Maureen Carolina

it is a difficult admission on the part of Warren Buffet to admit that he missed Amazon as an investment for a very long time. The recent partnership between  Berkshire Hathaway,   J.P. Morgan Chase and Amazon may be the absolute chance for Buffet to make the right choice. Instant Pickup , the newest fulfillment service from online retail behemoth Amazon has just launched.  Taking efficiency a notch higher, Prime members ordering online will be able to grab items in a record two minutes or less. This service debuts at five staffed pickup locations near U.S. college campuses. To deliver on the two-minute timeline, Amazon has limited the selection of items that can be fulfilled that fast. From the news release introducing the new service eligible items include personal care products, electronics accessories, devices such as the Echo Dot and Fire TV, drinks and snacks. Amazon currently runs 22 college pickup locations nationwide but will from today roll-out the Inst...

Walmart’s e-commerce segment has shown massive growth and its grocery unit remains unassailable even as a fierce battle looms in the wake of the Amazon-Whole Foods alliance. Walmart’s food segment recorded the highest quarterly sales growth in five years while the online unit led by Jet.com founder Marc Lore, registered a 60 percent growth according to CEO Doug McMillon’s quarterly earnings call held on Thursday. With the acquisition of Bonobos and Jet.com in the past few years e-commerce is becoming a key strategy for Walmart with a stream of items coming online coupled with incentives like free, two-day shipping. Amazon opened its first two pick up grocery stores upping the ante in the race to provide convenience to customers. To remain competitive Walmart is investing in grocery pick up and delivery systems as an important component of online shopping. McMillon said that more than 100 “automated pickup towers” will be deployed in stores nationwide to enable customers pick up o...

Amazon is seeking a patent for an autonomous ground vehicle or AGV, which can take packages from a delivery truck and bring them to a customer’s doorstep. In a filing published last week, which looks similar to one that was done last year, where Amazon, the Seattle-based retailing giant was  granted a patent to operate an airship that will be used to track drones as they deliver items to customers. This patent is in addition to the other one published late last year to have a floating warehouse or an  “airborne fulfillment center,” which would store merchandise for multiple drones to deliver. The concept, also known as an airborne monitoring station, or AMS, is detailed in a patent application that was filed two years ago and published Tuesday. In the concept, the airships will fly at high altitude and will be equipped with high-tech wireless communications gadgets including weather-monitoring equipment and high-definition cameras capable of scanning expans...

Walmart has announced a partnership that will help it start selling e-books in a space that is largely dominated by its archrival Amazon. The deal with e-reader maker Rakuten Kobo will see the retail giant start selling Kobo e-readers, e-books and audiobooks in U.S. Walmart’s e-commerce segment has shown massive growth and its grocery unit remains unassailable even as a fierce battle looms in the wake of the Amazon-Whole Foods alliance. Walmart’s resolve to pursue technology is apparent in its new “Scan & Go” app which looks like a manual version of Amazon Go. Users simply need a smartphone to breeze through the shopping experience. The app scans barcodes on items to be purchased and one only needs to click on a button to pay. However, shoppers who do not own smartphones are not left out. They can use hand-held scanners within the stores. On the way out of the shoppers will only need to show their digitally generated receipt to a greeter, saving precious time. In its quest to e...

Amazon is keeping both feet in the food delivery sector even as competition from the likes of Uber and Postmates takes away market share. In a sign of tough times, Amazon Restaurants has sent home an unknown number of workers in a bid to stabilize the business in a sector that is reportedly making losses. Multiple unconfirmed sources indicated that more than 50 employees have been let go in a restructuring effort. Amazon Restaurants is struggling in a crowded marketplace that has formidable opponents like Uber, Postmates, GrubHub, DoorDash, Eats and numerous others. The U.S. food delivery market is estimated to be worth more than $40 billion. Meanwhile the parent company, Amazon, released a statement saying that the company continues to hire across its many divisions and currently has on its payroll more than half a million employees.  It added that they are regularly appraising positions across the board resulting in ever-changing employee numbers. The statement further emphasiz...

Google, through its Play Store has announced a renewed thrust into the world of audiobooks by launching a dedicated store that will rival Amazon’s Audible. This will enable the search giant to cement its grip on customers buying its smart speakers by providing auxiliary services unique to its devices. The rivalry between Google and Amazon has created a wall between their devices and services. Amazon’s Audible cannot play on Google Home while Google’s audiobooks cannot play on Amazon’s Echo. The lack of integration between the two giants is conspicuous considering that Google Home and Amazon Echo work seamlessly with other services from various vendors. The incompatibility of the two companies’ devices and content can be attributed to their desire to fence in users as they continue to grow their market share for smart speakers. Users will therefore decide which smart speaker to buy based on whether they will be able to play their favorite audiobooks. Google is launching the audiobook...

Amazon is likely going to move into the next stage of choosing its second headquarters without the kind of publicity exhibited during the request for proposals. According to people familiar with the process, the company would like to stop the public nature of the first phase and conduct the next steps quietly. The competition that attracted 238 cities aims to identify a location that will host a $5 billion second headquarters for Amazon in North America. This is expected to create 50,000 high paying jobs with average salaries of $100,000 per year. With other additional benefits to the local economy, most cities rushed to submit proposals with the hope of landing the lucrative deal. Last week Amazon announced a shortlist of 20 cities for HQ2. The list includes Montgomery County, Dallas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Raleigh, Atlanta, Chicago, Newark, Toronto, Northern Virginia, New York City, Philadelphia, Nashville, Columbus, Denver, Los Angeles, Austin, Boston and Washington, D.C...

3 cities fit Amazon’s HQ2 based on housing costs posted first on http://retailnewsfeed.com/

Amazon on Monday ventured into new ground with the opening to the public of the first store where shoppers don’t have to wait in line. The convenience store, known as Amazon Go has for the past two years been used by Amazon employees which has helped the company to fine tune various aspects. The store brings convenience to shoppers by allowing them to pop in using their smartphones, pick items from the shelf and walk out without interacting with a cashier at check-out. The process of shopping without waiting in line is accomplished using advanced technology that incorporates sensors and cameras around the store that keep track of what shoppers pick from the shelf. Artificial intelligence plays a big role in linking up all these with the smartphone app enabling the system to charge the customer automatically. The store is structured as a convenience store with meal kits, takeaway foods like sandwiches, salads and assorted beverages. The store, situated in downtown Seattle under Amaz...

Amazon is ramping up its interest in health care by its latest hiring of a leading Seattle doctor, according to sources who are not authorized to speak on internal matters. Martin Levine of Iora Health , which focuses on Medicare patients in six U.S. markets, is one of Amazon’s most high-profile hires to date in health. It’s not yet certain what Levine’s role at the company will be, said the sources, who asked not to be named because no announcement has been made. Levine, a geriatrician who has focused on treating elderly patients with complex medical conditions, could be joining Amazon’s internal health-care group known as 1492 , which is testing a variety of secretive projects. Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. We tried to contact Levine through LinkedIn and haven’t heard back. Last year, Amazon recruited health-technology expert Missy Krasner from Box. Krasner works on “special projects” at Amazon, according to her LinkedIn profile . Amazon has also l...

Amazon has for decades been making loses thanks to re-investments in logistics that keep this internet juggernaut running. For more than two decades, Jeff Bezos has famously sacrificed profit for growth, persuading Wall Street that Amazon.com Inc. was best served pouring money into the logistical nuts and bolts that have turned his company into the Wal-Mart of the web. More recently, investors have found solace in the company’s profitable cloud services business, which has helped offset losses in e-commerce. Still, for the past five years Amazon’s average profit margins have languished at about 1 percent. Now along comes a business that could generate consistent and healthy returns: It’s called advertising. Over the past several years, Bezos & Co. have quietly put together the pieces for a marketing platform that lets Amazon make money from the sheer size of its audience. Having bet on Amazon cloud services and pushed the shares past $1,300, investors are now salivating abo...

Amazon is making Alexa more robust by adding features that work in third party skills posted first on http://retailnewsfeed.com/

Amazon is increasing the monthly price option for Prime from $10.99 to $12.99 as it continues to expand the reach and benefits of the popular fast-shipping program. Amazon said the price increase does not affect the annual membership option, which will remain at $99. With the price increase, the monthly option will now equal slightly less than $156 for a year. Amazon has been investing heavily in Prime, bringing it to new markets and creating additional benefits and original content. Those moves, plus regular increases in fees from shipping partners, are among the factors contributing to the price increase. Amazon says it has no preference on the annual versus monthly option. However, offering a monthly service with no contract or guarantee carries with it a cost to manage and volatility that isn’t present with the more dependable annual option. The increase begins today for new members, and existing monthly Prime subscribers will see the cost jump after Feb. 18. Prime membership...

The wins just keep coming for Amazon . The e-commerce giant has risen every trading day so far this year and is on track for its 10th straight day in the green, its longest winning streak since mid-2013. Those gains have pushed Amazon to the highest level of its two decades as a public company. This streak isn’t over yet, according to two market watchers. “They’re just executing on every possible front which is incredibly unusual for such a large company,” Boris Schlossberg , managing director of foreign exchange strategy at BK Asset Management, said Friday on CNBC’s “ Trading Nation .” “Amazon is a monster and has multiple streams of possible income,” he said. Those revenue streams include Amazon Basics, advertisements through its search platform, its artificial intelligence program Alexa, and its new reputation as a creative powerhouse, said Schlossberg. Earlier this month, Amazon’s streaming service won a Golden Globe for its latest series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Max Wol...

Amazon’s health ambitions confirmed? Company seeks medical data compliance leader for mysterious new initiative posted first on http://retailnewsfeed.com/

Amazon has developed an arsenal of patents over the years and this is unlikely to change with 500 more pending at the moment. The company’s recent focus is on augmented reality, video and the smart home. All these patents may not necessarily transform into products or services but historically Amazon has filed some notable patents that have given it an edge over competitors. The company’s patent for one-click shopping for example, gave it an advantage over other retailers and brought in loads of money through licensing fees before it expired last year. That patent, issued in 1999, lets customers buy things in one click of the button without re-entering their shipping or billing information. This past December, Amazon was given a patent for a “smart” sensor-packed package delivery air vehicle in line with its envisaged drone delivery system. In the same month it was issued with a patent for technology that would enhance user privacy on the Echo’s video mode through pixelization. Other...

CNBC’s Jim Cramer says that investors who go against the old adage of assuming that a bubble has to burst may actually make money.  He alludes to the old days when it was always obvious that a wave such as the dotcom one, which led to artificially overrated internet stocks, would eventually burst – and yes, it did. Eventually people began to associate any hype around tech stocks with that dotcom bubble leading to a lot of caution even where investors would have made a kill. Speaking on his “Mad Money” program, Cramer said that having been in the business that long he has realized that the if  investors took that kind of caution they would have missed the billion-dollar stocks we see today. He singled out the top tech stocks like Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Netflix as a phenomenon that was treated differently by investors coming out of the dotcom bubble. They put their money in companies that had every likelihood of going the dotcom way and had faith that this time around ...

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, donated $33 million to fund scholarships for 1,000 undocumented immigrant high school graduates to go to college. The money will go to TheDream.US, a nonprofit that has been helping send such kids, known as the dreamers, go to college. The group is already funding scholarships for almost 3,000 kids currently in college, with backing from the foundations of other techies, including Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Bezos said his father immigrated to the United States at age 16 from Cuba. “He landed in this country alone and unable to speak English,” Bezos said in a statement. “With a lot of grit and determination—and the help of some remarkable organizations in Delaware—my dad became an outstanding citizen, and he continues to give back to the country that he feels blessed him in so many ways. MacKenzie and I are honored to be able to help today’s Dreamers by funding these sch...

While investors pressure Apple to address youth phone addiction, experts are more optimistic about the voice-enabled smart speakers that Google and Amazon want to plunk into your living room. At their most ambitious, Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home devices are meant to transform the way you manage your life and control your home, using artificial intelligence to put an ever-increasing range of capabilities at your command . But at their most basic, they simply allow you to spend less time tapping away on a screen. And as Apple’s current scrutiny underscores , that can be particularly important when it comes to kids. Solace Shen, a researcher at Cornell who has studied children’s interactions with intelligent technology, says she sees a big opportunity for educational and entertainment content on these devices that doesn’t suck kids in in the same way that a smartphone would. “Playing a game with an adult or another child using a voice-enabled device, you’re not focused on a scree...

In an apparent jab at internet retail giant Amazon, and its CEO Jeff Bezos, President Donald Trump has once again called for an internet tax. “The internet — they’re going to have to start paying sales tax because it’s very unfair what’s happening to our retailers all over the country that are put out of business,” Trump said Wednesday. Trump also reiterated concerns about Amazon’s effect on the U.S. Postal Service as it struggles to keep up with online orders. The comments mirror tweets from the president in December that named the e-commerce giant. Dec tweet “There’s always been a fear for players like an Amazon or a Google that something like this could actually get through,” Daniel Ives, head of technology research at GBH Insights, told CNBC. “We believe it’s more noise than a real threat.” There’s been speculation that the president’s shots at Amazon are aimed at Bezos , whose newspaper has published stories critical of the president. Amazon already collects sales tax ...

Google is working with Sony, JBL, LG and Lenovo to integrate their smart screen display products with Google Assistant. Google announced today that it will bring its digital assistant to a variety of smart screen display products made by JBL, Lenovo, LG and Sony. These new devices, which Google teased in a YouTube video but did not fully reveal, will be available later this year. We reached out to Google about prices but haven’t heard back. The search giant’s strategy to work with hardware partners sets it apart from competitor Amazon, which initially decided to make its own touchscreen devices, the Echo Show and Echo Spot. Google showed off a variety of capabilities for the new touchscreen devices, including calling up calendars, recipes and photos via voice command. The device also lets users watch YouTube videos, a capability now absent from the Echo Show thanks to an ongoing conflict between Google and Amazon. Google has been playing catch to Amazon and its digital brain Ale...

HP, Acer and Asus are providing new homes for Alexa, Amazon’s digital voice assistant, in several of their new laptops and desktop computers. The three personal computer giants debuted personal computers on Monday that are designed to work with Alexa, part of a push by Amazon to spread its voice assistant to more third-party devices. The companies announced the new computers against the backdrop of this week’s annual International Consumer Electronics Show , in Las Vegas. Although most people interact with the Alexa voice assistant through Amazon’s web-connected speakers, the Echo and the Echo Dot , the online retail giant has been increasingly courting third-party companies to embed Alexa in their own devices . Amazon (amzn) , Google (goog) , and Microsoft (msft) believe that voice-activated assistants are a new frontier for interacting with computers. As a result, these companies are investing heavily in voice technology and are increasingly debuting products like Google and...

Six companies are collaborating to bring to life an electric self-driving shuttle that can deliver packages or people and can be tailored to particular needs. Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda revealed the so-called e-Palette concept vehicle and announced the business alliance Monday at CES, the annual tech trade show in Las Vegas. The alliance will focus on the development of the new e-Palette Concept Vehicle in the near term. But the idea is to seek input from these various partners as Toyota develops its mobility business model. This isn’t just about building an autonomous shuttle. Instead, Toyoda laid out a vision for a larger mobility ecosystem that aims to transition from a company that just produces and sells cars to one that handles all aspects of moving people and things from point A to point B. These shuttles could be used as mobile shops, roving around a business campus, for instance. It could also be used to deliver products to customers or as a way to move people aroun...

A survey in October and November 2017 by Accenture has revealed that two thirds of digital voice assistant users tend to scale down contact with their smartphones. This may seem a natural progression for the consumer, but for smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and Apple it may portend hard times ahead if they don’t catch up in voice technology. However, this may be good news for Amazon and Google as they consolidate their lead in voice technology by integrating their voice assistants into third party devices. The online survey, conducted by Accenture and Harris Interactive, included 21,000 people from 19 countries and was conducted in October and November 2017. Within the survey, nearly 2,300 people responded to a question asking whether they agreed with the following statement: “Since I got my digital voice assistant device, I use my smartphone for fewer activities.” 66 percent of the respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed. Within the sub-group who said they use their...

Las Vegas will showcase the massive CES 2018 under a different scenario when it comes to voice technology compared to last year. Amazon had a field day last year, when Alexa seemed the voice assistant of choice for tech equipment across the board. This year however, the game is wide open with an array of players battling for a piece of the pie. The search giant’s presence illustrates the emergence of the voice assistant and smart home market as a key battleground in the tech industry. Google traditionally hasn’t had a booth at CES, and the company hasn’t made this kind of mark on the annual event since its co-founder Larry Page delivered a closely watched keynote  at CES more than a decade ago. Amazon will have its own booth for Alexa at CES this year , and it’s promising “exciting new announcements from brands building magical voice experiences with Alexa technology.” Microsoft Cortana is also expected to have a presence at the show, primarily through industry partnerships, alt...

The Federal Communications Commission will be inundated with a barrage of lawsuits after its decision to approve the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. The repeal decision, which was approved December 14, 2017, allows internet service providers to restrict, bar, or charge more for particular content as they deem appropriate. The Internet Association has announced that it will be joining legal action aimed at restoring net neutrality regulations. The association further said that it will “act as an intervener in a judicial action against this order,” meaning that while not a direct litigant, it will be given certain rights by a court to observe or act in the case. The trade group has a wide range of members including internet giants Facebook, Google, Amazon and Airbnb. Opponents of the move including content providers, social media companies and internet retailers, claim that this will give leeway to internet service providers to start charging for faster connections on top of amount ...

Amazon is seriously considering streaming Premier League soccer – by consulting industry experts, and will place a bid in next month’s auction. As streaming video becomes more popular, Amazon is likely to dominate the sports segment as the battle for the rights for top leagues intensifies. Amazon paid $50 million to stream 11 NFL games that fall in the prime Thursday night spot. Facebook on the other hand failed in its bid to clinch a deal to stream the Indian Premier League cricket matches after offering $600 million. Twitter, another contender in the streaming race, streamed 10 NFL games at a cost of $10 million. The trend this year will be for these companies to bid for a lucrative deal like the English Premier League, and then turn focus on major U.S. leagues. These exclusive rights come at a hefty premium and Facebook is reportedly seeking to fill a new position for a senior executive who will be in charge billions of dollars for negotiating favorable rights to major sports lea...

Third party device makers are always getting access to new developer tools from Amazon that enable them easily integrate Alexa into their products and 2018 will be no different. Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant is the leader in its class and the company seems focused on making it easier for any device manufacturer to integrate it into their products. The digital assistant marketplace has become competitive with giants like Apple and Google angling for a piece of the pie. Other entrants like Samsung and Alibaba bring on board formidable arsenals of technology to reckon with. However, Amazon has a competitive advantage in this space with Alexa boasting over 25,000 skills accumulated so far. In an announcement, the company will be releasing two new development kits – Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit and Alexa Premium Far-Field Voice Development Kit . The former will focus on smartwatches, fitness trackers, headphones and other mobile devices by enebling them to hook up to Alexa Voice Servic...

Amazon ramps up presence at CES 2018 posted first on http://retailnewsfeed.com/

Several companies have moved quickly to release updates to their products and services in a bid to forestall any exploitation of vulnerabilities in Intel chips. The vulnerabilities affect a wide range of products and services that not only use Intel chips, but chips from other vendors too. These include servers that are used for cloud computing, computers and other personal devices. This could allow hackers to gain access to information on the chip’s memory such as passwords. The vulnerability that affects Intel chips is known as Meltdown , while the one affecting other manufacturers is called Spectre. Microsoft announced that it is working with chip manufacturers to protect its customers by providing updates to its cloud services. The company also said that it has released security updates for Windows used on personal computers and servers that run on chips from different vendors including AMD Intel and Arm. Other updates released were for the company’s Edge and Internet Explorer. ...