Next month, Amazon will be releasing its souped-up alexa+
Amazon on Tuesday announced Alexa Plus that’ll allow users to have an understanding of what they see through their surveillance cameras. Users will be able to ask Alexa, “When was the last time someone took the dog out for a walk?” Users will need a ring subscription to have an understanding of what they see through their cameras.
Some Amazon workers plan to go on strike Thursday
Amazon has said that it has “haven’t seen any impact on our operations” from the strikes by its workers in several US cities. “We appreciate all our team’s great work to serve their customers and communities, and are continuing to focus on getting customers their holiday orders,” the company added. Amazon has claimed that the unions were harassing and intimidating its employees.
Amazon is building a giant computer
Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled three new AI-powered content generation models, Nova Canvas, Nova Reel and Anthropic, at AWS re:Invent 2019 in Las Vegas. The two models are an image generation model and the other is a content generation model. Amazon said it has watermarking capabilities for the content generation models. It’s collaborating with Anthropic to build a huge AI cluster.
What a second Trump presidency means for tech
After US President-elect Donald Trump took to social media to congratulate him for winning the election, Google’s Sundar Pichai wrote on Twitter, “Thank you for the confidence in me and in the future of Google.” Amazon’s Andy Jassy said, “I’m looking forward to working with him as the FTC chair.” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg tweeted, “Excited to be working with Trump for a second term.”
Donald Trump’s win will affect Big Tech
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said US President-elect Donald Trump met him and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to congratulate them on their victory. “I know we all have similar goals for our countries,” he added. Trump had said in a video that he planned to “toughen up” Apple’s encryption policy, adding, “Apple is one of the world’s most valuable people.”
It was not the Amazon Skills revolution that was happening
Amazon skipped its annual’hardware event’ in Los Angeles this year due to reports that the company was far from achieving its promised new voice assistant. This comes amid reports that the new voice assistant could be months away from being available. Alexa was launched in 2015 and reportedly has over 1.6 lakh different skills on its platform.
Where’s my Star Trek computer?
Amazon has admitted that it lost $10 million in the early days of Amazon’s Alexa. The company said it “didn’t do enough” to incentivise developers to use the platform for skill development. “We knew we didn’t have a lot of resources…We didn’t know how to make skills work,” it added. Amazon has now stopped paying developers with credits or cash.
A deal was signed by the search engine for next- generation nuclear plants
Amazon is teaming up with US-based energy company Energy Northwest to develop a system for deploying next-generation nuclear power plants in the US. The deal will allow Amazon to procure electricity generated from Energy Northwest’s nuclear plants, the companies said. This comes after Google announced it will use next-generation nuclear power plants to run its data centres.
The first color is here
Amazon has launched the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition which has a black and white colour option and will be available in stores from September 15. The e-reader will come with a 300 ppi screen and can convert handwritten notes into handwriting styles, as part of Amazon’s note-taking system. Amazon said that this feature is available on Kindle Scribe, its larger e-reader.
After a decade away, Panasonic TVs have come back to the US
Panasonic has launched three TV models in the US: 55- and 65-inch OLED options and a Mini LED TV that Goes up to 85 inches. Panasonic already sells them internationally with minor regional differences, but in the US, they will continue to run Amazon’s Fire TV OS. The company stopped selling plasma screens in the US in 2010.