Bezos confirms more brick-and-mortar Amazon stores

Amazon is building more brick-and-mortar stores and beefing up Prime membership perks, company CEO Jeff Bezos has confirmed at the company’s annual meeting for shareholders. At the moment, the mostly online-based retailer has a single bookstore in Seattle, but it’s already building a new outlet near San Diego. “We’re definitely going to open additional stores,” he said, “how many we don’t know yet.” It’s unclear if the new location is going to be another bookstore or if it will be selling other items, as well. If you’ll recall, reports came out earlier this year that the company could open other types of retail outlets.

As for Amazon’s $99-per-year Prime membership, Bezos said he wants to bundle so many benefits with the subscription that people would feel irresponsible if they don’t sign up. He didn’t elaborate on what those benefits are, but The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the company will start selling private-label household items exclusively to Prime members. We’re not sure that’s nearly enough to make a lot of people “feel irresponsible” for not paying $99 a year, so we’re expecting a slew of other perks in the future.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

WSJ: Amazon is making an Alexa-powered tablet

Amazon is working on a new device imbued with Alexa’s powers, according to The Wall Street Journal. It won’t be yet another speaker, though: it’s a device with a “tablet-like computer screen” that’s codenamed Knight. Lab126, the company’s secretive hardware facility, is reportedly in the midst of developing the tablet, which sounds like it’s meant for the kitchen. WSJ says it’ll allow users to load websites or images “even when their hands are covered in flour.” Amazon has been working on a high-end kitchen computer for quite some time, but it’s unclear if this is the reimagined version of that old project.

WSJ didn’t give out more details about Knight, but if it has Alexa, then it’s safe to say that it can respond to all the voice commands you can use with the Echo speakers. Lab126, by the way, also created Amazon’s other devices. It was originally formed to design the Kindle e-readers and went on to develop the Fire tablets, phone and TV, the Echo and Tap speakers, as well as the e-retailer’s Dash buttons.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Amazon opens up its product recommendation tech to all

For a company like Amazon, product recommendations are hugely important. They can be the difference between a one-off order and an unexpected spending spree. The company has spent years adapting its algorithms to produce the most relevant suggestions, but now it wants help. It’s taken the wraps off DSSTNE — its Deep Scalable Sparse Tensor Network Engine (pronounced destiny) — and is asking for companies, researchers and developers to make its artificial intelligence framework even more powerful.

Amazon isn’t the form to open source its machine learning software — Google released Tensorflow late last year — but the company believes it has more to offer than its rival. The company says DSSTNE excels when it has less data to work with, scales better across multiple machines and is easier to deploy. It also claims its AI can solve recommendation problems and perform natural language understanding tasks two times faster than Google’s library.

In recent years, many of the world’s biggest technology companies have invested heavily in machine learning. Google uses its AI to index your photos and improve the quality of its translations, while Facebook is exploring how to find deeper meaning in your News Feed. With help from external sources, Amazon wants to improve the quality of its own software and possibly apply what it’s learnt to extend the capabilities of its popular storefront.

“We are releasing DSSTNE as open source software so that the promise of deep learning can extend beyond speech and language understanding and object recognition to other areas such as search and recommendations,” says Amazon on the DSSTNE Github page. “We hope that researchers around the world can collaborate to improve it. But more importantly, we hope that it spurs innovation in many more areas.”

If that means it’ll stop Amazon suggesting we buy something we’ve already bought, then we’re all for it.

Amazon is a $250 billion dollar company that reacts to you buying a vacuum by going THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS

— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith) April 26, 2016

Via: Wired

Source: DSSTNE

Amazon will sell its own food brands to Prime members

Amazon is no stranger to selling self-branded goods, whether they’re tablets, USB cables or baby wipes. However, it’s reportedly close to venturing into uncharted territory: food. Wall Street Journal sources understand that the internet shopping pioneer is weeks away from a “broad push” into selling its own brands of perishables. The Happy Belly label would offer everything from cooking oil to tea, while the Wickedly Prime badge would focus on snacks. There’s also talk of a wider move into around-the-home products like the Presto line (things like laundry detergent) and Mama Bear (baby-oriented goods, including food).

It’s not certain how competitive the pricing would be, but you’d have to subscribe to Prime to even consider it. Amazon historically uses Prime to subsidize the costs of certain services, so it won’t be shocking if these foodstuffs offer better-than-usual value.

Amazon isn’t commenting at this stage. A move like this would make sense, mind you. While it’s more challenging to sell products with expiration dates and potential health worries (what if there’s a bad batch?), Amazon can profit in a way that other food makers can’t. For one thing, it has much more data about the food that sells through its store than anyone else — it knows which categories sell, and it could predict flavor trends simply by looking at its internal data. It also doesn’t have to run ads or fight for space in grocery stores… heck, it even it has its own food delivery service in some areas. Provided this dry run is successful, there could come a time when Amazon’s brands cover all the essentials in life.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Program Amazon’s new Dash button for tasks, not products

I have a trio of Amazon Dash buttons scattered around my house to lend a hand when I run low on flushable wipes, whey protein powder and dish soap. There’s really no downside to trying them out, since the online retailer reimburses you for the device after your first purchase. Amazon’s latest Dash button isn’t for re-ordering products though, it’s a programmable option that lends a hand with tasks and controlling your IoT devices.

The AWS IoT button connects to WiFi and leverages Amazon’s AWS cloud just like the regular Dash tools for buying everyday items. Amazon says the buttons can be easily programmed to count items, call/message someone, stop/start a task, order from a service and more. You can use it as a control to fire up Netflix, switch on a Philips Hue bulb or hail an Uber. It also works with APIs from Slack, Twitter, Facebook and more, so presumably you can set it to send an “I’m on my way” message to your colleagues when you’re running late. Of course, the regular buying buttons have already been hacked to do things like count baby poops.

Amazon explains that assigning a task to the button is easy enough that novices should be able to figure it out, yet there’s enough flexibility built in for more advanced projects as well. The company’s CTO Werner Vogels said on Twitter that if there’s a chore you can do with Alexa, you can assign it to one of these buttons. Right now, the new button is listed as out of stock with no indication as to when it will be back. When you are able to place an order, SlashGear reports that the IoT Dash option will cost $20 and is set to ship on May 15th.

Via: SlashGear

Source: Amazon

Brits can get Amazon Prime for £59 this weekend

If you’ve been weighing up an Amazon Prime subscription, now might be a good time to take the plunge. The Jeff Bezos empire has slashed the price of a one-year plan to £59, down from the usual £79. That’s a sizeable saving and puts the subscription just under £5 per month in the UK. Amazon has dropped the price in order to draw attention to The Grand Tour, a new motoring show that debuts on Prime Video this autumn with Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond at the helm. You’ll need to be quick though – the Prime discount ends at midnight on May 16th.

Source: Amazon

Walmart tests two-day shipping to compete with Amazon Prime (update)

A key advantage Amazon has over other online retailers is the free two-day shipping that its Prime subscription offers. According to The Wall Street Journal, shopping giant Walmart wants in on the e-commerce and quick shipping game as well. The company was already testing the concept with its ShippingPass option that handled three-day shipping for those willing to pay $49 a year. Starting Thursday, those members will be privy to two-day delivery for the same price. Of course, that’s half of what Amazon’s $99 annual Prime subscription costs. Amazon’s plan includes other extras, though, like streaming streaming music, video and more.

WSJ reports that the system will leverage eight dedicated e-commerce warehouses and regional carriers to handle orders, instead of relying mostly on FedEx as it has in the past. That’s on top of its existing distribution network. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Amazon is already doing just it, so the two retailers will be competing for delivery services as much as they are for customers. At first, Walmart will likely pay more per package, but over time as the business picks up (in theory), the costs should come down. If you’re looking to give it a shot, you can sign up for ShippingPass waiting list right here.

While Walmart eyes two-day shipping, Amazon has been steadily expanding its same-day delivery option, adding new cities on the regular. It’s also working to employ the use of drones to drop off packages in a timely fashion.

Update: Walmart says ShippingPass isn’t invite only, but anyone who’s interested in the service will need to put their name on the waiting list linked above. This post has been updated to reflect that additional information.

Via: The Verge

Source: Wall Street Journal

Roger app puts Amazon Alexa in your phone for free

Roger, a voice app brought to you by former Spotify engineers and Facebook executives, is relaunching soon as a voice platform with support from third-party services. Among them is Amazon’s Alexa, the virtual assistant that ties into Amazon’s Echo device.

Despite originally debuting as a simplistic walkie-talkie-styled app, Roger aspires to deliver more than voice messaging. It’s poised to offer the Alexa Voice Service to mobile users regardless if they own an Amazon Echo or Alexa-enabled device. This means you’ll be able to, organize your calendar, control gadgets in your smart home, and perform a whole host of other Alexa-initiated actions simply by using Roger.

While Alexa is the most impressive name when talking third-party apps here, Dropbox and Slack support is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you consider how many messages or notes can pass through either service in a daily basis. As far as functionality goes, you can even use Roger at present to redirect missed phone calls into the app to create “voice conversations.” There are also further plans to release a public API for developers to create their own integrations beyond Slack, Dropbox, and IFTTT.

If you’ve been looking for a way to integrate Alexa into your life without holding out for a peripheral you may not need or want, this is an interesting way to give Amazon’s virtual assistant a try. Alternatively, you can pick up the Lexi app, which offers some of Alexa’s functionality for $5. The Roger app is available for free for either iOS or Android right now.