Amazon

Amazon’s lofty ambitions across retail, cloud computing and now AI remain in place as it continues to be among the biggest players in e-commerce. The company, like many others, is deploying AI features and services across its offerings like hosting generative AI models within AWS or adding AI voice search to its smart devices, with TechCrunch particularly covering its efforts within the cloud computing and enterprise spaces.

Amazon is launching a new tool, Bedrock Studio, designed to let organizations experiment with generative AI models, collaborate on those models, and ultimately build generative AI-powered apps. Available in public…

Bedrock Studio is Amazon’s attempt to simplify generative AI app development

AI is coming for audiobooks, and that is not an entirely bad thing. But it is a cause of concern in the realm of audio titles and the folks who…

TechCrunch Minute: Audible deploys AI-narrated audiobooks. Can it replace the human touch?

Two years after announcing plans, Amazon’s highly awaited e-commerce entry into sub-Saharan Africa has finally come to pass. On Tuesday, the tech giant launched its marketplace in South Africa. South…

Amazon launches a Prime-free marketplace in South Africa, its first in sub-Saharan Africa

Amazon has historically operated audiobook marketplace Audible as a separate entity, unconnected to the retailer’s broader goals and ambitions. Today, that’s changing a bit with the launch of a test…

Audible to test using Prime Video data for audiobook recommendations as Spotify competition heats up

Pour one out for CodeWhisperer, Amazon’s AI-powered assistive coding tool. As of today, it’s kaput — sort of. CodeWhisperer is now Q Developer, a part of Amazon’s Q family of…

Amazon CodeWhisperer is now called Q Developer and is expanding its functions

The UK is launching initial enquiries into Amazon and Microsoft over partnerships with AI companies Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection.

UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic and Inflection

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing business, wants to become the go-to place companies host and fine-tune their custom generative AI models. Today, AWS announced the launch of Custom Model Import (in…

Amazon wants to host companies’ custom generative AI models

Amazon said Tuesday that it has launched a new unlimited grocery delivery subscription for Prime members and customers with an EBT card (Electronic Benefit Transfer) in the U.S. if you’re…

Amazon launches a new grocery delivery subscription in the US

Amazon confirmed it is ending Prime Air drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California. The Central California town of 3,500 was the company’s second U.S. drone delivery site, after College Station,…

Amazon ends California drone deliveries

The NPCI plans to meet various fintech startups this month to develop a strategy to address the market dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay in the UPI ecosystem.

India scrambles to curb PhonePe and Google’s dominance in mobile payments

Amazon is trying to keep live shopping relevant with the launch of an “Amazon Live” FAST (free ad-supported TV) channel on Prime Video and Freevee. Previously only available as a…

Amazon brings its ‘Amazon Live’ shoppable livestreams to Prime Video and Freevee

Amazon Music is now testing Maestro, an AI playlist generator, that lets U.S. customers on iOS and Android create playlists using spoken or written prompts.

Amazon Music follows Spotify with an AI playlist generator of its own, Maestro

If the decisions made by corporate boards of directors can indicate where a company wants to be focusing, Amazon’s board just made an interesting move. The company announced on Thursday…

Amazon, eyeing up AI, adds Andrew Ng to its board — ex-MTV exec McGrath to step down

Amazon has quietly introduced a “special store” called Bazaar in India, featuring affordable and trendy fashion and lifestyle products, as it ramps up efforts against Walmart-owned Flipkart and Reliance’s Ajio,…

Amazon takes on India rivals with Bazaar, a low-cost fashion store

On Tuesday Amazon launched a new service called Deadline Cloud that lets customers set up, deploy and scale up graphics and visual effects rendering pipelines on AWS cloud infrastructure. The…

AWS unveils new service for cloud-based rendering projects

The current AI wave is a never-ending barrage of news items. To understand what I mean, ask yourself how long you spent considering the fact that Amazon put another $2.75…

TechCrunch Minute: Amazon bets $4B on Anthropic’s success

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The market is forcing cloud vendors to relax data egress fees

As a number of factors come into play, like the reality of a multi-cloud world and a stricter regulatory environment, companies are beginning to see the error in their ways.

The market is forcing cloud vendors to relax data egress fees

Amazon announced Thursday the launch of its new app for Amazon One, its contactless palm recognition service that allows customers to hover their palm over a device in order to…

Amazon One launches new app to scan your palm for checkout

Amazon invested a further $2.75 billion in growing AI power Anthropic on Wednesday, following through on the option it left open last September. The $1.25 billion it invested at the…

Amazon doubles down on Anthropic, completing its planned $4B investment

Amazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive after all, following a decision by the European Union’s highest court…

Amazon will have to publish an ads library in EU after all

Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8 million (or in local currency:…

Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks

In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior…

Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal

Amazon launched generative AI-powered features last year to help sellers quickly create listings by entering just a few words about the product. The company is now making it easier for…

Amazon now lets sellers create listings through a URL by using AI

Smart fitness ring maker Oura announced a partnership with Amazon today to sell its products through the e-commerce site. The company said that both its rings — Horizon in six…

Oura starts selling its products on Amazon

The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to enter the quick-commerce business, aimed at providing customers with the convenience of receiving their orders instantly after making their purchases, a source…

India’s Flipkart readies quick-commerce play

Amazon generates a lot of trash. Precisely how much is a matter of some debate. In 2021, the company says it used 214 million or so pounds of single-use plastic…

Amazon teams with recycling robot firm to track package waste

It was only a few years ago — in 2021 — that Windows 11 gained official support for Android apps thanks to a Microsoft-maintained VM called the Windows Subsystem for…

Windows 11 to lose official support for Android apps

Last month, Amazon announced that it’d launch a new AI-powered chatbot, Rufus, inside the Amazon Shopping app for Android and iOS. After a few days’ delay, the company began to…

Amazon’s new Rufus chatbot isn’t bad — but it isn’t great, either

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Agility Robotics’ new CEO is ‘focused on the here and now’

There was nothing else like Digit on the ProMat floor last year. The manufacturing supply chain event has gradually morphed into a tech show in recent years. Many of the biggest names in the space were present, showcasing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), bin picking arms and automated storage and retrieval…

Agility Robotics’ new CEO is ‘focused on the here and now’

During Target’s investor event on Tuesday, the retail giant announced it is launching a paid membership program, Target Circle 360, on April 7 to compete with rivals Amazon and Walmart.…

Target to launch its own version of Amazon Prime, starting at $49/year