar with Amazon's experimentation said. Soft Robotics declined to comment on its work with Amazon but said it has handled a wide and ever-changing variety of products for multiple large retailers.
Believing that grasping technology is not ready for prime time, Amazon is automating around that problem when packing customer orders. Humans still place items on a conveyor, but machines then build boxes around them and take care of the sealing and labeling. This saves money not just by reducing labor but by reducing wasted packing materials as well.
These machines are not without flaws. CMC can only produce so many per year. They need a technician on site who can fix problems as they arise, a requirement Amazon would rather do without, the two sources said. The super-hot glue closing the boxes can pile up and halt a machine.
Still other types of automation, like the robotic grocery assembly system of Ocado Group PLC, are the focus of much industry interest.
But the boxing machines are already proving helpful to Amazon. The company has installed them in busy warehouses that are driving distance from Seattle, Frankfurt, Milan, Amsterdam, Manchester and elsewhere, the people said.
The machines have the potential to automate far more than 24 jobs per facility, one of the sources said. The company is also setting up nearly two dozen more U.S. fulfillment centers for small and non-specialty inventory, according to logistics consultancy MWPVL International, which could be ripe for the machines.
This is just a harbinger of automation to come.
"A 'lights out' warehouse is ultimately the goal," one of the people said.
(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; additional reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; editing by Greg Mitchell and Edward Tobin)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- Global courier service FedEx on Wednesday announced plans to test a "SameDay Bot" autonomous delivery device designed to carry purchases from retail shops to local customers.
FedEx said its robotic delivery carts, reminiscent of a large canister with wheels, would be tried out in its home city of Memphis, Tennessee later this year, provided it gets final approval from officials there.
"The bot represents a milestone in our ongoing mission to solve the complexities and expense of same-day, last-mile delivery for the growing e-commerce market in a manner that is safe and environmentally friendly," FedEx executive vice president Brie Carere said in a statement.
FedEx enlisted DEKA Development & Research to help develop the delivery bot, which is designed to travel along sidewalks or roadsides carrying small shipments to homes or businesses.
"The bot has unique capabilities that make it unlike other autonomous vehicles," said DEKA founder Dean Kamen, an engineer whose creations include the Segway.
Battery-powered FedEx bots have sensors to avoid pedestrians and other potential obstacles, and can even climb steps or curbs, according to the companies. The bot's top speed was reported to be 10 miles per hour (16 kilometers per hour).
The initial test will involve deliveries between selected FedEx offices.
FedEx said that it was exploring the potential of using the bots to meet short-range delivery needs of retailers including Walmart, Target and Pizza Hut.
It is common for people to live within three miles of retail shops where they are customers, creating an opportunity to serve them with "hyper-local," on-demand deliveries, according to FedEx.
An array of startups have been working on efficient, autonomous robots to carry purchases that "last mile" from restaurants, shops, or warehouses.
E-commerce giant Amazon in January began putting cooler-sized robots to work delivering packages to customers in a neighborhood outside Seattle.
Electric-powered, wheeled delivery vehicles named "Scout" were created by Amazon and guide themselves along sidewalks at a walking pace, according to Sean Scott, the vice president heading the project.
Results of the Scout experiment will determine whether the system is expanded.
Amazon has developed an extensive logistics network as it works to efficiently delivery goods to customers while controlling costs.
Chinese retail giant JD.com uses delivery robots, as do a number of startups operating in the United States and Europe.
Starship Technologies, based in Estonia, has tested operation in the US capital city of Washington, and another startup, KiwiBot, handles deliveries to US university students.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said on Tuesday that Silicon Valley companies, including his own, have not done enough to protect victims of online abuse, calling it a "huge fail."
Interviewed via Twitter by Kara Swisher, co-founder of the tech news site Recode, Dorsey tweeted that he would give himself a 'C' grade for what Swisher termed "tech responsibility."
"We've made progress, but it has been scattered and not felt enough," he tweeted in response to Swisher's questions. "Changing the experience hasn't been meaningful enough. And we've put most of the burden on the victims of abuse (that's a huge fail)."
Twitter, along with online social media network Facebook Inc, has faced criticism for abusive posts, fake users and inaccurate news stories on its service. The company has been investing heavily to improve what Dorsey has described as the "collective health" of Twitter.
Dorsey said on Tuesday he does not like how Twitter tends to incentivize outrage, short-term thinking, echo chambers, and fragmented conversations, and that the lack of diversity in the company has not helped in combating such problems.
He said Twitter's work against "automations and coordinated campaigns," along with its collaboration with various government agencies, has left it in a better position to combat the threat of misinformation for the 2020 US presidential elections.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia used social media during the 2016 US elections to sway voters. Moscow denies that charge.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA -- Work from home schemes can be a fallback for call center agents who risk losing their jobs as their industry automates certain tasks, a jobs recruitment platform said Tuesday.
Up to 10,000 jobs daily are offered on Freelancer.com where 92,920 employers are looking for project-based workers for data entry, programming, graphic design, Excel and Photoshop, according to its vice president for sales, Sebastian Siseles
Finding a project-based job is easier since employers look for a skill instead of a college degree, Siseles told ABS-CBN News.
"We are looking for 1,000 different skills and abilities and you just need to know 1 thing, 1 skill for you to land a job," he said.
Freelancers are paid $196 or P10,000 per project on the average, "a lot bigger" compared to office work, he said.
The proposed Telecommuting Act, which seeks to provide equal pay and benefits for home-based workers compared to their office-based counterparts was passed by the Senate and the House in a bicameral conference last October.
Some 43,000 low-skilled workers could lose their jobs in the next 4 years when companies turn to artificial intelligence, instead of humans, to accomplish "repetitive" tasks, the IT and Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines earlier said.
The freelancing industry can accommodate these workers as the network is "still growing," Siseles said.
The Philippines, with 1 million freelancers, leads Southeast Asia and is fourth in the world in terms of project-based work, he said.
India, United States and Pakistan are ahead of the Philippines only because of bigger populations and faster internet connections, he said.
English fluency is a "huge advantage" for Filipinos seeking freelance work, like in BPOs, he said.
Freelancing thrives because it removes "unnecessary intermediaries" that drive up costs, he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON - British finance minister Philip Hammond is to announce £75 million ($99 million, 84 million euros) funding for Artificial Intelligence and plans to put driverless cars on UK roads by 2021, in his budget speech on Wednesday.
Hammond will announce regulation changes to allow Britain's driverless car industry, which the government estimates will be worth £28 billion by 2035, to get cars on the road within as little as three yeas, according to extracts of the budget released by his office on Sunday.
The minister, who is under a pressure to deliver an eye-catching budget following Brexit spats with cabinet colleagues, will also announce a £400 million fund for companies hoping to roll out electric-car charge points across the country.
People hoping to buy a battery-electric vehicle will also be able to access funding as Britain attempts to move towards zero-emission transport.
With a focus on tech industries, the government is also planning to spend £75 million supporting companies developing AI and £160 million in developing 5G technology, which it believes will be necessary for the mass rollout of driverless cars.
However, the Conservative minister is likely to be judged more on his social spending policies, particularly on his housing policy in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster that killed 71 people.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA - Business process outsourcing workers said they were betting
on the "human touch" to keep their jobs, as the industry looks towards
artificial intelligence.
The industry that employs roughly 1.15 million people expects that
the shift to AI for mechanical tasks had the potential to displace 40,000 low-skilled workers while creating opportunities for nearly 700,000 with higher skills.
Potential job losses are a "myth"
as companies that outsource operations develop "hybrid digital and live
interaction agents," said SITEL chief operating officer Craig Reines.
Michael Noche, a 32-year-old training manager with Ibex Global, said he was "not threatened at all" by the looming automation wave.
"AI might have its own advantages but still we will not be able to deny the fact that human talent is something a lot more deeper and is indispensable," Noche told ABS-CBN News.
Call center supervisor Keith Rosales is similarly optimistic.
"Having AI do all these in the future is not possible. Human touch would always be needed when it comes to customer service," Rosales told ABS-CBN News.
"Customers still like to speak to a live agent instead of having to deal with a computer or robot. My company is trying to introduce self-service channels but so far, customers still rather call the hotline with live agents because it is more personalized," he said.
English proficiency and a service-oriented culture give Filipino BPO workers an edge over other outsourcing hubs said SITEL's Reines.
"There's no such thing as singularity replacement of human capability but it's rather how do we manage it," said Gilbert Camasura, president of recruitment firm Asia Select.
With the advent of automation, team supervisor Kevin Paolo dela Cruz looks forward to more years in BPO.
"I feel excited about it, I am working for a company with a goal of being innovative, to put the business to the next level, and it will help a lot of people who's looking for a decent, well compensated job," he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
